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'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court
- __s 1y agoSeems like their argument would also apply to: 1. using antivirus software to infringe on copyright of viruses 2. using any bookmarklet 3. scratching out typos in a book you're reading 4. game mods
- hastily3114 1y agoGame mods are already illegal in Japan
- ActionHank 1y agoOpening devtools and changing things on any website that is not your own.
- h4kor 1y agoIIRC there has been a case in Germany where it was ruled that opening devtools is hacking and therefore illegal intend. A person found a vulnerability by looking at the website source (using devtools) and informed the company. They then sued him using the "Hackerparagraph" (§ 202c StGB) for use of hacker tools.
- xtracto 1y agoShit... sometimes I am so happy of living in my lawless 3rd world country. Between the USA crazy Nazism and Europe crazy GDPR and Germany's stupid laws. Apparently 1st world countries have solved all other problems and are splitting hairs looking for stupid things to legislate.
- immibis 1y agoYou literally just compared the GDPR to Nazism. Which, besides making me reluctant to take you seriously, also happens to be illegal in Germany, punishable by jail time. :) Comparing the USA to Nazism is allowed, since that actually is Nazism.
- card_zero 1y agohttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbereiten_des_Aussp%C3%A4hens_und_Abfangens_von_Daten https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbereiten_des_Aussp%C3%A4hen... "(1) Any person who prepares a criminal offence [Wer eine Straftat nach] pursuant to Section 202a or Section 202b by: 1. passwords or other security codes that enable access to data (Section 202a (2)), or 2. computer programs whose purpose is to commit such an act, manufactures, procures, sells, transfers to another, distributes or otherwise makes available, shall be punished with imprisonment of up to two years or with a fine. (2) Section 149 (2) and (3) shall apply mutatis mutandis." Not sure how this is twisted into opening devtools. "Among other things, criminal charges were filed against the Federal Office for Information Security, as the office allegedly violated the law itself." But were dropped. Sounds like this is a vague law that can lead to a lot of harassing intimidation, followed by cases being dropped.
- Izkata 1y agoSubstitute later parts with earlier parts they refer to and it's much clearer: "computer programs whose purpose is to" "enable access to data", when used "[to prepare] a criminal offense". I guess it depends on what the vulnerability was.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JKCalhoun 1y agoIn my youth when I was quite the "pirate", I used to tear the pages out of magazines I had purchased that had only ads on both the front and back of the page. (A kind of compression algorithm for which I got no patent, BTW.)
- atomicnumber3 1y agoThis is a mistake programmers often make. Our code of laws is not a proof, or a program, or a set of logical axioms. It's interpretations, often conflicting, of legislature. It also takes into account intent and subject matter and various other things. It doesn't matter that ad block is logically equivalent to bookmarklets. If elected judges determine it's illegal, none of these "nerd" defenses will work. The only defense is to vote in legislators who will pass laws protecting it.
- bevhill 1y agoLaw is the recorded decisions of those with power. There are ways other than legislation to create law that we're only just beginning to explore.
- Joker_vD 1y agoWhat? Executive orders has been around since forever, and has been one of the main sources of law until very recently (in historical terms). Unless you're alluding to something completely different.
- atomicnumber3 1y agoI'm not thrilled at the idea of trying to explore alternate methods to enforce laws.
- shadowgovt 1y agoCan you provide more information / clarification on what those other ways are?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago>If elected judges determine it's illegal, none of these "nerd" defenses will work. The nerd defense of "I will use technology to avoid being caught" does work, and it's the only nerd defense worth pursuing.
- Joker_vD 1y ago> elected judges Judges are not elected, in Germany at least. They are appointed.
- kro 1y agoLikely also the in-built Firefox privacy blocking.
- btilly 1y agoYour comment made me imagine someone writing a virus, then suing everyone who wound up with a copy for copyright violation. Is it absurd? Yes. On the other hand, absurdity has never slowed a lawyer...
- charcircuit 1y agoThose are all copyright infringement in America too. The final one has already resulted in many cease and desists and lawsuits.
- card_zero 1y agoReally! But what's the legal argument there? Nothing is copied, it's a mod.
- charcircuit 1y agoCopyright includes the rights for controlling the modification of the work.
