3 ms·

The way I see it, an ad-blocker is like a bottle of white-out. Say you buy a book and take it home, inside the book you find ads on various pages so you take yo

The way I see it, an ad-blocker is like a bottle of white-out. Say you buy a book and take it home, inside the book you find ads on various pages so you take your bottle of white-out and mark them out. You haven't caused any copyright infringement because you're not redistributing your book that has the white-out on it.

nine_k 5y ago
This puts services like Pocket or Instapaper under doubt. While in a browser the "reader mode" or an and blocker may reformat content and remove ads, etc, it's done strictly for the browser's user, the modified version is not distributed. But e.g. Pocket allows to share a "pocketed" article with all the ads and most formatting removed; they even advertise some articles on their homepage. This may count as distribution of a derived work. They of course give the credits and a link to the original, but I wonder if some publishers might be unhappy enough to challenge this.
nybble41 5y ago
> You haven't caused any copyright infringement because you're not redistributing your book that has the white-out on it. Even if you did… since when has distributing a used book with extra notes, highlighting, or even white-out in place been considered copyright infringement? You're selling an existing, authorized copy—even if it was later modified—not making a new one.
- slaymaker1907 5y ago
  It probably would be relevant to copyright, but it would also be fair use as commentary/criticism rather than being a derivative work.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  In the 9th Circuit, there's precedent that buying a book, cutting up each of those pages, and then selling them individually is derivative work. The 2nd Circuit believes that's precluded by First Sale Doctrine. (I think most people would agree that the 9th Circuit's decision is wrong, though, but it remains binding precedent in that circuit.)

nine_k 5y ago

This puts services like Pocket or Instapaper under doubt. While in a browser the "reader mode" or an and blocker may reformat content and remove ads, etc, it's done strictly for the browser's user, the modified version is not distributed. But e.g. Pocket allows to share a "pocketed" article with all the ads and most formatting removed; they even advertise some articles on their homepage. This may count as distribution of a derived work. They of course give the credits and a link to the original, but I wonder if some publishers might be unhappy enough to challenge this.

nybble41 5y ago

> You haven't caused any copyright infringement because you're not redistributing your book that has the white-out on it. Even if you did… since when has distributing a used book with extra notes, highlighting, or even white-out in place been considered copyright infringement? You're selling an existing, authorized copy—even if it was later modified—not making a new one.

slaymaker1907 5y ago
It probably would be relevant to copyright, but it would also be fair use as commentary/criticism rather than being a derivative work.
jcranmer 5y ago
In the 9th Circuit, there's precedent that buying a book, cutting up each of those pages, and then selling them individually is derivative work. The 2nd Circuit believes that's precluded by First Sale Doctrine. (I think most people would agree that the 9th Circuit's decision is wrong, though, but it remains binding precedent in that circuit.)