7 ms·

Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?

139 points by Vinnl 1y ago

croes 1y ago
So if the ads are part of the copyright of the site owner, then they are liable for every scam ad they show. And of course it’s Axel Springer and Matthias Döpfner again, the „stirrup holders“ of the AfD.
sneak 1y ago
Under a strict reading of copyright law, this actually makes sense. The problem is that the fundamental concept of IP is nonsensical and insane. When applied rationally, it will of course result in wacky results like this.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  If I am given a free magazine with ads in it, I can rip out the ads and just read the articles, or sharpie my own writing in the pages. What makes a website different?
- drunner 1y ago
  How does it make sense? If I buy a book I'm entitled to rip out pages and black marker words. What's the difference to removing text or images of my choice while viewing a website?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    Depends on what the license says in the first page of the book. It may actually disallow you ripping out pages. You don't own the book, you merely paid for a limited license to read it per the instructions provided in the license agreement. Anything else would be immoral.
    - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
      This is not true - you have received a property right to the copy of the content and can legally alter or destroy it. A license in the book cannot override your property right. You may encounter issues if you attempt to distribute the altered copy, but that's not at issue here.
      - 3036e4 1y ago
        You can even cut out parts of the text to re-sell, which is exactly what press clipping services did for newspapers. No copies were made, so no copyright infringement (that simple logic was fine until someone managed to get DRM-circumvention added to copyright laws). "The first press clipping agency in London was established in 1852 ... Early clipping services employed women to scan periodicals for mentions of specific names or terms. The marked periodicals were then cut out by men and pasted to dated slips. Women would then sort those slips and clippings to be sent to the services' clients". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_monitoring_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_monitoring_service
        tzs 1y ago
        Careful. It's not that simple in the US. See Mirage Editions v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (1988) [1] and Lee v. A.R.T. Co., 125 F.3d 580 (1997) [2]. The first, in the 9th circuit, involved a company whose business was: > 1) purchasing artwork prints or books including good quality artwork page prints therein; 2) gluing each individual print or page print onto a rectangular sheet of black plastic material exposing a narrow black margin around the print; 3) gluing the black sheet with print onto a major surface of a rectangular white ceramic tile; 4) applying a transparent plastic film over the print, black sheet and ceramic tile surface; and 5) offering the tile with artwork mounted thereon for sale in the retail market. The appeals court found that this was a copyright infringement. The second, in the 7th circuit, involved the same defendants who bought an artists' notecards and small lithographs from a retail art store and: > mounted the works on ceramic tiles (covering the art with transparent epoxy resin in the process) and resold the tiles. The 7th circuit found that this was not an infringement. There were some differences in the cases, in particular in the 9th circuit case the defendant was buying art books and cutting out the pictures to mount and sell but in the second case they were buying individual notecards and lithographs to mount and sell. As far as I know this has never reached the Supreme Court, and neither case has been overturned in its circuit by subsequent cases in that circuit, and so Mirage is still the law in the 9th and Lee still the law in the 7th. In other circuits there have been district court cases that dealt with this issue, but it has not reached their appellate courts. [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/856/1341/256477/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/856... [2] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/125/580/543438/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/125...
  - sneak 1y ago
    It’s an unauthorized modification (and production of a derivative work) of a copyrighted work.
    - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
      Which is perfectly legal to make under existing law.
    - slightwinder 1y ago
      Which is not illegal for personal usage. You are just not allowed to share it, or even resell it. And even this has special cases.
    - sterlind 1y ago
      it's perfectly legal to modify any copyrighted work. it's only illegal for you to distribute copies. so it should be legal to install an ad block plugin, but not legal to run an ad-stripping proxy.
- syntaxbush 1y ago
  Applying this "strict reading" would that mean the majority of chrome extensions are violating copyright. They would not be allowed to modify the DOM to translate web pages, to add price history, check for coupons, etc. as they all modify the original creator's "program"?
  - sneak 1y ago
    Yup. Copyright and intellectual property are utterly absurd. It was created whole cloth as a legal fiction to prop up an industry that the legislature thought was worth propping up. If you think about it, if search engines didn’t exist, and you invented and marketed one today, you’d be sued into oblivion. Same goes for public lending libraries.
mortenjorck 1y ago
> We sincerely hope that Germany does not become the second jurisdiction (after China) to ban ad blockers. Given the other restrictions on internet use in China, it should have come as no surprise, but I had no idea this was the law of the land there.
- guerrilla 1y ago
  Is it? Can we can confirmation?
  - Vinnl 1y ago
    In the original blog, "after China" is a link.
  - Meneth 1y ago
    Mozilla cites what appears to be an auto-translated abstract of a chinese science paper: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=zh-CN&user=8VqyTHcAAAAJ&citation_for_view=8VqyTHcAAAAJ:YsMSGLbcyi4C https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... "China takes a different approach to protect the ad-based business model under unfair competition law and bans ad blocking software directly by regulation. The Chinese courts held that providing ad blocking software is anti-competitive under a vague general principle of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law."
  - _imnothere 1y ago
    Here's a few links: - https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/chinese-users-cant-use-ad-blocker-extensions/94823 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/chinese-users-cant-use-ad-bl... - https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/tie7un/ublock_origin_is_blocked_by_mozilla_in_china/ https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/tie7un/ublock... - https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000041587638/en https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000041587638/en
- EFreethought 1y ago
  The idea that people in an ostensibly communist country are forced to watch ads is ironic.
Spivak 1y ago
Betteridge's Law, they aren't on the brink of banning ad blockers; German courts are just going to hear the case again. There's no indication they intend to rule differently, only that the original decision needs more information.
afarah1 1y ago
... how would it be enforced?
- kvdveer 1y ago
  The same way laws against online piracy are enforced: attack the infrastructure. AdBlock Plus is being attacked right now. If distributing this software is made illegal, all blockers will vanish from the addon stores, and only very tech savvy users will have palatable Internet.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    Your comment just made me realize how easy it would actually be for a court to implement such a ban these days: They could simply require Apple to not ship a content blocking API anymore in their jurisdiction. Thanks to Apple's ban of third-party browsers, that would be enough. On Android, the situation is slightly better, since browsers can be sideloaded, but ad blockers would quickly become a niche phenomenon.
    - 3036e4 1y ago