- card_zero 1y agoIn what sense, though? Publishing a modified copy, sure. But why extend that to a thing-that-modifies-a-copy-you-have?
- miyoji 1y agoMarkers are illegal because I can use them to cross out words in books I've bought?
- charcircuit 1y agoI don't think there is any jurisdiction where markers are illegal.
- GeoAtreides 1y agois that really what OP's argument was about?
- __s 1y agohttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anti-graffiti-crackdown-bans-spray-paint-sales-to-minors-1.590533 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anti-graffiti-crackdown-bans-...
- card_zero 1y ago> computer programs are treated as literary works under the Copyright Act So this applies to published adblockers and things, I guess. You could roll your own, just like you could tear pages out of a book you bought. You could mod a game privately. If the adblocker-or-whatever is published, it's like publishing a mod to somebody's book. Like a script you point at an ebook that changes it. Is that considered the same as publishing a copy the book with small parts changed? Why? The article highlights the line in the German copyright act about exclusive rights to "the translation, adaptation, arrangement and other modifications of a computer program". I'm unclear on the scope here. I don't think this applies to people making edits to copyrighted programs in private.
- GuB-42 1y agoI am not sure about the legality of game mods. Most companies tolerate them, sometimes encourage them, as long is it is not disruptive. Cracks and cheats however are definitely illegal and companies often take action against people who write or use such tools, usually account bans, but there have been some lawsuits the game company won. Fundamentally, there is no difference between a cheating tool and a harmless mod, and many mods are baltent copyright infringement using assets without a license. But because mods are generally beneficial to the company, they have no intention to use legal means to stop them.
- shadowgovt 1y agoThis varies from country to country. In the United States, it's legal to modify your machine to interpret the programs running on it other than the way intended by the machine creator and the program author (Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc, 1992). But every nation has its own system of laws and the precedents of one aren't binding on another (and I don't, personally, know if the Galoob v. Nintendo precedent extends to modifying the data on a PC or only protects the far-more-complicated approach of intermediating between PC storage and the CPU). To my perception, the position of mods in the gaming ecosystem is mostly, for want of a better term, a "gentleman's agreement" or "gentleman's understanding." An awful lot of game devs got started by modding other games, and they feel more than zero empathy for the folks who are basically learning to be the next generation of developers, if not future employees. It's a bit akin to Adobe's position on cracked copies of Photoshop: they reserve the right to sue so companies can't just thumb their nose at their IP rights and use their product with no remuneration, but individual non-corporate users of pirated copies are, at worst, unpaid advertising for the product and, at best, future customers. Some game dev houses are exempt from this "empathy rule;" Nintendo is famously litigious (although even then, they tend to target projects that are, whether the developer knows it or not, in direct competition with Nintendo; AM2R puttered along happily for years until Nintendo decided to release their own Metroid 2 remake).
- unstatusthequo 1y agoI cannot even believe that is a question at all.
- amelius 1y agoWait, that means that whenever I'm looking at a billboard, somebody is getting money from me. Sounds like stealing by just obstructing my view. How do I get these filthy hands out of my pocket?
- sidewndr46 1y agoYou joke, but that is a real thing where I live. There are preserved view corridors guaranteed by law. But even if you don't have a view under one of those, you can sue if someone obscures your view of some select buildings. Those plaintiffs wins those cases, every time.
- lifestyleguru 1y agoOh god, I felt a ray of hope for a moment. Which place is it and what's the name of the regulation?
- npteljes 1y agoHungary also has this. We call it "panorama rights" somewhat confusingly, as in English, panorama rights refer to something else. In Hungary this right refers to homeowners. It says that it's illegal to obstruct someone's view in specific ways, for example, to build something that puts an overly large shade in an otherwise previously sunny yard. The newer building becomes legally questionable (even valid building permits), if it causes "unnecessary disturbance" to a homeowner's view. For something more hopeful regarding ads, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa . I wish this on every place I go.
- lifestyleguru 1y agoQuarrels about copyrights is one of the most favorite entertainment of Germans. Don't make mistake of engaging into this hopeless endeavour, and of course don't let them influence your local regulations.
- benoau 1y agoIf users are compelled to view ads than websites should be liable if those ads violate privacy laws or distribute malware.
