The EU Court of Justice has issued its final ruling in the well-expected McFadden case regading the liability of a provider of public WiFi. Accoding to the European judges, the operator of a shop who offers a Wi-Fi network free of charge to the public is not liable for copyright infringements committed by users of that network.

The judgment makes commons sense, otherwise it would be impossibile to provide public wifi throughout Europe, no-one would feel able to take the risk. Nevertheless, the court says that a password (in order to identify the user) may be required by way of injunction in order to secure the network and balance the interest of copyright holders. The concrete impact of the latter requirement shall be still evaluated: the court is not saying that any Wi-Fi network must be secured, however this protection may be required on a case-by-case basis by way of judicial injunction or administrative order. Thus, it will be interesting to see how this CJEU ruling will be interpreted, in light of the recent declaration of President Juncker whereby the “main centers of public lifes” of towns and villages should be covered with public WiFi by 2020 (although most of the industry believes it to be more a “boutade” rather than something serious). Fact is, the more protection and identification instruments are imposed (also considering the features of the technology used), the less public WiFi can realistically develop. Therefore, should the protection requirement become common practice or even a legislative requirement, the expansion of free public WiFi will be at risk, contrary to Juncker’s declarations.

To remind that facts of the case:

• Mc Fadden was running in Germany a lighting and sound system shop in which he offers access to a Wi-Fi network to the general public free of charge in order to draw the attention of potential customers to his goods and services;
• After his network was used by third-parties to commit copyright infringements, an important copyright holder (Sony Music) sued McFadden in front of a German court claiming his indirect liability for the infringement for having failed to secure his network.

According to the CJEU:

• making a Wi-Fi network available to the general public free of charge in order to draw the attention of potential customers to the goods and services of a shop constitutes an ‘information society service’ under the E-Commerce directive (2000/31/EC);
• where the three conditions for Article 12 of the E-Commerce directive (mere conduit exception) are satisfied, a service provider such as Mc Fadden, who providers access to a communication network, may not be held liable;
• consequently, the copyright holder is not entitled to claim compensation on the ground that the network was used by third parties to infringe its rights.
• However, the E-Commerce directive does not preclude the copyright holder from seeking before a national authority or court to have such a service provider ordered to end, or prevent, any infringement of copyright committed by its customers.
• In that context, an injunction ordering the internet connection to be secured by means of a password is a fair balance of rights at play.
• Finally, as per Article 15 of the E-Commerce directive McFadden cannot be obliged to monitor all communications on his networks in search of copyright infringement, nor can termination of connections be considered a proportionate injunctive relief.