      Easy to forget, but some of us still browse the web on laptops and desktop computers where users still have slightly more choice when it comes to what software to use. For now. Of course eventually Google or someone else will manage to spread something like Web Environment Integrity Checks, and then things will become a lot messier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity
      - webspinner 1y ago
        That's me lol! I never use the internet on my phone for anything, unless mine here goes out.
  - the8472 1y ago
    The mozilla devs were warned that mandatory addon signing and code verification turns them into the main arbiter which extensions may exist and thus a legal target. They insisted that for the sake of security it must be done anyway. The spirits that I called...
VonTum 1y ago
Who could possibly be in favor of this? Like sure industry lobbying is strong but could any politician really argue they're acting in the interest of their constituents with this?
- zaik 1y ago
  There is no politician that does. It's about the interpretation of existing copyright law.
- Analemma_ 1y ago
  European countries have been pretty consistent that they want to protect their publishers, no matter the downstream consequences. Banning ad blockers wouldn't be very different from e.g. forcing Google to pay link taxes, it's just directed at end users instead of Google. So I'd say a lot of people who want to protect European publishers are probably in favor of this.
- dkiebd 1y ago
  It’s in the interest of the media which is what allows those politicians to stay in power.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- badestrand 1y ago
  Traditional news media and print media are really strong in Germany (and for example Spain). They also made laws happen that limit how Google can link to news sites to prevent Google News from stealing readers. And they tried to make Google pay each time a user clicks a link that leads to a German news site. Also there are surcharges on printers (around $50 or so per piece), laptops etc because you might copy copyright-protected texts with it. And the German online news websites know they lose a lot of money to adblockers so of course they want to ban them.
  - SpaceManNabs 1y ago
    anti free speech stuff like this is why i only bring burner phones into europe.
close04 1y ago
If the user is legally obligated to allow the ad on their device then the site owner must be legally accountable for what the ad does, for example if it's malware. No passing this on to the ad-network. Their code, their copyright, their malware distribution.
- nothrabannosir 1y ago
  Surprised to see this downvoted; I hadn’t even thought of it but it actually seems like an eminently reasonable take. The only logical conclusion, even. How could you argue otherwise? Would love to hear a down voter’s dissent because I’m not seeing it.
  - layer8 1y ago
    It was probably downvoted because it is orthogonal to the issue. The website is (or should be) responsible for malware regardless of whether you are allowed to block it or not.
    - close04 1y ago
      Yes and no. Today the site should be held responsible. But if a law like this is passed then the site must be held responsible. This is what makes all the difference. P.S. Today a site owner is not responsible if an ad is malware, they pass it on to the ad network, who passes it on, and so on.
      - layer8 1y ago
        I disagree. In absence of the law, the responsibility is just the same. It‘s unreasonable to place the responsibility on the user.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    It's ultimately still supporting this hostile paradigm wherein corpos legally dictate the processing your user agent is allowed to do on your personal computer, just also grasping at straws trying to bargain for some logically-consistent justice within that paradigm. In reality, this type of support only helps the corpos get the overall legal regime they desire, and then if any such lesser obligations actually do get imposed as well, they will just find ways to weasel out of them later.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
9dev 1y ago
Sparing you both the reading time and the outrage: No, it is not.
- Vinnl 1y ago
  Actual answer from the blog post (tl;dr: maybe): > The full impact of this latest development is still unclear. The BGH will issue a more detailed written ruling explaining its decision. Meanwhile, the case has now returned to the lower court for additional fact-finding. It could be a couple more years until we have a clear answer. We hope that the courts ultimately reach the same sensible conclusion and allow users to install ad blockers.
fabian2k 1y ago
I can't judge the legal aspects. But a significant point here is that Adblock Plus allows you do pay them to get preferential treatment for your ads. I don't know how much this part affects the legal issues here, but for me that is quite a different situation than a pure ad blocker. There is a coercive element here, if your ad blocker is used widely enough and you take money for preferential treatment.
- plusfour 1y ago
  Is this a case for steel-manning? We know what this is about and what's at stake.
- danudey 1y ago
  I would be in favor of some kind of vetting program, where you (the ad network) commit to ensuring your (customers') ads aren't scammy, e.g. advertising on software download sites with an ad that looks like a download button. Much like spam, if your ads get reported and they're verified as being in violation, you get taken off the whitelist. Unfortunately, the main use case I have for 'ad blockers' isn't just blocking visual ads; it's blocking sometimes tens of megabytes of third-party javascript, tracking, analytics, etc., which is not just a huge privacy issue but also slows the page down tremendously. I remember working at a company which hosted and maintained, for a client, a forum for A-level testing students in the UK, or something of the sort. Over the years, they had insisted on us adding more and more to the site; third-party widgets, trackers, analytics, etc. Each time, we pushed back because of the impact to page loads, which leads to increased bounce rate, lower time-on-site, and so on, but they were the customer and had the final say. Then, suddenly, Google announced that it was going to start factoring page load times into pages' search ratings and, overnight, the client was frantically asking us how we could improve their page times because they were absolutely atrocious. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a lot of techniques came around to improve page load times while still letting you load your page full of noisy cruft and garbage, so now we have pages that load nice and quick and then, over the next few seconds, ruin themselves with trash that ruins the experience. "Articles" where every paragraph break is punctuated with another ad, pages with pop-up after pop-up asking if you want to join the site, sign up for a newsletter, check out our substack. This is the sort of reason why people gravitate towards a site's app, I suspect, but that just solves the loading time issue and prevents you from blocking trackers and ads.
ItsBob 1y ago
Ok, I'll bite... what if an "ad" on a website is a bit of javascript that mines bitcoins using my GPU? Does this mean I have to let it do this? What if it does it while showing me an ad for something at the same time? How does running a bit of software on my computer concern anyone other than me? I am not a lawyer and I haven't read the court's rulings but this seems assinine!
- slightwinder 1y ago
  > Ok, I'll bite... what if an "ad" on a website is a bit of javascript that mines bitcoins using my GPU? Does this mean I have to let it do this? Maybe. The Court has only ruled that the lower instance has to research the topic more, there is no clear answer yet. But it's really notable how incredible wild the judgment is. They are speaking about objectcode and bytecode, and which of them are protected by law or not. F**ing insane. It's not really clear whether they are actually talking about JavaScript, or if someone explained/understood it wrong, or if they probably mean WebAssembly? Is WebAssembly used for ads and handled by Adblockers?
  - ItsBob 1y ago
    Genuinely, I won't care what the ruling is: my computer, my rules! :)
    - slightwinder 1y ago
      Considering we are moving towards a Cyberpunk-esque world, I wouldn't bet too hard on this. Greed finds a way.
kstrauser 1y ago