- freilanzer 1y agoThat's a very good point.
- iamacyborg 1y agoIf they’re using a dynamic auction mechanism then you can fairly safely assume they’re violating European privacy laws.
- csdreamer7 1y agoDepending on the jurisdiction; they are.
- ndriscoll 1y agoOr funnel to fraud/scammers. But ad companies and publishers should be liable for those things regardless. The choice to "scale" by not vetting any of their business partners is theirs.
- b3lvedere 1y agoMy infrastructure is my infrastructure. If i choose not to pass certain data, then that is my decision. There is no way in which i can be forced to pass through certain data on it. Contracts and TOS may require access to certain data locations in order to function correctly, but this does not absolve them from enforcing it. Sorry, but my current DNS resolver does not work very well with certain data points that just want to show me ads :)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Mindwipe 1y agoIn Germany they would be.
- delichon 1y agoThis URL used to host an FBI recommendation to use ad blockers for personal security. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624 https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624 It's gone now. I wonder if that's a policy choice. Edit: It just moved to https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2022/PSA221221 https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2022/PSA221221 The FBI recommends individuals take the following precautions... Use an ad blocking extension when performing internet searches. Most internet browsers allow a user to add extensions, including extensions that block advertisements. These ad blockers can be turned on and off within a browser to permit advertisements on certain websites while blocking advertisements on others.
- mcv 1y agoThe FBI caring more about people's rights than the German justice system? That would be an interesting twist.
- delichon 1y agohttps://reclaimthenet.org/germany-rejects-us-free-speech-criticism https://reclaimthenet.org/germany-rejects-us-free-speech-cri... Germany is jailing people for memes, raiding homes over jokes, and fining pensioners for calling politicians idiots. The government calls it “fighting hate.”
- immibis 1y agoWe've seen what happens if you have completely unlimited speech. One time last century in Germany, and one time in the USA right now. Germany's going too far in the opposite direction now, though. I'm actually okay with the rule against insulting people as long as everyone knows that's the rule (note that you can't insult anyone, not just politicians) since it doesn't affect quality discourse yet it keeps low-quality discourse (the kind that dragged the USA into the mud) down. The way they're applying it to discussion about Israel is currently a problem. That's a separate law from the insult one. They're claiming that any criticism of Israel's actions is antisemitic hate speech, which is of course illegal. Note that supporting the principle doesn't mean I support the implementation. If it were up to me it would be only a slap on the wrist fine except in very severe cases (like organizing a hate protest) and I don't know what level of checks and balances would be enough to ensure the classification of "hate" doesn't devolve into what it has become.
- zeta0134 1y ago> The decision notes that this is not just about “changing variable data in the memory of a computer, but rather changing code created by the bytecode of the website ‘computer program’ as a form of expression of the website programming itself.” Everyone who actually writes software, meanwhile, and understands that code IS data, is collectively facepalming right now. I felt the tremors. Nevermind that almost since its inception, JavaScript has always been an optional component of the web, and my browser very well lets me turn that off. The ability to do so is critical to my security posture. That it also happens to remove distracting visual noise is a nice side bonus. Firmly, without reservation: if you deliver to me content A, I am under NO OBLIGATION to actually consume content B, merely because you included it in the same package.
- sidewndr46 1y agoInterestingly, if I use a 'browser' like wget I've basically transformed that computer program into what amounts to a non-program. Wget doesn't even have the facilities to run that Javascript. So it is possible that using wget in Germany is illegal?
- rickdeckard 1y agoI guess legally at some point you have to either execute or "decompile" that non-program, and the same violation would apply if you remove the ads ("violation of its exclusive right of modification"). The complex part here is that they don't sue you as the consumer, or consider the execution/decompilation illegal, but AdBlock as the tool which removes the unwanted content from it. In that interpretation the only legal way to consume the content is completely unmodified, and the seller built a business-model based on adding something that only he benefits from. Weird scenario...
- xigoi 1y agoGiven that someone was sued for opening the developer tools on a website, using wget would presumably constitute a death sentence.
- sgc 1y agoNext there will be AI overseers to monitor whether you flip past the ads too quickly while reading a magazine. We have technology to apply almost unlimited controls on people. The only thing protecting humanity (very feebly right now) is legislation that works at the service of human dignity. But we stand on a precipice, and we are slipping.
