[Paisan]

My understanding of FCC regulaions is that ANYTHING broadcast through the air-waves in the USA is fair game. If you want to broadcast TV signals, anyone can receive them. Same with radio of ANY type. If you want to protect those signals, you encode them and require customers to buy your decoder box. In short, if you have the time and money to receive signals broadcast through the air, you’re free to do so - ANY signal

[N3WBI3]

TV and Radio are one way transmissions this is not the same thing!

If this guy was running a nic in promiscuous mode and just listening I would agree with you but he was also broadcasting to it and in doing so using a tangible commodity, bandwidth.

[Mr. Know It All]

My understanding of FCC regulaions is that ANYTHING broadcast through the air-waves in the USA is fair game.

I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned this. Under U.S. law, the airwaves don't belong to anyone. The FCC can license bandwidth for commercial use. WiFi operates in an unlicensed slot which is why you don't need a permit to set it up.

Many posters have raised "private property" claims, but the coffee shop's WiFi wasn't really on private property, but public property. If a neighbor sets up a cordless phone or another WiFi that interferes with the coffee shop's network, this also negatively impacts their "service," but because it's all on unregulated network, there's nothing the coffee shop can do.

It looks to me like this coffee shop is trying to claim public property as private. I am not a lawyer, but this state law seems to be a violation of federal law.

[doorgunner69]

If you want to broadcast TV signals, anyone can receive them.

While technically true, this is not legally the case. The cellular industry bribed convinced the congress to pass a law making it illegal to listen in on cell calls using commonly available scanners. It was an attempt to convince new cellphone customers that their calls were "private".