A friend raised what I consider a very valid point, that ad blockers are assistive technology for people with ADHD. They prevent the web from being an unusable mess of shiny distraction. And as such, in America, blocking ad blockers is a violation of the ADA. I’m being completely serious here and so is he. I can barely use the web without ad blockers. They make it possible for me to participate in online life. Remove them and you largely remove me. An attack on ad blockers is a direct attack on even the slightly neurodivergent, and should be treated as such.
- ddmf 1y ago
  I concur, some websites are so unusable now with the tiny portion of content surrounded by adverts.
- Vinnl 1y ago
  Yeah, that's also the main warning from the blog: the reasoning here is that adjusting how the website code executes on your computer is copyright infringement. The effects of that would go way beyond just adblockers.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    I strongly agree with that point, too. The notion that you can legally force me to run a bit of arbitrary code you transmit to me is absolutely bonkers.
    - dh2022 1y ago
      Nobody is forcing you to do anything. I am blocking your ads without your help.
  - davorak 1y ago
    > adjusting how the website code executes on your computer is copyright infringement. I would be interested in how German law works to make this so, IANAL but pretty sure USA copy right law does not work that way. Modification for personal use is normally going to be 100% acceptable under USA copyright law. The DMCA Anti-Circumvention is one exception I know to this but it was and is a big deal for being an exception.
1a527dd5 1y ago
My question is how do you enforce anything like this? Cookie banners, the accessibility ruling, and now this. We've had to adhere to the rulings at work; but when I ask the lawyers; "how do you enforce this?" they say as long as you make a best effort you are fine. Wasted effort.
- bilgi42 1y ago
  they may ban particular extensions in regions, it should be doable for majority of public. it wouldn't be a complete ban, they can't really do that, but roadblocks will be enough to deter people
- raverbashing 1y ago
  You don't but good luck explaining to the Luddite boomers there
- eddythompson80 1y ago
  how do you think any ban works exactly? When prostitution is banned, do you think they install a cop in every bedroom to make sure there is no money exchange? When drugs are banned, do you think they put a device in every person that beeps if they ingest drugs and a SWAT team Air drops on their house? When a harmful business practices are banned, do you think a member of a regulatory body gets to attend or review every meeting and decision in every company to make sure that practice doesn't happen? When graffiti is banned, do you think a cop joins you when you buy a spray can until you dispose of it? When vaping on airplanes is banned, do you think they do a cavity search on every passenger to make sure no one is sneaking a juul and puffing into a towel? When dumping industrial toxic waste into rivers is banned, do you think we install 4k cameras on all rivers to track whats being dumped there? If this is your first time in a human society, welcome. Unlike math, nothing we do in society is a 100%, but we've been doing it for 10,000 years. You will demand "unenforceable" laws if you like them and scoff at ones you don't like. You already know how and will fit right in.
andy99 1y ago
Much like the old "piracy" nonsense, I wonder if banning ad blockers would be a net gain for advertisers (if it was possible). Personally I wouldn't go to a site that had any remotely intrusive advertising, even if I wanted to I get too distracted to read the real content. Less views means fewer network effects - for a small example, fewer people posting and discussing on sites like HN or reddit. And therefore less pull in of those unfortunate people who don't block ads, and less views overall. I don't know if it actually works out that way, but I do think forcing people to accept the full bore of your annoying site or not use it at all is a double edged sword.
- visarga 1y ago
  I would rather only see websites without ads, or that explicitly allow ad blocking. Websites with ads are shit anyway, clickbait and slop all the way down. The whole internet has been enshittified by the battles for user attention. Nothing of value is lost if we never see these sites again.
CalRobert 1y ago
Does this make curl illegal? Wget?
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  These gotcha questions are a waste of time. "If I close my eyes whenever I see an ad will I go to jail?" Obviously the one-click effortless and mainstream availability of adblocking is what they care about, not laborious methods accessible to just a few people with the ability and wherewithal. If tooling is written around curl for this purpose that becomes accessible and mainstream and popular, yes that tooling would be treated like this.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    I didn’t think it was a gotcha, I could see idiot politicians actually making cli tools illegal.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
anthk 1y ago
Will they ban Dillo too?
mediumsmart 1y ago
0.0.0.0 is a real adblocker. The whole of Germany can fit in there if need be. Full disclosure: I am German.
- Kenji 1y ago
  [dead]
zelphirkalt 1y ago
Germany is trying more and more shitty stuff and it wouldn't be far from the government (this one, or the previous one, or the next one) to implement something like this, whether aware of the consequences or not. Lobbyism here is very strong and they try over and over again their tired old lines "fOr ThE cHiLdReN!" and "but, ... but, ... tErRoRiSm!". We can also not trust in our courts to have sufficient expertise or listen to experts, when it comes to these things. We must stop them before they happen. It is scary to watch, because with Germany's slow bureaucracy, they probably only need to get such a thing through once, and then it would take years of effort of fighting against billions Euros lobbies by the people, because our politicians are so corrupt and bought by them. People would probably have to get to the streets in millions, which is unlikely to happen with "advanced" digital rights topics like ad blocking. Germany is very much in danger of becoming even worse of a democracy than it is already. I am not quite sure where I read it, but somewhere I recently read that Germany has moved down in democracy ranking to a tainted democracy. Which it is. If politics don't change soon, AfD will get even more votes next time around, and then Europe will have an enemy of Europe in its heart, which as well is the most populous country. Not sure I want to go further into the future of this imagination. Many countries in the EU or elsewhere, which are still democratic for the most part face similar challenges. I just wish people would finally punish these opportunists and criminals we have in our governments and political parties, by voting for something else. But I guess the average German person is too disconnected and too uninformed and eats it all up every 4 years, instead of voting for progressive parties, to bring some fresh air.
mulakosag 1y ago
Say what you say but EU/Europeans are overregulating everything with UK trying to end privacy. Regulations like USB C on all electronics is nice but these are not.
- anthk 1y ago
  UK is not in the EU. DIfferent issue altogether. But, yes, it's scary. As you said, USB-C for everyone it's fair. This is bullshit. You can't ban a text mode browser, or Dillo. What's next, enforcing an OS?
alpha_trion 1y ago
Ads have been an arms race for awhile now. If ad creators stop making overly intrusive, CPU sucking ads then perhaps people would be less inclined to use ad-blockers.
- i_love_retros 1y ago
  Even if the ad is 5x5 px, I'd still use an ad blocker because I dont want shitty ad companies knowing every site I visit. I also don't want malware. This world is becoming a fucking joke, ruled by crooked politicians who have their elections bought for them by corporations and billionaires. I would hope that people will rise up and take back control since it's our planet not theirs, but everyone seems too fucking stupid and happy just watching marvel movies.
thesdev 1y ago
I wonder how AI has survived Germany's seemingly strict copyright law.
- kleiba 1y ago
  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO... This is for the whole EU, not just Germany, but there's no reason why Germany couldn't employ further restrictions.
kleiba 1y ago
