New case showing how the Safe Harbor provisions for Online Service Providers works. Here, the free-wifi provider is insulated from liability because they are treated as being a “mere conduit.” Specifically, transmitting, routing, or providing connections to people who ultimately infringe copyrights will not result in liability as long as certain criteria are met (e.g. initiated by another, carried out through an automatic process, recipients not selected, no accessible copies are made or unreasonably maintained, and the content is not modified).
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=219d2792-7880-497e-a4f5-08ac24a0d359
The outcome in this case seems compatible with the Sony case we read, where the other legitimate uses of the device completely outweigh the potential for copyright abuse.
In the same vein, I have been wondering how the recently-offered Reddit Newsletters manage to remain in the safe harbor provisions. In short, Reddit ordinarily can stay within one of the safe harbors by acting only as a host, automating it’s content selection process, et cetera. By now offering curated emails with the top content, they might be at risk of no longer satisfying this “automated process” element. Perhaps the counter-argument is that calling these email blasts “curated content” is incorrect (even though its advertised as such), as they are instead simply sent out based upon the top up-voted content each week, hence retaining the requisite automation to remain within the safe harbor. Or, maybe the newsletter curators are being careful to only include non-copyrighted works in their email blasts.
https://www.reddit.com/newsletter