And if you fail to protect your wi-fi they could claim negligence. "I have heard other lawyers compare leaving your wifi open to leaving a loaded gun lying around." (http://torrentfreak.com/are-you-guilty-if-pirates-use-your-i...).
I think it would ironic if WEP became popular again because it could protect negligence and is trivially hacked.
That's just the theory of the author of that essay. It has never been tested in court. The "judgement" the author claims at the start of his essay was actually a settlement offered by someone who thought $10000 was worth less than the risk of a court case. (Perhaps because he didn't want to be publically accused of downloading gay porn.) That whole essay is based on deception, and the author is a sleazebag.