The day I cannot have my ad blocker anymore is the day I'll say goodbye to the world wide web.
- bitpush 1y ago
  I don't know how you can say this with a straight face. This is nothing different than "reddit boycott" or "politician x gets elected and I'm out of here" Sounds nice. But isn't remotely feasible
  - kleiba 1y ago
    It absolutely is for me, but I'm probably twice your age and use the internet only leisurely. I don't do social media, I don't use a smart phone, so yeah, I'm certainly an edge case, but no internet would be fine for me easily.
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      I'm totally with you on this one. And I was an early tech adopter, using a dialup modem (long distance!) to get access to Usenet news. If a site has ads, and I can't block them, I'm not using that site.
      - bitpush 1y ago
        The person I replied to didn't say they'll boycott a website, but rather "world wide web", as in the internet. If you take a quick look at their activity on HN, you can see they are a prolific submitter/commenter. I find it a bit amusing that someone's whos active than 99% of the people who frequent HN can just simply quit internet (and not an ad-ridden website).
        kleiba 1y ago
        Make no mistake, just because I like to put in my 2cts, whether someone asks about it or not, does not mean that I cannot live without the internet. If yc had to close shop tomorrow, I'd survive. I also enjoy watching stuff on youtube, but if that was to go away, don't worry, I'd be fine. I'm not addicted, and already had a life before the web came along, so I'm sure I'd have one if it were to go away.
kleiba 1y ago
Why should I as a user get exposed to garbage that I don't care about in addition to the actual content I'm interested in? Well, one possible answer is that the content provider only actually provides that content under the condition that I look at the ads. After all, a lot of content providers are businesses and they don't like to give out content for free. My stance has always been that for 99% of the stuff I consume on the internet, my condition is that I can access it the way I, as the end user / customer, prefer. And if you as the provider insist otherwise, my reaction will almost always be that I won't look at to your garbage ads but instead I'll just go somewhere else for content. Or just read a book, ad-free [0]. [0] https://archive.is/KHPwt https://archive.is/KHPwt
- kstrauser 1y ago
  I’m sympathetic to the idea that someone has to pay if they want to keep the site online. It costs money to create the site’s content, even if the marginal cost to deliver it to a visitor is approximately $0.00. But there’s an astounding amount of laziness in their approach. Seriously, renting rectangles on a site is the only way to get paid by non-paying visitors? Hogwash. For instance, they could be running affiliate links to online stores. “We reviewed these laptops: click here and we’ll get a commission.” “But that compromises our integrity!”, they might counter. But so does renting out space to advertisers! I genuinely don’t see the honest version as, well, less honest.
  - danudey 1y ago
    Most websites use ad networks, and typically have no idea which ads are being shown on their sites unless users complain about something egregious; as such, it tends to be the case that telling an ad network "here's a rectangle for you to show something" doesn't really affect a site's journalistic integrity. If a site that reviews televisions was contracting directly with Sony to show ads then yes, that's definitely an issue, but if they're telling an ad network to pick some ads then (typically!) that's sufficiently arm's-length. Meanwhile, affiliate links can be much more directly bad; use offer code SCAMTOBER for 25% off this thing that I can assure you I've tried and tested and given a fair review, and which will definitely not turn out to have been a scam. Click here to purchase this laptop that I was sent for free and rated 9/10 and I'll get a 5% cut of whatever you buy. I guess this is where affiliate programs through retailers are slightly more trustworthy; if anything I buy from your Best Buy link gets you a 5% commission then it doesn't really matter all that much which laptop you recommend because you're getting a cut no matter what I buy. As soon as Alienware offers you a 10% commission on that $3500 laptop, though, things get dicey.
atesti 1y ago
There is not much need for a company like the one selling adblock plus to springer etc. I don't see any court going after ublock origin and there is no reason that ublock origin would be threatened by this in any way. However, the actions from google with manifest v3 are a real threat, as well as any obligation to use real name accounts to access services like newspapers or youtube.
raphman 1y ago
The ruling (in German) is available online.¹ The supreme court actually has rejected most of Axel Springer's² arguments and limited the revision to a single question (AFAICT, IANAL): Are the news websites in question some kind of computer program (protected under Section 8 of the UrhG³). The supreme court argues that the lower court did not sufficiently discuss this question in their ruling. The supreme court explicitly notes that the lower court should also consider whether Springer actually has the sole rights to the 'computer program'. Some thoughts: a) As the supreme court mentioned, Springer might only own (exclusive) copyright to some parts of the computer program. It seems that they embed a lot of other JS code, e.g., Google stuff. This might mean that Springer needs to show that ABP actually modifies Springer's code. If ABP modifies e.g. AdSense code or the code of an open source library that Springer's websites use, Springer's copyright might not be infringed at all. b) In German copyright law, only works are protected that are created by a human author. (Obviously, the author can also use software to create a protected work.) Given that a lot of JS/CSS code is written by automated rules (or LLMs), rights holders might need to prove that an actual human wrote the code. c) As posted elsewhere in the thread: the German copyright law explicitly allows people with limited vision or with limited reading ability (not defined precisely in the law) to use assistive technology in order to transfer a work into a more accessible version⁴. So, ad-blocker companies might argue that they are just providing assistive technology to people with diagnosed ADHD. Copyright holders would then need to go after the users of such software. (A mentioned above: I am not a lawyer. Copyright law is complicated and interpretations are evolving) ¹)https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&Datum=Aktuell&Sort=3&nr=142511&anz=1142&pos=13 https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/do... ²) big German media conglomerate, not to be confused with SpringerNature ³) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/BJNR012730965.html#BJNR012730965BJNG004201377 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/BJNR012730965.html#B... ⁴) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__45b.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__45b.html
agent327 1y ago
Next the police will be knocking on your door, just to make sure you are not skipping ads in the newspaper. "M'am, that vase in front of your TV could be used to block ads. You are going to have to move that." Anyway, I see a great future for adblockers that render the whole page in a back buffer, and then copy it to a front buffer where it is masked by a bitmap that just has black squares where the ads used to be. That doesn't "change the original, copyrighted document", so it should be fine. And I presume putting that vase in front of your screen is still acceptable, even in Germany. If publishers want more control, they always have the option of downloading the entire page as a bitmap.
- visarga 1y ago
  This law is based on the idea that a restaurant patron should be forced to eat everything on their plate, or else it is infringing on the IP of the cook. "Sir, we made the salad with onions and you skipped them, we need to forcefully shove them down your throat"
wllhf 1y ago
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webspinner 1y ago
Thankfully, I don't live in Germany. However, I wouldn't be surprised if platforms like Google/youtube take more agressive moves to ban ad blockers after this. Kind of like the implementation of age verification crap that Youtube is doing.

