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> I believe fundamentally that any content creator has the right to specify the terms by which their content is consumed. If one of those terms is 'watch the ad

> I believe fundamentally that any content creator has the right to specify the terms by which their content is consumed. If one of those terms is 'watch the ads', then you are morally obligated to watch the ads. In addition to the counterarguments you've already received, I'd also like to note that the quote above is simply your personal opinion. Content creators often have specific, limited legal rights to specify how their content is consumed, none of which are absolute and most of which vary wildly between different jurisdictions. The same applies to moral obligations. If a content creator specified that you must kill yourself immediately after consuming their content, no reasonable person would interpret that as a legal or moral obligation. Clearly, there are limitations to the conditions content creators can impose, both legally, morally and as a matter of fact. I'm not aware of any jurisdiction where content creators have the legal right to force you to watch advertisments (that is to say, avoiding watching ads is against the law). Personally, I feel no moral obligation to watch them either, but this is a matter of opinion and obviously you disagree, which is fine. I just don't see how you have any claim of obligation beyond a personal moral sense here.

darawk 8y ago
> Content creators often have specific, limited legal rights to specify how their content is consumed, none of which are absolute and most of which vary wildly between different jurisdictions. Not really. What's limited is not content creators ability to specify consumption, but rather the assumption of the ability of the counter-party to understand and agree to the terms. There are some genuine content restrictions, like first sale doctrine, but those are fairly narrow in scope. EULAs are limited not by the fundamentals of the medium, but by the assumed ability of the customer to meaningfully agree to the terms. If you want to argue against my position, you should be taking the position that your average web surfer does not have the ability to meaningfully agree to the terms of the contracts with all of the websites they visit, and that thereby those contracts are unenforceable. That is the correct and only correct objection to the moral obligation to view ads.
- c22 8y ago
  You could argue that web users with adblockers are rejecting these agreements by refusing to HTTP GET the linked ad content and that the sites are accepting the modified terms if they subsequently serve the requested non-ad content.
  - darawk 8y ago
    Yep, that'd be a reasonable case to make. Although the site could simply augment its terms with "Serving the content any way does not represent a change in terms; proceeding to consume our content remains in violation" to clarify.
    - trothamel 8y ago
      While we're into making one-sided arrangements, one could add to the HTTP headers: "Serving this request in any way consents to having the content returned displayed in a matter that is determined by the user-agent and the user. This supersedes any other terms of service that purport to governing the processing of this requerst." This, at least, has the precedent of accurately describing how websites have been presented since the days of NCSA Mosaic. At the end of the day, I'm not sure that unread terms presented from either side should have anything to do with it.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- keldaris 8y ago
  I disagree with you on quite a few different levels and, for clarity, I'll attempt to separate them out in this reply. First of all, you've completely conflated the distinction between legal and moral obligations. Your entire argument in this post is a legal argument, from which you jump to an entirely unfounded moral assertion. Even if I agreed with your legal argument, which I don't, the moral conclusion would not follow. Since you've offered no moral argument, I'll confine the rest of my response to the legal issues. Secondly, your legal argument seems specific to the U.S. legal system (for instance, you reference the first sale doctrine, which is specific to U.S. copyright law). In most of the world, I'm happy to note, EULAs are a legal non-starter and TOS are significantly limited by legislation. To give you a concrete and topical example, the GDPR directly invalidates virtually all existing website ToS in the EU (exceptions exist, but are few and far between). Thirdly, even in the context of the U.S. legal system, which I am not subject to and from which I derive no moral obligation, I believe you're incorrect. The argument you propose is certainly one possible and strong objection to the legal (rather than moral) obligation to view ads, it is by no means the only one. For instance, the absolute majority of the ToS you're defending here do not force visitors to explicitly agree to their terms before proceeding further. This overwhelmingly popular class of ToS was rendered largely unenforcable even in the U.S. by the precedent of Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, Inc. [1], and the legal argument had nothing to do with the ability of your average web surfer, but rather the lack of constructive notice on the part of the website. We can discuss other precedents if you like, as there are several, but it's clear that contrary to the picture you attempted to present, even in the U.S. legal system it is far from the case that browsing a website implies a contractual relationship with binding terms of service. If you personally feel a moral obligation to watch ads on websites you visit, that's your business. I don't see any reasonable basis to your attempt to find a legal justification for your position, and you haven't presented any moral argument that didn't directly derive from an incorrect legal position. There are certainly moral arguments you could pursue and, although I haven't yet seen one that was even mildly persuasive, we can have that discussion as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_v._Barnes_%26_Noble,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_v._Barnes_%26_Noble,_In....