- igleria 1y agoA little bit tangential but: I hated while living in Germany that some movies were legally available ONLY with german dubs. While making the only alternative, piracy... risky.
- jnsaff2 1y agoI remember childhood in the 90s with german tv channels. It was a bit confusing when Roseanne and Kim Basinger had the exact same voice.
- sneak 1y agoGermany still hasn’t banned VPNs yet, so there are still non-risky options here for torrenting.
- igleria 1y agoI know that technically you can configure your torrent client to disconnect if by some reason the vpn connection dropped, but I was so paranoid about f*ing it up that I just accepted defeat. I think living there for 4 and a half years really changed me (still waiting on red lights while on foot even if the street is dead at 3 AM, for example).
- NitpickLawyer 1y agoThe proper way to do this is to use a seedbox (basically a VPS w/ lots of storage, in a pirate-friendly jurisdiction, that comes preinstalled with all the tools you'd need). It's weird that top AI labs have been caught torrenting stuff, when the solution is obvious, and doesn't leave traces (i.e. no meta IP ranges would have been leaked)...
- pu_pe 1y agoSo if someone attempts to run malware when I visit their page, I am legally obliged to let them run it? Absurd and absolutely non-enforceable.
- charcircuit 1y agoYou can instead have your browser abort and not show the page instead of trying to modify it.
- beej71 1y agoKinda sounds like hitting the "stop" button mid-load might be a copyright violation...
- entropi 1y agoWhile it is completely absurd, I don't see why it would be non-enforceable. They can very well enforce it. Here is one way to do it: they could take a page out of google's Web Environment Integrity proposal and make it illegal to serve any page within Germany unless the integrity is proven. Done. VPNs are problematic? Ban them. Seems very enforceable to me. Why do you think it is un-enforceable?
- tux3 1y agoWeb Environment Integrity was so heavily criticized at the time that it made Google itself backtrack. The same Google that forged ahead with Manifest V3. There is no realistic way the German government could get websites to implement an even worse version of that. The whole Web would simply become incompatible with Germany. So this would be trivial to bypass on a technical level, and unacceptable on a social level. Completely unenforceable indeed.
- entropi 1y ago> Web Environment Integrity was so heavily criticized at the time that it made Google itself backtrack. The same Google that forged ahead with Manifest V3. There is no realistic way the German government could get websites to implement an even worse version of that. I don't think this is a good comparison, though. Google cannot force people to use WEI -yet-. The government can. >The whole Web would simply become incompatible with Germany. I think the ad-supported web would just LOVE this idea and would become compatible with Germany ASAP. > So this would be trivial to bypass on a technical level I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, there will always be a way for the tech-savvy. But all the trivial ways can very well be blocked. > unacceptable on a social level In Germany, you cannot install security cameras in a building unless all the owners agree, on grounds of privacy. But the ISPs keep all of your traffic logs, law firms get these logs, and mass-send cease-and-desist letters using automated systems. This is also not particularly acceptable, but it happens everyday and looks like it is very enforceable. Lets not be naive and think this is unenforceable on the grounds of being "socially unacceptable".
- forinti 1y ago> For German publisher Axel Springer, ad blocking solutions are mechanisms that fundamentally undermine the company’s ability to generate revenue. So they want to change the law so that they can impose their business model on people? That's absurd.
- shadowgovt 1y agoTheir argument is that the law, as currently written, should protect their capacity to impose their business model (in the "If you don't like it, you don't get to read our stuff" sense). They may be right; it happens all the time that laws have unintended consequences.
- forinti 1y agoIf they want to be so protective of their content, they should put up a paywall.
- lyu07282 1y agoTheir purpose is to publish propaganda anyway so I don't understand why they would want to prevent anybody from reading their socially rotting filth. They want to have their nazi cake and eat it too it seems.
- gnfargbl 1y ago> Axel Springer’s argument is that when Adblock Plus blocks or manipulates its website code (‘computer program’) present in the user’s browser, that amounts to a violation of its exclusive right of modification available under § 69c (2) and its reproduction right under § 69c (1). A direct analogy here would seem to be a newspaper publisher arguing that if a reader chooses to fold up the newspaper into an origami duck, then the publisher's copyright has been infringed.