139 points by Vinnl 1y ago

So if the ads are part of the copyright of the site owner, then they are liable for every scam ad they show. And of course it’s Axel Springer and Matthias Döpfner again, the „stirrup holders“ of the AfD.

sneak 1y ago

Under a strict reading of copyright law, this actually makes sense. The problem is that the fundamental concept of IP is nonsensical and insane. When applied rationally, it will of course result in wacky results like this.

trenchpilgrim 1y ago
If I am given a free magazine with ads in it, I can rip out the ads and just read the articles, or sharpie my own writing in the pages. What makes a website different?
drunner 1y ago
How does it make sense? If I buy a book I'm entitled to rip out pages and black marker words. What's the difference to removing text or images of my choice while viewing a website?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  Depends on what the license says in the first page of the book. It may actually disallow you ripping out pages. You don't own the book, you merely paid for a limited license to read it per the instructions provided in the license agreement. Anything else would be immoral.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    This is not true - you have received a property right to the copy of the content and can legally alter or destroy it. A license in the book cannot override your property right. You may encounter issues if you attempt to distribute the altered copy, but that's not at issue here.
    - 3036e4 1y ago
      You can even cut out parts of the text to re-sell, which is exactly what press clipping services did for newspapers. No copies were made, so no copyright infringement (that simple logic was fine until someone managed to get DRM-circumvention added to copyright laws). "The first press clipping agency in London was established in 1852 ... Early clipping services employed women to scan periodicals for mentions of specific names or terms. The marked periodicals were then cut out by men and pasted to dated slips. Women would then sort those slips and clippings to be sent to the services' clients". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_monitoring_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_monitoring_service
      - tzs 1y ago
        Careful. It's not that simple in the US. See Mirage Editions v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (1988) [1] and Lee v. A.R.T. Co., 125 F.3d 580 (1997) [2]. The first, in the 9th circuit, involved a company whose business was: > 1) purchasing artwork prints or books including good quality artwork page prints therein; 2) gluing each individual print or page print onto a rectangular sheet of black plastic material exposing a narrow black margin around the print; 3) gluing the black sheet with print onto a major surface of a rectangular white ceramic tile; 4) applying a transparent plastic film over the print, black sheet and ceramic tile surface; and 5) offering the tile with artwork mounted thereon for sale in the retail market. The appeals court found that this was a copyright infringement. The second, in the 7th circuit, involved the same defendants who bought an artists' notecards and small lithographs from a retail art store and: > mounted the works on ceramic tiles (covering the art with transparent epoxy resin in the process) and resold the tiles. The 7th circuit found that this was not an infringement. There were some differences in the cases, in particular in the 9th circuit case the defendant was buying art books and cutting out the pictures to mount and sell but in the second case they were buying individual notecards and lithographs to mount and sell. As far as I know this has never reached the Supreme Court, and neither case has been overturned in its circuit by subsequent cases in that circuit, and so Mirage is still the law in the 9th and Lee still the law in the 7th. In other circuits there have been district court cases that dealt with this issue, but it has not reached their appellate courts. [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/856/1341/256477/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/856... [2] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/125/580/543438/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/125...
- sneak 1y ago
  It’s an unauthorized modification (and production of a derivative work) of a copyrighted work.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    Which is perfectly legal to make under existing law.
  - slightwinder 1y ago
    Which is not illegal for personal usage. You are just not allowed to share it, or even resell it. And even this has special cases.
  - sterlind 1y ago
    it's perfectly legal to modify any copyrighted work. it's only illegal for you to distribute copies. so it should be legal to install an ad block plugin, but not legal to run an ad-stripping proxy.
syntaxbush 1y ago
Applying this "strict reading" would that mean the majority of chrome extensions are violating copyright. They would not be allowed to modify the DOM to translate web pages, to add price history, check for coupons, etc. as they all modify the original creator's "program"?
- sneak 1y ago
  Yup. Copyright and intellectual property are utterly absurd. It was created whole cloth as a legal fiction to prop up an industry that the legislature thought was worth propping up. If you think about it, if search engines didn’t exist, and you invented and marketed one today, you’d be sued into oblivion. Same goes for public lending libraries.

mortenjorck 1y ago

> We sincerely hope that Germany does not become the second jurisdiction (after China) to ban ad blockers. Given the other restrictions on internet use in China, it should have come as no surprise, but I had no idea this was the law of the land there.

guerrilla 1y ago
Is it? Can we can confirmation?
- Vinnl 1y ago
  In the original blog, "after China" is a link.
- Meneth 1y ago
  Mozilla cites what appears to be an auto-translated abstract of a chinese science paper: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=zh-CN&user=8VqyTHcAAAAJ&citation_for_view=8VqyTHcAAAAJ:YsMSGLbcyi4C https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... "China takes a different approach to protect the ad-based business model under unfair competition law and bans ad blocking software directly by regulation. The Chinese courts held that providing ad blocking software is anti-competitive under a vague general principle of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law."
- _imnothere 1y ago
  Here's a few links: - https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/chinese-users-cant-use-ad-blocker-extensions/94823 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/chinese-users-cant-use-ad-bl... - https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/tie7un/ublock_origin_is_blocked_by_mozilla_in_china/ https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/tie7un/ublock... - https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000041587638/en https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000041587638/en
EFreethought 1y ago
The idea that people in an ostensibly communist country are forced to watch ads is ironic.

Spivak 1y ago

Betteridge's Law, they aren't on the brink of banning ad blockers; German courts are just going to hear the case again. There's no indication they intend to rule differently, only that the original decision needs more information.

afarah1 1y ago

... how would it be enforced?

kvdveer 1y ago
The same way laws against online piracy are enforced: attack the infrastructure. AdBlock Plus is being attacked right now. If distributing this software is made illegal, all blockers will vanish from the addon stores, and only very tech savvy users will have palatable Internet.
- lxgr 1y ago
  Your comment just made me realize how easy it would actually be for a court to implement such a ban these days: They could simply require Apple to not ship a content blocking API anymore in their jurisdiction. Thanks to Apple's ban of third-party browsers, that would be enough. On Android, the situation is slightly better, since browsers can be sideloaded, but ad blockers would quickly become a niche phenomenon.
  - 3036e4 1y ago
    Easy to forget, but some of us still browse the web on laptops and desktop computers where users still have slightly more choice when it comes to what software to use. For now. Of course eventually Google or someone else will manage to spread something like Web Environment Integrity Checks, and then things will become a lot messier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity
    - webspinner 1y ago
      That's me lol! I never use the internet on my phone for anything, unless mine here goes out.
- the8472 1y ago
  The mozilla devs were warned that mandatory addon signing and code verification turns them into the main arbiter which extensions may exist and thus a legal target. They insisted that for the sake of security it must be done anyway. The spirits that I called...

