A federal judge just ruled that there is no legal obligation to secure your WiFi signal in order to prevent file sharing:

It looks like it might be hard for rights holders in various entertainment industries to sue individuals who have open Wi-Fi networks for copyright infringement done by guests, if the following court case is any indication. A California man whose open network was allegedly used to download a copyrighted video cannot be sued, according to a ruling by a federal judge.

The complaint filed in April of this year alleged that Hatfield was negligent because he didn’t secure his network, and therefore liable.

AF Holdings, who admitted in its case that it does not know the identity of the user who downloaded its video using BitTorrent, targeted Josh Hatfield with a lawsuit in federal court because it was downloaded via his unsecured home Internet connection. Hatfield moved for a dismissal on the grounds that the plaintiff failed “to state a claim” and that the claim “is barred by Section 301 of the Copyright Act and by immunity under the Communications Decency Act.”

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton dismissed the claim last week. The Electronic Frontier Foundation planned on submitting an amicus brief on behalf of Hatfield if the case had gone forward.

I’m not surprised by the ruling, but I am surprised that it happened this early in the process.

I think that people are beginning to recognize just how f%$#ed up the current IP regime is, and they are no longer willing to treat potential offenders like they’ve robbed a gas station.