darawk 8y ago

> Content creators often have specific, limited legal rights to specify how their content is consumed, none of which are absolute and most of which vary wildly between different jurisdictions. Not really. What's limited is not content creators ability to specify consumption, but rather the assumption of the ability of the counter-party to understand and agree to the terms. There are some genuine content restrictions, like first sale doctrine, but those are fairly narrow in scope. EULAs are limited not by the fundamentals of the medium, but by the assumed ability of the customer to meaningfully agree to the terms. If you want to argue against my position, you should be taking the position that your average web surfer does not have the ability to meaningfully agree to the terms of the contracts with all of the websites they visit, and that thereby those contracts are unenforceable. That is the correct and only correct objection to the moral obligation to view ads.

c22 8y ago
You could argue that web users with adblockers are rejecting these agreements by refusing to HTTP GET the linked ad content and that the sites are accepting the modified terms if they subsequently serve the requested non-ad content.
- darawk 8y ago
  Yep, that'd be a reasonable case to make. Although the site could simply augment its terms with "Serving the content any way does not represent a change in terms; proceeding to consume our content remains in violation" to clarify.
  - trothamel 8y ago
    While we're into making one-sided arrangements, one could add to the HTTP headers: "Serving this request in any way consents to having the content returned displayed in a matter that is determined by the user-agent and the user. This supersedes any other terms of service that purport to governing the processing of this requerst." This, at least, has the precedent of accurately describing how websites have been presented since the days of NCSA Mosaic. At the end of the day, I'm not sure that unread terms presented from either side should have anything to do with it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
keldaris 8y ago
I disagree with you on quite a few different levels and, for clarity, I'll attempt to separate them out in this reply. First of all, you've completely conflated the distinction between legal and moral obligations. Your entire argument in this post is a legal argument, from which you jump to an entirely unfounded moral assertion. Even if I agreed with your legal argument, which I don't, the moral conclusion would not follow. Since you've offered no moral argument, I'll confine the rest of my response to the legal issues. Secondly, your legal argument seems specific to the U.S. legal system (for instance, you reference the first sale doctrine, which is specific to U.S. copyright law). In most of the world, I'm happy to note, EULAs are a legal non-starter and TOS are significantly limited by legislation. To give you a concrete and topical example, the GDPR directly invalidates virtually all existing website ToS in the EU (exceptions exist, but are few and far between). Thirdly, even in the context of the U.S. legal system, which I am not subject to and from which I derive no moral obligation, I believe you're incorrect. The argument you propose is certainly one possible and strong objection to the legal (rather than moral) obligation to view ads, it is by no means the only one. For instance, the absolute majority of the ToS you're defending here do not force visitors to explicitly agree to their terms before proceeding further. This overwhelmingly popular class of ToS was rendered largely unenforcable even in the U.S. by the precedent of Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, Inc. [1], and the legal argument had nothing to do with the ability of your average web surfer, but rather the lack of constructive notice on the part of the website. We can discuss other precedents if you like, as there are several, but it's clear that contrary to the picture you attempted to present, even in the U.S. legal system it is far from the case that browsing a website implies a contractual relationship with binding terms of service. If you personally feel a moral obligation to watch ads on websites you visit, that's your business. I don't see any reasonable basis to your attempt to find a legal justification for your position, and you haven't presented any moral argument that didn't directly derive from an incorrect legal position. There are certainly moral arguments you could pursue and, although I haven't yet seen one that was even mildly persuasive, we can have that discussion as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_v._Barnes_%26_Noble,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_v._Barnes_%26_Noble,_In....