Illegal download of movies by guest

[Riem0]

Hi there. 
Does anyone of you have experience with how to handle a fine for illegal movie download by an Airbnb guest?

I have been renting out my apartment and have now been contacted by a Law Firm about illegal movie download while the apartment was rented by an Airbnb guest. 

Thanks, Riem

[Vicky383]

I hope this issue has been resolved for you. Moving forward you'd want to state explicitly in the House Rules. Check out my blog on how to Protect your Home Network from Illegal Downloading​.
Setting up VPN and Guest Network will protect you from illegal downloads initialized by guests..

Protect your Home Network from Illegal Downloading

https://whatitsreallyliketo.com/wurstbnb/protect-home-network-from-illegal-downloading%e2%80%8b/

Set up Guest Networks and VPN for Airbnb

https://whatitsreallyliketo.com/wurstbnb/how-to-set-up-guest-network-and-vpn/

[A--J--Family-And-Hosts-0]

Yes happens constantly in my home seems to be a recurring issue honestly I'm tired of it its a $300 fine starting. So the only thing I'm doing is getting rid of giving snyone my password and everyone will have to share one hard drive and computer that I'm now having parrental control installed. Sucks but i should be able to trust guests in my home this is awful and against the law it's a fbi federal offense.

[A--J--Family-And-Hosts-0]

Yes happens constantly in my home seems to be a recurring issue honestly I'm tired of it its a $300 fine starting. So the only thing I'm doing is getting rid of giving snyone my password and everyone will have to share one hard drive and computer that I'm now having parrental control installed. Sucks but i should be able to trust guests in my home this is awful and against the law it's a fbi federal offense.

[Ed-and-Hugh0]

@Riem0 Be sure to turn on the peer-to-peer blocking on your router's firewall. This will reduce the chance of this happening again.

[Elise26]

Hi - can you explain what you mean by this? what does it do?? 

[Andrew90]

@Elise26  this makes it more difficult foer people to use illegal sites.  They can still work around it by using a VPN to fully encrypt the traffic but then your service provider can't see it either so no fines or threatening letters. 

What Ed and Hugh suggested "Be sure to turn on the peer-to-peer blocking on your router's firewall" blocks this on your router (your router needs to support this option" I was suggesting you also define a custom DNS that limits access as well. 

There Re other options like setting up the router to connect to internet via VPN encrypting all traffic. 

All of these solutions are fairly technicall, your probably better off finding a local Geek that can help you set it up. 

If you want to try I'd recommend a DD-WRT routers (open source fully configurable with features not usually found in residential routers) - you can by these pre-installed https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-AirStation-HighPower-Wireless-WZR-600DHP/dp/B0096239G0/ref=sr_1_2?s=p...

Once you have this there are some settings which will make it difficult - here is a summary of some best practices and again once setup if they bypass it you provider wont catch you. 

http://secure.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Peer-to-Peer_%28P2P%29_Throttling

[Andrew90]

You can go a step further and load custom DNS servers vs what your internet provider provides.

Here is an article. https://netequalizernews.com/2013/09/19/using-opendns-on-your-wireless-network-to-prevent-dmca-infri...

OpenDNS also provides great setup instructions for almost every device.

https://www.opendns.com/setupguide/

[Yanka-J-0]

I've got Notification of copyright infringement and dates when illegal downloads are indicaed are exactly the day we were out of town and only Airbnb guest was at home. I do not know what to do. 

[Jamie290]

Did you get fined? We got this yesterday for the first time and when I confronted the guest by message he took off. 

[Monica4]

@Riem0

You can try to claim through the resolution center. Laws in different countries are not all the same, and if you did not expressly put a rule not to download illegal content you may have trouble claiming that now. Your guest has to be made aware that this is illegal in your country. See my rules and the statement that I put there to warn my guests.

[Jen335]

Will you share specifically what you put in your rules?

[Shawna4]

What do you state in the rules?  I just got an email saying that my guests are illegally downloading stuff.