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> I'm a thief for protecting my PC from malware? Well, yeah. You're a thief for robbing content creators of their revenue. However, that's justified because yo

> I'm a thief for protecting my PC from malware? Well, yeah. You're a thief for robbing content creators of their revenue. However, that's justified because you're trying to protect yourself from Malware. You're sort of conflating two separate things. You may not be trying to steal, it may not be your intention at all, but you cannot deny that it is the end result of your actions. Actions which are indeed justified. Though, I suspect ad companies will find a way around adblock programs soon. It wouldn't surprise me if they came up with some sort of package an owner of a website could download, then install into their web directory. The ads would then be served locally instead of from easy-to-block 3rd party networks. This would make blocking ads infinitely harder, especially if you've never visited the site before. Your adblocker wouldn't know if the ad is a regular image file or if it's an ad since it's being served up locally.

jkh1ih72e8 12y ago
I'm troubled by the usage of terminology that have legal definitions that do not necessarily follow your usage. Specifically, "thief", "robbing content", "steal", etc. Those words seem to me to imply depriving someone of something with monetary or otherwise significant value. I am sure that copying bits is not equivalent to stealing because it does not take something away from someone. Even ceding that point, I do not believe the publisher stating terms linked from publicly available documents binds me to a contract, ethically or legally. If it's a site that I've signed up for, and require an account to access the content on, then I am more sympathetic to the argument. But the internet works because things are open. Publishers know this -- they know they cannot paywall their content (generally). So they want the benefits of the open community (discoverability, traffic, etc.) but they want it on their terms. Pretending that one implicit contract (I serve content you will also request the ads I tell you to look at) is more important than another. If you want openness on the internet, you have to accept it when things don't favor your business interests.

jkh1ih72e8 12y ago

I'm troubled by the usage of terminology that have legal definitions that do not necessarily follow your usage. Specifically, "thief", "robbing content", "steal", etc. Those words seem to me to imply depriving someone of something with monetary or otherwise significant value. I am sure that copying bits is not equivalent to stealing because it does not take something away from someone. Even ceding that point, I do not believe the publisher stating terms linked from publicly available documents binds me to a contract, ethically or legally. If it's a site that I've signed up for, and require an account to access the content on, then I am more sympathetic to the argument. But the internet works because things are open. Publishers know this -- they know they cannot paywall their content (generally). So they want the benefits of the open community (discoverability, traffic, etc.) but they want it on their terms. Pretending that one implicit contract (I serve content you will also request the ads I tell you to look at) is more important than another. If you want openness on the internet, you have to accept it when things don't favor your business interests.