- sidewndr46 1y agoWouldn't using a microfilm reader also violate this right? I know lots of older newspapers were only available on microfilm when I was younger.
- scotty79 1y agoDoes using microfilm reader modify a computer software to circumvent their ability to make money off of the copyrighted content? If not, then it's fine.
- FollowingTheDao 1y agoThis is a true story. My mother would cut out many advertisements in the newspaper when we were young that she did not want us to see. She was the first ad-blocker and it scares me to think she would have been arrested for "piracy".
- charcircuit 1y agoFolding it into a paper duck is tranformative. Where a webpage, but without the ads is not transformative.
- card_zero 1y agoI'm happy to have ads replaced with ducks if that's what's required by law.
- card_zero 1y agoI assume (tell me if I'm wrong) this only applies to published origami duck versions of newspapers, because they're still copies. Or (?) published tools with the purpose of folding a specific newspaper up into an origami duck. Or (?) for folding any newspaper. Because, I don't know why, makes no sense. But anyway it doesn't apply to things you do privately. Or does it? Edit: a sibling comment points out that it's about editing the text, not folding the paper, but I still have the same questions: is it supposed to be a copyright violation (even if too small to sue over) if you cut and paste with a newspaper you bought, in private? And is a tool with the specific purpose to help you do this - "newspaper scissors" - also a copyright violation?
- shadowgovt 1y agoWhen considering law, it's always worth noting that the specific particulars are arbitrary and path-dependent. I think it'll be hard to draw any kinds of conclusions on this ruling (which doesn't find against ABP, merely kicks the issue down to the lower court for reconsideration, not unlike Oracle v. Google with regards to API copyrightability) without reading the whole thing. (One piece in particular I'm personally naive on is what German legal precedent says about consumer's right to modify consumed material. In the US, an author's copyright doesn't stop me, the reader of a copy I bought, from highlighting the book up, or crossing out passages I don't like, or tearing pages out, or turning the thing into a delightful booksafe. Naively, I'd believe ABP should be considered in that category of thing: an accessibility tool people use to modify the material they consume to better fit their needs. It doesn't modify the author's original work and it doesn't grant the reader the right to transmit the modified work to someone else, so I'm unclear on how copyright protection should be thought to enter in here, and I bet the text of the ruling clarifies).
- blacksmith_tb 1y agoYes, the particularly odd thing to my eye is the lack of redistribution. My locally modified page infringes even though I am the only one who has seen it. Odd too that many kinds of blockers don't actually rewrite the markup at all, they just don't fetch assets from blocked endpoints, which doesn't seem like 'modifying the code' somehow.
- was8309 1y agothis is my confusion also - it sounds like they are conflating "modify and sell" with "modify and consume"
- tensor 1y agoIf they ban ads then they must force companies to provide ad free options with realistic pricing. Ads are a hard line that I will not cross. Forced propaganda consumption is immoral.
- rkomorn 1y agoWho's forcing you to consume what ads?
- npteljes 1y agoIt's force, even if we are technically able to not consume ads by for example not using the internet.
- rkomorn 1y agoJust like what... you're forced to pay for the gas, electricity, or food you buy from someone else?
- xigoi 1y agoYou pay for food only with money. Nobody is forcing you to eat a rotten apple for every fresh apple you buy.
- rkomorn 1y agoYou're not paying for ad-supported content with money. You're paying for it with your eyeballs. It is literally what you have to pay for what you want to consume.
- npteljes 1y agoLike plastering the roads with billboards. We don't want that in the online space. Or, not in the meatspace either, if you ask me.
- 1y ago
- Workaccount2 1y agoWhat does the ad-free internet look like? People hate ads, they are annoying and provide virtually no value to the end user. People hate subscriptions, they cost money, are annoying to track, and gravitate towards being impossible to cancel. Donations are feel good, but no one donates. Conversion rates tend to be <5% of users. This topic always draws tons of outrage and anger over ads, but no one ever provides a solution besides "Users are entitled to everything on the internet and don't owe anyone anything. If you put content online, you are dumb to expect compensation, but I really love your work!"
