Court rules on copyright infringement over free public wifi

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that a business offering free Wi-Fi to customers cannot be held liable for copyright infringements by users. This follows an earlier advice issued by the Advocate General. The case concerned a dispute between the manager of a sound-system shop and Sony’s German branch, after music was illegally offered for downloading via the shop’s Wi-Fi network. The court ruled that the service provider cannot be held liable as long as he/she did not initiate the offending data transmission, select its recipient, or select or modify the information in that transmission.