So what happens if the ad blocker is built into the browser?
And what happens if a user modifies the Dom by hand using dev tools?
What about DNS blocks?
The copy of the web browser is mine, the data I’ve downloaded is mine, I can do what I want with it.
maybe in the future a service offers a flat monthly fee to not have any ads and distributes the money to all of the content platforms that would otherwise show ads. basically it’s like a little government taxing users and giving the money to the capital owning class all over again
I speak German legalese (don’t ask) so I went to the actual source and read up on the decision.
The way I read it, the higher court simply stated that the Appeals court didn’t consider the impact of source code to byte code transformation in their ruling, meaning they had not provided references justifying the fact they had ignored the transformation. Their contention is that there might be protected software in the byte code, and if the ad blocker modified the byte code (either directly or by modifying the source), then that would constitute a modification of code and hence run afoul of copyright protections as derivative work.
Sounds more like, “Appeals court has to do their homework” than “ad blockers illegal.”
The ruling is a little painful to read, because as usual the courts are not particularly good at technical issues or controversies, so don’t quote me on the exact details. In particular, they use the word Vervielfältigung a lot, which means (mass) copy, which is definitely not happening here. The way it reads, Springer simply made the case that a particular section of the ruling didn’t have any reasoning or citations attached and demanded them, which I guess is fair. More billable hours for the lawyers!
[Edit: added "The way I read it, coz I am not 100% sure, as explained later.]
and if the ad blocker modified the byte code (either directly or by modifying the source), then that would constitute a modification of code and hence run afoul of copyright protections as derivative work.
Insanity - modifying code that runs on your machine in no way is even remotely related to copyright.
I wouldn’t call it fair, this is a clear cut case of copyright law abuse and they shouldn’t be able to make dumb stuff up and waste everyones time. This shouldn’t even be a case.
The company is also shady: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE
Honestly, a lot of modern copyright law is very shady. You can get in major trouble for ripping a CD or DVD? That sounds insane. And what about not being allowed to repair your own tractor? Do you remember the baby dancing to some music, that was then DMCA-ed away?
My favorite is still the absolutely bonkers almost 100 years on copyrights. That has absolutely nothing to do with “the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” everything with lining the pockets of copyright holders.
That’s why I’m rooting for LLMs to destroy copyright completely. Haters gonna hate but copyright is so broken the best path forward is to completely destroy it and start over.
Back in the 90s when the current iteration of copyright laws were being passed, many lawyers disdainfully referred to the act as the ‘Mickey Mouse Copyright Act’ In no small part because Disney was such a huge driver behind it. They did everything, and I mean EVERYTHING possible to delay the release of their IPs to public domain. There is a reason why the earliest iterations of Mickey Mouse coming out were such a big deal. Did you know that if they didn’t act like assholes back in the day, and pre-70s copyright were still in effect, Mickey and Minnie Mouse would be fully public domain as early as 1984?
Honestly every law usable to keep a business working that would fail otherwise is shady. Other than preventing (literal physical) theft, robberies and murders.
Especially if it limits your freedom to do whatever you want that doesn’t involve stealing, robbing, killing, raping, putting stuff on fire …
lining the pockets of copyright lawyers
If what manxu said is true it might be both courts agree its clear cut. It sounds more like a pull request getting rejected because of quality issues. “Fix it and resubmit. We don’t want this happening again”
I’ve learned courts have a lot of jargon and procedures that don’t make sense on the surface. some things that sound bad actually are for your benefit and it’s best to get a lawyer to translate.
Thanks, that’s a super helpful explanation :)
The “owners” of our world want us to be passengers, not drivers. They own the carusel, and we rent our rides.
They say we have no skin in the game. Truth is, SKIN is ALL we have in this game. We must have assets in the game as a birthright to make it worth playing in good faith. If most are landless and assetless, sorry, the game sucks. That means untill we get the rules that protect all of our interests, as opposed to protecting massive wealth accumulations at everyone’s expense, we will ignore the rules, the norms, decorum, civility, etc.
If the hoarders break the social contract repeatedly, like they have since 2008, it takes people some time to internalize and digest the fact of what it means for none of us to be bound by a social contract. Once people catch on, there will be hell to pay.
So basically its “we get to decide how data is processed on your hardware when we send it down the pipe”. Somebody should explain server/client roles to these clowns.
It should/would then also be illegal to block virus/spyware delivery, or everyone’s favorite, 50 porn window pop ups. The latter was “fixed” by browsers maybe 10 years ago.
I’m gonna modify Springer’s websites so hard, they’re gonna resemble a Picasso’s painting
Dumbest argument I have ever heard, this is the equivalent of someone gifting me a book and I am not allowed to annotate, redact, highlight, or rip pages of it because of copyright. That makes zero sense, how did it even go to court?
With the recent insults to privacy (including E2E encryption) and the pro-corporate legislation, has Germany lost its way? Seems like newer generations are forgetting the lived experience of the Stasi. Also, I feel that pro-tenant legislation is at risk.
Update: the top comment is the best; don’t read my bullshit.
Axel Springer says that ad blockers threaten its revenue generation model and frames website execution inside web browsers as a copyright violation.
This is grounded in the assertion that a website’s HTML/CSS is a protected computer program that an ad blocker intervenes in the in-memory execution structures (DOM, CSSOM, rendering tree), this constituting unlawful reproduction and modification.