- benterix 1y ago> People hate ads, they are annoying and provide virtually no value to the end user. [Today.] In the past (1980s, maybe?) I remember getting these fat volumes consisting of only ads (they had everything, from clothing to electronics to LEGO sets) and browsing them with my siblings for hours on end, and fantasizing about getting some of these. I believe the old style ads, where the website you visit serves locally hosted ads that are in line with the subject matter, not only are not frustrating but actually provide some value as they help you to discover more about things you are already interested in.
- HDThoreaun 1y agoThese are also blocked by adblockers though.
- benterix 1y agoNot necessarily though, it depends on the set up.
- obruchez 1y agoI know people who still love to receive ads in the (physical) mail.
- zb3 1y agoSo you expect compensation for your comment? If not, then here's your answer.. I want to read what others _wanted_ to write, not what they wrote for money.
- richwater 1y agoEurope is absolutely cooked with it comes to Tech. No wonder they fall further and further behind on the world stage.
- card_zero 1y agoJust because there's been no similar copyright case in America recently.
- hagbard_c 1y agoFortunately Europe is a lot bigger than Germany which, granted, does seem to be hell bent on becoming a rather large footnote in in history. Also German copyright law is seemingly modelled after one of the circles of Dante's Inferno so no surprise there.
- golbez9 1y agoIt's Joever for the EU
- bgwalter 1y agoThis is satire at its finest. Axel Springer's taboid "Bild" already blocks adblockers. Springer has a cooperation with copyright infringer OpenAI. Altman gets the Axel Springer Award: https://www.axelspringer.com/de/ax-press-release/sam-altman-wird-mit-axel-springer-award-2025-ausgezeichnet https://www.axelspringer.com/de/ax-press-release/sam-altman-... Large scale copyright theft is fine, individual consumers have to watch ads.
- Astro-Domine 1y agoMany adblockers work by blocking dns resolution, which does not alter code. It's like putting on glasses which block out certain words of a book you're reading. No alteration of the source material or host.
- Ekaros 1y agoI suppose if this comes to pass such glasses would be illegal. As they go against moral rights of the author.
- Astro-Domine 1y agoAnd then color accessibility settings such as filters would be illegal when reading any colored material since they would corrupt the author's intent. Does it apply to organic, individual differences in perception? Maybe when we all get a neural interface we can be calibrated as per some industry standard profile.
- mrbluecoat 1y ago> This affects all cloud-based applications such as computer games, standard software, SAP, etc. Court overreach
- empressplay 1y agoWouldn't their complaint be solved if ad blockers actually loaded the image (thus generating an 'impression') but didn't actually display it? Or displayed it with 0 opacity, or what-have-you? Then everyone wins except the advertiser / ad network.
- xigoi 1y agoThat’s already a thing: https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
- FollowingTheDao 1y agoWhat bothers me the most is that these websites do not even know what advertisements they are publishing. It is not like a newspaper where they would have some editorial control. Maybe I would not have a problem with this law if the websites were held responsible for the ads that contain malware.
- ukoki 1y agoOk so what if I run the website in a VM allowing full execution of ad/tracking code, and then stream the video to a "browser" that blocks out the adverts?
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoPreviously: Germany at it again: now trying to reopen the "adblockers are illegal" debate https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44934571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44934571 Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44912085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44912085
- eschneider 1y agoAre ads "blocked" if, instead of being presented to a human, they're redirected and read by an AI? Ad Reading As a Service.
- rickdeckard 1y ago> Axel Springer’s argument is that when Adblock Plus blocks or manipulates its website code (‘computer program’) present in the user’s browser, that amounts to a violation of its exclusive right of modification available under § 69c (2) and its reproduction right under § 69c (1). It's really interesting, because the addition of Ads is not wanted nor in any way beneficial to the consumer in this transaction, it just happens to be part of the business model of the seller that he now seeks to protect. Would the same apply if I buy a printer and modify it to use 3rd party cartridges? How about a company that could remove the addictive elements of cigarettes? If you want me to provide additional revenue on top of the transaction, then enter a contract with me. Just because you made it "free" doesn't mean you must be legally allowed to force me into some other consumption...
- HDThoreaun 1y agoThe addition of a payment is not wanted nor in any way beneficial to the consumer when they sign up for any subscription. Guess what, that’s how the content is paid for. You think they should just make stuff for free? The deal is you get the content in exchange for loading the ads.