VonTum 1y ago

Who could possibly be in favor of this? Like sure industry lobbying is strong but could any politician really argue they're acting in the interest of their constituents with this?

zaik 1y ago
There is no politician that does. It's about the interpretation of existing copyright law.
Analemma_ 1y ago
European countries have been pretty consistent that they want to protect their publishers, no matter the downstream consequences. Banning ad blockers wouldn't be very different from e.g. forcing Google to pay link taxes, it's just directed at end users instead of Google. So I'd say a lot of people who want to protect European publishers are probably in favor of this.
dkiebd 1y ago
It’s in the interest of the media which is what allows those politicians to stay in power.
deleted 1y ago
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badestrand 1y ago
Traditional news media and print media are really strong in Germany (and for example Spain). They also made laws happen that limit how Google can link to news sites to prevent Google News from stealing readers. And they tried to make Google pay each time a user clicks a link that leads to a German news site. Also there are surcharges on printers (around $50 or so per piece), laptops etc because you might copy copyright-protected texts with it. And the German online news websites know they lose a lot of money to adblockers so of course they want to ban them.
- SpaceManNabs 1y ago
  anti free speech stuff like this is why i only bring burner phones into europe.

close04 1y ago

If the user is legally obligated to allow the ad on their device then the site owner must be legally accountable for what the ad does, for example if it's malware. No passing this on to the ad-network. Their code, their copyright, their malware distribution.

nothrabannosir 1y ago
Surprised to see this downvoted; I hadn’t even thought of it but it actually seems like an eminently reasonable take. The only logical conclusion, even. How could you argue otherwise? Would love to hear a down voter’s dissent because I’m not seeing it.
- layer8 1y ago
  It was probably downvoted because it is orthogonal to the issue. The website is (or should be) responsible for malware regardless of whether you are allowed to block it or not.
  - close04 1y ago
    Yes and no. Today the site should be held responsible. But if a law like this is passed then the site must be held responsible. This is what makes all the difference. P.S. Today a site owner is not responsible if an ad is malware, they pass it on to the ad network, who passes it on, and so on.
    - layer8 1y ago
      I disagree. In absence of the law, the responsibility is just the same. It‘s unreasonable to place the responsibility on the user.
- mindslight 1y ago
  It's ultimately still supporting this hostile paradigm wherein corpos legally dictate the processing your user agent is allowed to do on your personal computer, just also grasping at straws trying to bargain for some logically-consistent justice within that paradigm. In reality, this type of support only helps the corpos get the overall legal regime they desire, and then if any such lesser obligations actually do get imposed as well, they will just find ways to weasel out of them later.

deleted 1y ago

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9dev 1y ago

Sparing you both the reading time and the outrage: No, it is not.

Vinnl 1y ago
Actual answer from the blog post (tl;dr: maybe): > The full impact of this latest development is still unclear. The BGH will issue a more detailed written ruling explaining its decision. Meanwhile, the case has now returned to the lower court for additional fact-finding. It could be a couple more years until we have a clear answer. We hope that the courts ultimately reach the same sensible conclusion and allow users to install ad blockers.

fabian2k 1y ago

I can't judge the legal aspects. But a significant point here is that Adblock Plus allows you do pay them to get preferential treatment for your ads. I don't know how much this part affects the legal issues here, but for me that is quite a different situation than a pure ad blocker. There is a coercive element here, if your ad blocker is used widely enough and you take money for preferential treatment.

plusfour 1y ago
Is this a case for steel-manning? We know what this is about and what's at stake.
danudey 1y ago
I would be in favor of some kind of vetting program, where you (the ad network) commit to ensuring your (customers') ads aren't scammy, e.g. advertising on software download sites with an ad that looks like a download button. Much like spam, if your ads get reported and they're verified as being in violation, you get taken off the whitelist. Unfortunately, the main use case I have for 'ad blockers' isn't just blocking visual ads; it's blocking sometimes tens of megabytes of third-party javascript, tracking, analytics, etc., which is not just a huge privacy issue but also slows the page down tremendously. I remember working at a company which hosted and maintained, for a client, a forum for A-level testing students in the UK, or something of the sort. Over the years, they had insisted on us adding more and more to the site; third-party widgets, trackers, analytics, etc. Each time, we pushed back because of the impact to page loads, which leads to increased bounce rate, lower time-on-site, and so on, but they were the customer and had the final say. Then, suddenly, Google announced that it was going to start factoring page load times into pages' search ratings and, overnight, the client was frantically asking us how we could improve their page times because they were absolutely atrocious. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a lot of techniques came around to improve page load times while still letting you load your page full of noisy cruft and garbage, so now we have pages that load nice and quick and then, over the next few seconds, ruin themselves with trash that ruins the experience. "Articles" where every paragraph break is punctuated with another ad, pages with pop-up after pop-up asking if you want to join the site, sign up for a newsletter, check out our substack. This is the sort of reason why people gravitate towards a site's app, I suspect, but that just solves the loading time issue and prevents you from blocking trackers and ads.

ItsBob 1y ago

Ok, I'll bite... what if an "ad" on a website is a bit of javascript that mines bitcoins using my GPU? Does this mean I have to let it do this? What if it does it while showing me an ad for something at the same time? How does running a bit of software on my computer concern anyone other than me? I am not a lawyer and I haven't read the court's rulings but this seems assinine!

slightwinder 1y ago
> Ok, I'll bite... what if an "ad" on a website is a bit of javascript that mines bitcoins using my GPU? Does this mean I have to let it do this? Maybe. The Court has only ruled that the lower instance has to research the topic more, there is no clear answer yet. But it's really notable how incredible wild the judgment is. They are speaking about objectcode and bytecode, and which of them are protected by law or not. F**ing insane. It's not really clear whether they are actually talking about JavaScript, or if someone explained/understood it wrong, or if they probably mean WebAssembly? Is WebAssembly used for ads and handled by Adblockers?
- ItsBob 1y ago
  Genuinely, I won't care what the ruling is: my computer, my rules! :)
  - slightwinder 1y ago
    Considering we are moving towards a Cyberpunk-esque world, I wouldn't bet too hard on this. Greed finds a way.

kstrauser 1y ago

A friend raised what I consider a very valid point, that ad blockers are assistive technology for people with ADHD. They prevent the web from being an unusable mess of shiny distraction. And as such, in America, blocking ad blockers is a violation of the ADA. I’m being completely serious here and so is he. I can barely use the web without ad blockers. They make it possible for me to participate in online life. Remove them and you largely remove me. An attack on ad blockers is a direct attack on even the slightly neurodivergent, and should be treated as such.

ddmf 1y ago
I concur, some websites are so unusable now with the tiny portion of content surrounded by adverts.
Vinnl 1y ago
Yeah, that's also the main warning from the blog: the reasoning here is that adjusting how the website code executes on your computer is copyright infringement. The effects of that would go way beyond just adblockers.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  I strongly agree with that point, too. The notion that you can legally force me to run a bit of arbitrary code you transmit to me is absolutely bonkers.
  - dh2022 1y ago
    Nobody is forcing you to do anything. I am blocking your ads without your help.
- davorak 1y ago
  > adjusting how the website code executes on your computer is copyright infringement. I would be interested in how German law works to make this so, IANAL but pretty sure USA copy right law does not work that way. Modification for personal use is normally going to be 100% acceptable under USA copyright law. The DMCA Anti-Circumvention is one exception I know to this but it was and is a big deal for being an exception.

