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 qu

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