Leaked documents on the entertainment and ISP industries "six strikes" anti-piracy initiative show that small businesses won't be exempt from the program. The group behind the upcoming program, the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), tells Torrent Freak that while most alerts will go to residential users, businesses may be impacted as well. There has been worry that businesses running Wi-Fi hotspots will suddenly find their connections throttled or temporarily severed due to patron behavior.

That's ok, argues the CGI's Executive Director Jill Lesser, because if you're sharing your broadband over Wi-Fi, you're already violating your ISP's terms of service.

"Importantly, the terms of service are essentially the same as residential accounts and if small businesses are allowing their employees to engage in copyright theft then they are violating their terms of service,” Lesser says.

"In addition, the terms of service on such accounts do not allow them to be used to provide free WiFi or 'hotspots' so the hypothetical café owner offering public WiFi will not be subject to the CAS if they are following their terms of service."

Don't be too surprised to see coffee shops and small store owners nationwide decide that open Wi-Fi is too big of a liability after the stores face several strikes. Still, as we've noted previously, while you'll have to read "educational" material and have your connection throttled once or twice, nothing happens after the plan's sixth strike. While the CGI insists those users won't face lawsuits, many business owners obviously aren't going to want to take that risk.