A text transcription follows.
This transcript is for anyone with a hearing impairment or who for any other reason cannot listen to the MP3 audio file.
The following is the text spoken by OUT-LAW journalist Matthew Magee.
Hello and welcome to OUT-LAW Radio, the weekly podcast that keeps you up to date on all the twists and turns in the world of technology law.
Every week we bring you the latest news and in depth features that help you to make sense of the ever-changing laws that govern technology today.
My name is Matthew Magee, and this week we hear from the Danish lawyer who got an appeals court to agree that his clients should not be held responsible for other people's behaviour on their computer networks.
But first, the news:
House prize draw postponed as Gambling Commission investigates
and
Google loses thumbnail copyright cases
The family behind a high profile scheme to sell a house via 46,000 tickets costing £25 each has postponed today's planned draw for the winning ticket. The scheme is being probed by gambling regulator The Gambling Commission.
The Wilshaws claim that the Gambling Commission previously gave them the go-ahead for their plan.
The Commission did not respond to an OUT LAW request for comment.
The Wilshaw family sold £25 tickets to what they claim is a prize competition, with their house as a prize. They sold 46,000 tickets to the scheme. Questions have been raised, though, about whether or not the scheme is an illegal lottery.
It is illegal to run a lottery without a licence, and licences are only given to schemes which operate in aid of a good cause. They cannot be run for private profit and even lotteries for good causes are barred from offering prizes as valuable as the Wilshaws' house.
The controversy centres on whether or not the question asked by the Wilshaws was sufficient to qualify the scheme as a prize competition, which is legal.
Antoinette Jucker, a gambling law expert at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT LAW, has said that the scheme is likely to be an illegal lottery.
Google has lost two German court cases over copyrighting images displayed as thumbnails in search results. German courts ruled in both cases that Google's display of miniature versions of pictures without permission infringed copyright in the originals.
The search giant will lodge one appeal covering both cases, it told OUT-LAW.
Photographer Michael Bernhard took the case against Google when thumbnail versions of his photographs appeared in the Google Image Search service.
Artist Thomas Horn also won his case over the appearance in a Google search of comic images to which he owns the copyright.
The court ruled that the fact that the pictures displayed were smaller than the original images was irrelevant, according to news agency Bloomberg.
That was this week's OUT-LAW News
When are you and when are you not responsible for what happens over your internet connection? This is a vexed question and the subject of a number of copyright battles.
Two Danish women have recently helped clarify the law, and it doesn't look good for record or games companies trying to pursue individuals for file sharing damages.
A Danish court has said that before a person can be ordered to pay thousands and thousands of pounds in damages it must be proved that that individual person was the one who carried out the unlawful sharing of music on the internet.
The court said that if a person operated an open WIFI network, as the Danish women did, then a record or games company has to prove that it was the named defendant who did the sharing.
The two women were found not to be not liable for the file sharing in a ruling which their lawyer Per Overbeck said was an admirably clear signal to rights owners about the limits of the action they can take.
Overbeck: In both cases it was a wife living in a house with her husband and two or three children including one or two teenagers. In the two houses you have found two or three computers in different rooms. You also had the same connection to the telephone system and to the net. It was wireless and it was without protection or firewalls. The reason that they were not seen as responsible to pay damages was the opposite party, the music industry so to speak, could not prove any kind of personal guilt. It could be other persons and without proving that it is exactly this or that person with this or that name, you cannot sentence them.
Courts in Germany and the US have also grappled with the issue of responsibility for activity on open WiFi networks, but Overbeck said that the issues were actually very simple, and that the judge took the right course of action.
Overbeck: I think it's a fair decision and it is not only fair it's completely correct if you compare to basic law books in England - you say O Level is the first level for law students - it is very simple if you want to sue a person asking for in this case an important sum of money then you must prove that you have a right, you are entitled to have that sum of money because of damages or because of any kind of contractual relation. Here it's damages without any contract and when you cannot make your proof then you cannot win your case.
Overbeck had represented the two women at lower courts and won, but music companies, represented by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, appealed to the Eastern Court of Appeal in Copenhagen.
There, said Overbeck, the judge sent out a very clear signal to others.
Overbeck: If there is no proof of guilt there is no responsibility and they said exactly that, the burden of proof cannot be turned around. It's a very very clear court decision, it's very clear indeed.
Overbeck said that it is not possible to predict the effect the rulings will have internationally, but he did say that the Danish legal system shares the same basic principles as that of France, Germany and many European countries.
There was he says a legal principle at stake, but also a significant potential financial cost for the women.
Overbeck: In one of the cases the claim was 160,000 Danish Crowns if you divide by 10 you have the number in pounds. In the other case it was 152,000 Crowns again divide by 10, 11 and you have it in pounds. It was important sums of money.
The issue of file sharing and open WiFi networks has been ruled on by other countries' courts.
A German court recently ruled that owners of wireless networks are liable for file sharing activity that happens over them. That ruling was overturned by Frankfurt's Higher Regional Court on appeal in July this year, though.
Though the lower court had said that the owner of the network should have secured it and should have to prove that he was not responsible for the file sharing that occurred on it, the Higher Regional Court said that everyone was responsible for their own behaviour and that the man could not be made to be responsible for the actions of a stranger.
In the US two years ago a woman called Tammie Marson also argued successfully that she was not responsible for file sharing that took place over her open WiFi network.
Overbeck said that in the Danish case, an important principle of justice had been reinforced.
Overbeck: In all Danish homes as I am sure British homes and in all Danish places in the working market where we work, where we earn out money, you have computers, you have net connection and you must have that to be able to live an ordinary private life or working life. So if you make a rule saying that as the owner of the telephone plus connection to the net you should have the burden of proof that you did not do something wrong that would have far reaching consequences and I am sure that I am not alone with that point. The Courts of Appeal had the same point exactly.
That’s all we have time for this week, thanks for listening.
Why not get in touch with OUT-LAW Radio? Do you know of a technology law story? We would love to hear from you on radio@out-law.com.
Make sure you tune in next week; but for now, goodbye.