Your Library is an ISP
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This might seem so obvious that it would never need to be mentioned. It should be common sense that a library that provides public Internet access via wifi, or even less obviously through stationary computer terminals, is an ISP (just a non-profit one on a small scale.) It provides Internet as a Service to Customers.
But, no matter how much the name ISP is self describing, nor how obvious it is from the application - a number of people (especially on a certain less than professional community elsewhere) actually think that they could claim that it is crazy and made up to call a library an ISP. So I decided to take a minute to provide some documentation.
First, people claimed that ISPs power buildings and anything else doesn't qualify. Clearly that makes no sense and doesn't match any definition or common sense (ironicaly, people had to make up definitions in order to make the claim that I had made up the standard definition or just used the English words.) Here is Wikipedia on ISPs: "An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services accessing and using the Internet. Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned."
Even better, here is the University of Texas' legal resources for libraries that states in plain English that any libraries with public Internet access terminals (or more) is an ISP: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/copyright/libraryISP
It might often be thought that ISP has a common sense and technical definition, but that the law might stipulate something unrelated like buildings, commercial use, a certain size, etc. But it does not. In fact, even your home would be an ISP if you were to intentionally provide public access, it looks like. Which makes sense, but it is surprising that the law is written so clearly to support that definition.
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@scottalanmiller The good thing is that the libraries have a choice as noted on the article.
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@dbeato said in Your Library is an ISP:
@scottalanmiller The good thing is that the libraries have a choice as noted on the article.
They have lots of choices, yes. It's not a bad thing. Just that they are an ISP and need to make choices
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@scottalanmiller said in Your Library is an ISP:
@dbeato said in Your Library is an ISP:
@scottalanmiller The good thing is that the libraries have a choice as noted on the article.
They have lots of choices, yes. It's not a bad thing. Just that they are an ISP and need to make choices
Yes, on how to safeguard it.
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So is the neighbor who doesn't have a WiFi password also an ISP?
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@dbeato said in Your Library is an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in Your Library is an ISP:
@dbeato said in Your Library is an ISP:
@scottalanmiller The good thing is that the libraries have a choice as noted on the article.
They have lots of choices, yes. It's not a bad thing. Just that they are an ISP and need to make choices
Yes, on how to safeguard it.
But are they required to? Your typical ISPs aren't required to safeguard things happening on the internet, of if a Library that is providing access to the internet is classified as an ISP, how can they be held liable?
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@brrabill said in Your Library is an ISP:
So is the neighbor who doesn't have a WiFi password also an ISP?
@scottalanmiller said in Your Library is an ISP:
even your home would be an ISP if you were to intentionally provide public access, it looks like.
So the question is - is he intentionally providing public access? The bigger question to me is - is he legally allowed to provide public access - that's seemingly unlikely, I would expect the consumer connection he gets from his ISP does not allow him to grant public access, but maybe it does.
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@dashrender said in Your Library is an ISP:
@dbeato said in Your Library is an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in Your Library is an ISP:
@dbeato said in Your Library is an ISP:
@scottalanmiller The good thing is that the libraries have a choice as noted on the article.
They have lots of choices, yes. It's not a bad thing. Just that they are an ISP and need to make choices
Yes, on how to safeguard it.
But are they required to? Your typical ISPs aren't required to safeguard things happening on the internet, of if a Library that is providing access to the internet is classified as an ISP, how can they be held liable?
That's the real thing, and generally the answer is "no", I believe. As an ISP, they are not required to police the Internet.
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@dashrender said in Your Library is an ISP:
@brrabill said in Your Library is an ISP:
So is the neighbor who doesn't have a WiFi password also an ISP?
@scottalanmiller said in Your Library is an ISP:
even your home would be an ISP if you were to intentionally provide public access, it looks like.
So the question is - is he intentionally providing public access? The bigger question to me is - is he legally allowed to provide public access - that's seemingly unlikely, I would expect the consumer connection he gets from his ISP does not allow him to grant public access, but maybe it does.
Right, to do that intentionally you need an upstream connection that hasn't forbidden that, and "all" consumer ISP connections forbid that in the contract.