1a527dd5 1y ago

My question is how do you enforce anything like this? Cookie banners, the accessibility ruling, and now this. We've had to adhere to the rulings at work; but when I ask the lawyers; "how do you enforce this?" they say as long as you make a best effort you are fine. Wasted effort.

bilgi42 1y ago
they may ban particular extensions in regions, it should be doable for majority of public. it wouldn't be a complete ban, they can't really do that, but roadblocks will be enough to deter people
raverbashing 1y ago
You don't but good luck explaining to the Luddite boomers there
eddythompson80 1y ago
how do you think any ban works exactly? When prostitution is banned, do you think they install a cop in every bedroom to make sure there is no money exchange? When drugs are banned, do you think they put a device in every person that beeps if they ingest drugs and a SWAT team Air drops on their house? When a harmful business practices are banned, do you think a member of a regulatory body gets to attend or review every meeting and decision in every company to make sure that practice doesn't happen? When graffiti is banned, do you think a cop joins you when you buy a spray can until you dispose of it? When vaping on airplanes is banned, do you think they do a cavity search on every passenger to make sure no one is sneaking a juul and puffing into a towel? When dumping industrial toxic waste into rivers is banned, do you think we install 4k cameras on all rivers to track whats being dumped there? If this is your first time in a human society, welcome. Unlike math, nothing we do in society is a 100%, but we've been doing it for 10,000 years. You will demand "unenforceable" laws if you like them and scoff at ones you don't like. You already know how and will fit right in.

andy99 1y ago

Much like the old "piracy" nonsense, I wonder if banning ad blockers would be a net gain for advertisers (if it was possible). Personally I wouldn't go to a site that had any remotely intrusive advertising, even if I wanted to I get too distracted to read the real content. Less views means fewer network effects - for a small example, fewer people posting and discussing on sites like HN or reddit. And therefore less pull in of those unfortunate people who don't block ads, and less views overall. I don't know if it actually works out that way, but I do think forcing people to accept the full bore of your annoying site or not use it at all is a double edged sword.

visarga 1y ago
I would rather only see websites without ads, or that explicitly allow ad blocking. Websites with ads are shit anyway, clickbait and slop all the way down. The whole internet has been enshittified by the battles for user attention. Nothing of value is lost if we never see these sites again.

CalRobert 1y ago

Does this make curl illegal? Wget?

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
These gotcha questions are a waste of time. "If I close my eyes whenever I see an ad will I go to jail?" Obviously the one-click effortless and mainstream availability of adblocking is what they care about, not laborious methods accessible to just a few people with the ability and wherewithal. If tooling is written around curl for this purpose that becomes accessible and mainstream and popular, yes that tooling would be treated like this.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  I didn’t think it was a gotcha, I could see idiot politicians actually making cli tools illegal.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

anthk 1y ago

Will they ban Dillo too?

mediumsmart 1y ago

0.0.0.0 is a real adblocker. The whole of Germany can fit in there if need be. Full disclosure: I am German.

Kenji 1y ago
[dead]

zelphirkalt 1y ago

Germany is trying more and more shitty stuff and it wouldn't be far from the government (this one, or the previous one, or the next one) to implement something like this, whether aware of the consequences or not. Lobbyism here is very strong and they try over and over again their tired old lines "fOr ThE cHiLdReN!" and "but, ... but, ... tErRoRiSm!". We can also not trust in our courts to have sufficient expertise or listen to experts, when it comes to these things. We must stop them before they happen. It is scary to watch, because with Germany's slow bureaucracy, they probably only need to get such a thing through once, and then it would take years of effort of fighting against billions Euros lobbies by the people, because our politicians are so corrupt and bought by them. People would probably have to get to the streets in millions, which is unlikely to happen with "advanced" digital rights topics like ad blocking. Germany is very much in danger of becoming even worse of a democracy than it is already. I am not quite sure where I read it, but somewhere I recently read that Germany has moved down in democracy ranking to a tainted democracy. Which it is. If politics don't change soon, AfD will get even more votes next time around, and then Europe will have an enemy of Europe in its heart, which as well is the most populous country. Not sure I want to go further into the future of this imagination. Many countries in the EU or elsewhere, which are still democratic for the most part face similar challenges. I just wish people would finally punish these opportunists and criminals we have in our governments and political parties, by voting for something else. But I guess the average German person is too disconnected and too uninformed and eats it all up every 4 years, instead of voting for progressive parties, to bring some fresh air.

mulakosag 1y ago

Say what you say but EU/Europeans are overregulating everything with UK trying to end privacy. Regulations like USB C on all electronics is nice but these are not.

anthk 1y ago
UK is not in the EU. DIfferent issue altogether. But, yes, it's scary. As you said, USB-C for everyone it's fair. This is bullshit. You can't ban a text mode browser, or Dillo. What's next, enforcing an OS?

alpha_trion 1y ago

Ads have been an arms race for awhile now. If ad creators stop making overly intrusive, CPU sucking ads then perhaps people would be less inclined to use ad-blockers.

i_love_retros 1y ago
Even if the ad is 5x5 px, I'd still use an ad blocker because I dont want shitty ad companies knowing every site I visit. I also don't want malware. This world is becoming a fucking joke, ruled by crooked politicians who have their elections bought for them by corporations and billionaires. I would hope that people will rise up and take back control since it's our planet not theirs, but everyone seems too fucking stupid and happy just watching marvel movies.

thesdev 1y ago

I wonder how AI has survived Germany's seemingly strict copyright law.

kleiba 1y ago
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO... This is for the whole EU, not just Germany, but there's no reason why Germany couldn't employ further restrictions.

kleiba 1y ago

The day I cannot have my ad blocker anymore is the day I'll say goodbye to the world wide web.

