Parents Not Liable For Their Son's Illegal Music Sharing, Says German Court

An anonymous reader sends this quote from an IDG News report: "A German couple are not liable for the filesharing activities of their 13-year old son because they told him unauthorized downloading and sharing of copyrighted material was illegal, and they were not aware the boy violated this prohibition, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled on Thursday. ... The ruling of the Federal Court of Justice reversed a ruling of the higher regional court of Cologne, which found the parents were liable for the illegal filesharing because they failed to fulfill their parental supervision. That court said the parents could have installed a firewall on their son's computer as well as a security program that would have made it possible to only allow the child to install software with the consent of his parents. Besides that, the parents could have checked their son's PC once a month, and then the parents would have spotted the Bearshare icon on the computers' desktop, according to the Cologne court. 'The Federal Court overturned the decision of the Appeal Court and dismissed it,' the court said."

Now for the parents the problem is

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

how to justify the 13 year old's apparent love of music from the 60s and 70s...

still safe to have kids?

[bzipitidoo]

Bad enough that your teenager might wreck your classic sports car, get busted for trying to buy alcohol or cigarettes, become a sex offender for sexting, cause a pregnancy, or thousands of other delinquent acts. At least if they commit piracy, you're personally off the hook now. Too bad your family isn't. You could disown the kid, I suppose.

Re:still safe to have kids?

[Cederic]

Bad enough that your teenager might wreck your classic sports car

However, if his friend does it you get a truly great movie.

Regarding the court decision, it sounds at the headline level to be very sensible. Parental responsibility has to have boundaries, and the parents seem to have taken reasonable steps.

This should never have reached court in the first place. Revise copyright laws, etc.

Re:Come on!

[bfandreas]

You need at least 3 persons for an 8 hour shift. Also you will have to plan for sickness, weekends and vacation time. I'd say you need 6 people to watch a kid around the clock.

And since we are talking about teenagers those propably should be armed with more than just harsh language.


So for proper parenting you will need to hire 6 Blackwater mercs just to make sure.

Also: what does a Bearshare logo look like? Hadn't heard of that before. I would have understood Beavershare. He is an adolescent after all...

Re:Come on!

[MMC Monster]

Oh, come on. That's not their only option. I count a few other options:
1 - No access to any computational device, ever.
2 - The parents could have become IT specialists.
3 - The parents could have paid a firm to monitor their child 24/7.

Re:Come on!

[Malenx]

You know, I was able to bypass this problem by making my son's cage floor a wire mesh. Now the droppings fall right through. As an added bonus, when I need to hose the floor down I can also spray the boy for his shower. Two birds with one stone.