- rickdeckard 1y agoThat's not what I'm pondering. On payment there is a clear transaction and a contract is made. Both parties agree on their duties for this exchange. In this case there is no contract, instead the selling party doesn't want a contract (paywall) to reduce friction, but is packaging the product with something the user is supposed to consume, and is now seeking to secure this ROI somehow.
- jocoda 1y ago>Guess what, that’s how the content is paid for. No. Just because you say that this is how it works does not make it so. That's total rubbish. Yes, advertising works. But it works on hope, that's all. If your hope costs you money, well that's on you.
- mr_mitm 1y ago
- sceptic123 1y agoWould an ad-blocker that put a black square over the screen where ads were placed, instead of rewriting the HTML, then bypass these laws?
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoAnti-circumvention laws are heinous. Governments look like absolute fools giving legal backing to this absurd premise that people have no right to modify or change the world about them. We can re-paint a car, rip a page out of a book. The idea that a page that's been copied over to us must sacrosanctly be viewed only as intended is absurd. Our speech rights must grant us a right to use tools to view and see things as we might dream, not merely as provided to us. The war within the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace has really really come to a roiling boil in the past couple years, with all sorts of states trying to declare control over how their populations connect to the global information system. In 95% of cases, I think it makes the state look like an absolute fool. And very rarely is it being done in accordance with the will of the states people, which is quite chilling!! So called democratic states, with elite capture, doing ill against the free thinking world. These are losers, professional idiots at best, an actively working against humanity for shitty shady hidden motives more likely alas. They are losers, and while this will likely only intensify & make the world tenser and worse and obstructed and jammed up, I have some faith that they will continue to lose their war, that JP Barlow's triumphalism over their shitty ways will keep proving out. These people are idiots, and powerless, and the courts trying to enforce these bad unenforceable dumb laws only illegitemizes the idea of governance. Which I believe strongly in, and want to be a force for good!! But alas, not here.
- mr_mitm 1y agoSo the law which they're using here says that only the copyright owner is allowed to modify or rearrange (whatever that means) a program. Couldn't you argue that an adblocker doesn't do that? I run the "program" of the web site host, which produces a DOM tree in the browser. Then I run a second program, the adblocker, which removes certain elements from the DOM tree before rendering. At no point am I modifying their code. At most, I'm modifying the browser's program, but since the browser has an interface to facilitate precisely that in the form of addons, we can safely assume that the manufacturer of the browser is fine with that. Edit: nevermind, I read the whole thing. The lower court argued as I did, but in revision they apparently found that the DOM tree is code generated by code and thus an expression of the program.
- rifty 1y ago> but in revision they apparently found that the DOM tree is code generated by code and thus an expression of the program. It would seem to me because user browsers are user-modifiable open source, there really shouldn't be any deep expectation by any web content producer that the generated code into DOM will be displayed in any user consistent manner. But I suppose if that was accepted rational, that means ad blockers should sit deeper in the browser (or at the network level) to avoid problems with countries that view personal modification as digital copyright infringement if the license doesn't allow it. That should secure ad blocking — until legislation specifically bans ad blockers as a function completely... It feels like it would be a big step to move from gatekeeping personal modification, to compelling code generation by the user from the framework of copyright.
- amelius 1y agoLarge scale theft and/or brokering of personal information, let's call that piracy too.
- Berniek 1y agoThis is going to be easily overturned. The ad blockers use the dns service and that is not part of what copyright protects. Modifying the results of dns requests is not protected by the copyright law itself. The argument could be made that giving "false" or "changed results" could be modifying the websites programming but you can't have it both ways, saying that your use of a free and public service is part of your copyright rights is surely drawing a long bow. It could be managed by implementing dns on the website (encrypted) to prevent normal dns from being used and hence blocked
- Havoc 1y agoThey decided the brits can’t have top spot for most shit internet legal framework
- miladyincontrol 1y agoRight, so can it be a violation of my site's content if a german politician accesses it without a crotchcrusher 5000 plugged in and functional?
- daurentius523 1y agoI begin to miss older politicians and judges. They at least did know that they don't know about 'computers'.