bitpush 1y ago
I don't know how you can say this with a straight face. This is nothing different than "reddit boycott" or "politician x gets elected and I'm out of here" Sounds nice. But isn't remotely feasible
- kleiba 1y ago
  It absolutely is for me, but I'm probably twice your age and use the internet only leisurely. I don't do social media, I don't use a smart phone, so yeah, I'm certainly an edge case, but no internet would be fine for me easily.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    I'm totally with you on this one. And I was an early tech adopter, using a dialup modem (long distance!) to get access to Usenet news. If a site has ads, and I can't block them, I'm not using that site.
    - bitpush 1y ago
      The person I replied to didn't say they'll boycott a website, but rather "world wide web", as in the internet. If you take a quick look at their activity on HN, you can see they are a prolific submitter/commenter. I find it a bit amusing that someone's whos active than 99% of the people who frequent HN can just simply quit internet (and not an ad-ridden website).
      - kleiba 1y ago
        Make no mistake, just because I like to put in my 2cts, whether someone asks about it or not, does not mean that I cannot live without the internet. If yc had to close shop tomorrow, I'd survive. I also enjoy watching stuff on youtube, but if that was to go away, don't worry, I'd be fine. I'm not addicted, and already had a life before the web came along, so I'm sure I'd have one if it were to go away.

kleiba 1y ago

Why should I as a user get exposed to garbage that I don't care about in addition to the actual content I'm interested in? Well, one possible answer is that the content provider only actually provides that content under the condition that I look at the ads. After all, a lot of content providers are businesses and they don't like to give out content for free. My stance has always been that for 99% of the stuff I consume on the internet, my condition is that I can access it the way I, as the end user / customer, prefer. And if you as the provider insist otherwise, my reaction will almost always be that I won't look at to your garbage ads but instead I'll just go somewhere else for content. Or just read a book, ad-free [0]. [0] https://archive.is/KHPwt https://archive.is/KHPwt

kstrauser 1y ago
I’m sympathetic to the idea that someone has to pay if they want to keep the site online. It costs money to create the site’s content, even if the marginal cost to deliver it to a visitor is approximately $0.00. But there’s an astounding amount of laziness in their approach. Seriously, renting rectangles on a site is the only way to get paid by non-paying visitors? Hogwash. For instance, they could be running affiliate links to online stores. “We reviewed these laptops: click here and we’ll get a commission.” “But that compromises our integrity!”, they might counter. But so does renting out space to advertisers! I genuinely don’t see the honest version as, well, less honest.
- danudey 1y ago
  Most websites use ad networks, and typically have no idea which ads are being shown on their sites unless users complain about something egregious; as such, it tends to be the case that telling an ad network "here's a rectangle for you to show something" doesn't really affect a site's journalistic integrity. If a site that reviews televisions was contracting directly with Sony to show ads then yes, that's definitely an issue, but if they're telling an ad network to pick some ads then (typically!) that's sufficiently arm's-length. Meanwhile, affiliate links can be much more directly bad; use offer code SCAMTOBER for 25% off this thing that I can assure you I've tried and tested and given a fair review, and which will definitely not turn out to have been a scam. Click here to purchase this laptop that I was sent for free and rated 9/10 and I'll get a 5% cut of whatever you buy. I guess this is where affiliate programs through retailers are slightly more trustworthy; if anything I buy from your Best Buy link gets you a 5% commission then it doesn't really matter all that much which laptop you recommend because you're getting a cut no matter what I buy. As soon as Alienware offers you a 10% commission on that $3500 laptop, though, things get dicey.

atesti 1y ago

There is not much need for a company like the one selling adblock plus to springer etc. I don't see any court going after ublock origin and there is no reason that ublock origin would be threatened by this in any way. However, the actions from google with manifest v3 are a real threat, as well as any obligation to use real name accounts to access services like newspapers or youtube.

raphman 1y ago

The ruling (in German) is available online.¹ The supreme court actually has rejected most of Axel Springer's² arguments and limited the revision to a single question (AFAICT, IANAL): Are the news websites in question some kind of computer program (protected under Section 8 of the UrhG³). The supreme court argues that the lower court did not sufficiently discuss this question in their ruling. The supreme court explicitly notes that the lower court should also consider whether Springer actually has the sole rights to the 'computer program'. Some thoughts: a) As the supreme court mentioned, Springer might only own (exclusive) copyright to some parts of the computer program. It seems that they embed a lot of other JS code, e.g., Google stuff. This might mean that Springer needs to show that ABP actually modifies Springer's code. If ABP modifies e.g. AdSense code or the code of an open source library that Springer's websites use, Springer's copyright might not be infringed at all. b) In German copyright law, only works are protected that are created by a human author. (Obviously, the author can also use software to create a protected work.) Given that a lot of JS/CSS code is written by automated rules (or LLMs), rights holders might need to prove that an actual human wrote the code. c) As posted elsewhere in the thread: the German copyright law explicitly allows people with limited vision or with limited reading ability (not defined precisely in the law) to use assistive technology in order to transfer a work into a more accessible version⁴. So, ad-blocker companies might argue that they are just providing assistive technology to people with diagnosed ADHD. Copyright holders would then need to go after the users of such software. (A mentioned above: I am not a lawyer. Copyright law is complicated and interpretations are evolving) ¹)https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&Datum=Aktuell&Sort=3&nr=142511&anz=1142&pos=13 https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/do... ²) big German media conglomerate, not to be confused with SpringerNature ³) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/BJNR012730965.html#BJNR012730965BJNG004201377 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/BJNR012730965.html#B... ⁴) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__45b.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__45b.html

agent327 1y ago

Next the police will be knocking on your door, just to make sure you are not skipping ads in the newspaper. "M'am, that vase in front of your TV could be used to block ads. You are going to have to move that." Anyway, I see a great future for adblockers that render the whole page in a back buffer, and then copy it to a front buffer where it is masked by a bitmap that just has black squares where the ads used to be. That doesn't "change the original, copyrighted document", so it should be fine. And I presume putting that vase in front of your screen is still acceptable, even in Germany. If publishers want more control, they always have the option of downloading the entire page as a bitmap.

visarga 1y ago
This law is based on the idea that a restaurant patron should be forced to eat everything on their plate, or else it is infringing on the IP of the cook. "Sir, we made the salad with onions and you skipped them, we need to forcefully shove them down your throat"

wllhf 1y ago

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webspinner 1y ago

Thankfully, I don't live in Germany. However, I wouldn't be surprised if platforms like Google/youtube take more agressive moves to ban ad blockers after this. Kind of like the implementation of age verification crap that Youtube is doing.