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Illegal Download Shuts Down Town's Free Wi-Fi

by Amar Toor on November 13, 2009 at 02:51 PM

One fine day, someone in Ohio decided to download a movie. And, thanks to this one surreptitious cinephile, the entire public Wi-Fi service was shut down.

An unnamed individual in Coshocton County, Ohio recently logged on to a free wireless network that the county made available to the public five years ago to illegally download a film. Sony Pictures somehow found out about the crime, notified the county service provider, and with the snap of a finger and the wave of a wand, no more wireless. Officials still aren't entirely sure who did it, but they are digging deeper into the matter. The move comes as the film industry continues to battle against piracy and illegal downloads on an increasingly regular basis, an effort that usually focuses on locating and persecuting the source of the illegality, i.e., the single person making the contraband media public, not the users. In this case, though, Sony decided to isolate this lone wolf of a downloader, and now, the entire town is suffering the consequences.

We understand that piracy's a problem. Yet, this reminds us of grade school, when like, some kid would throw a spitball and the teacher would get up in front of the class and be like, "Ok, if the person who threw this spitball doesn't come forth, no recess for EVERYONE!" and then of course, the spineless jellyfish would never own up, so EVERYONE lost recess. The rest of Coshocton shouldn't have to suffer just because someone had to watch 'Twilight.' They deserve their recess like anyone else. [From: Coshocton Tribune]

Tags: downloading, downloads, illegal, movie downloads, MovieDownloads, SONY, top, wifi

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