This is complete bullshit thought up by people who have no idea how computers work. It’s basically the failed youtube-dl DMCA takedown all over again. The (final?) ruling basically said that website owners cannot tell people how to read their websites.
BTW, Axel Springer products are the equivalent of FOX in America and they are often embroiled in lawsuits against them. Just saying.
This would make even a dark mode extension something illegal.
Ad blockers do literally the reverse, they don’t inject anything, they sit on the outside and prevent unwanted resources from loading.
Also it’s fully legal for the end user to modify stuff on their own end. And the information in the filter about the website structure is functional, not expressive - no copyright protection of function.
To claim copyright infringement for not rendering a website as intended due to filters also means it would be infringement to not render the website correctly for any other reason - such as opening the website with an unsupported browser, or on hardware with limited support, or with a browser with limited capabilities - or why not because you’re using accessibility software!
Agreed. By their logic, it would be illegal to write on a newspaper or cut parts out of it because that’s not how the copyright holder intended it lol
They also own Politico and Insider/Business Insider. Feel like too few people are aware of that.
Oooh, that’s why my comments get deleted on business insider when I rant about the inflationary use of “Deindustrialisierung”. They can go fuck themselves.
I think they do understand what they are doing. Just like with modifying a “protected” program locally, a native one. They are making laws about what you can and can’t do, and outlawing tools allowing you to do that.
Honestly until it’s possible to make laws forbidding you to do something that doesn’t violate anyone, such will be made. If you can spend N money if forcing something through markets, and a bit less than N if lobbying for a law, then you’ll do the latter.
Anyway. The problem is in the Internet and the Web as things which encourage this behavior.
What a shit website and article. At least post the one from Mozilla themselves.
The case is not just blocking adblockers: the issue is that Adblock Plus specifically charges companies to let their ads go through. That is one of the main concerns.
Even that shouldn’t be illegal. It’s shitty, but it’s still too far
What should be illegal here is the kind of misinformation, if you permit some ads and allow others, you’re an advertising agency and should be upfront about it. If your whole business model is “I hide ads” but you only hide those ads that didn’t pay you, that’s false advertisement.
Sure, but that gives end users standing to sue, not these guys
I thought there was a reason why they sued Adblock Plus and not the vastly more popular uBO. I thought it’s just because they are a company (possibly German). But this makes much more sense.
This article is FUD and I suspect Mozilla’s is at least significantly less so.
It doesn’t matter what Adblock plus is doing, it is perfectly legal, there is no case here. If a verdict affects adblock plus it will affect all browsers. No matter what they claim editing html files on the client side is not a copyright violation.
Great, but how could they possibly enforce it? It’s infeasible.
As long as they can reduce the adblock usage, it is a win for them. 100% success is not the goal. Right now there is nothing stopping everyone from using some sort of adblocker (0% revenue is possible actually), which must be scary.
Will they sue Dillo next, because it looks like this there? 👉👈🥹
Btw, they lost in this already what, 7 times?
This is truly dystopian. A ruling in Springer’s favor here could imply that modifying anything on a webpage, even without distribution, would constitute a copyright violation (EDIT: only for material in which the copyright holder does not grant permission for the modification; so not libre licensed projects). Screen readers for blind people could be illegal, accessibility extensions for high contrast for those visually impaired could become illegal, even just extensions that change all websites to dark mode like Dark Reader could become illegal. What constitutes modification? Would zooming in on a website become illegal? Would translating a website to a different language become illegal? Where does this end?
This needs to be shot down.
New ubo feature: if page does not grant permission to block ads then entire page is blocked.
When I come across a paywall that is not circumvented by simple script blocking I don’t even bother to try anymore and I remove these suggestions from my feed.
So far they have just re-opened the case for re-examination, on Springer’s behest. Yes, German corpos can sue as well.
Considering RIAA’s takedown of youtube-dl failed so miserably - argued in much the same way as this one - I think this case has little chance of even partial success. (edit: slight correction)
In any case, it will take years to get results. Until then, nothing changed.
Dystopian, yes
Also Fascist
Something we never want to see in German politics in particular
I don’t see a reason to have a preference for a specific geographic region to not be influenced by fascism. Fascism should not be instituted anywhere, in any scenario. Unfortunately, it’s on the rise globally, and I’d personally prefer it not be present anywhere at all, not just in an area in which it has had previous influence.
It’s like cancer.
It’s never good. But when it’s already taken hold once, you want to be extra vigilant.
Right? It’s especially worth at least a second or even third glance in places that have a historical predilection to metastatic fascism.
Wouldn’t it make browsers illegal? They’re modifying the html code in order to present a webpage that is useful to the end user.
Also, wouldn’t this ban also potentially kill or at the very least cripple FOSS too? And what about browser forks like LibreWolf or Icecat?
Because I could see this law overriding rights that basically all FOSS licenses grant to modify something as long as that modification, and the source code in general, is still freely available.
No, copyright holders have the right to provide permission for modification and distribution of their copyrighted material. That includes providing conditions for that permission, such as requiring the derivative to hold the same license (like GPL). This is a case where the copyright holder is not explicitly providing those rights, so it is a completely different scenario.
But ad blockers don’t distribute derivative materials.
It’s like saying you can’t distribute a stencil to cover up things you don’t like to see in a book.
Correct, this case (as far as I’m aware) is only about modification. I simply mentioned distribution and derivative works to talk about libre licenses like GPL being different than what the court case is about
AFAIK, this is unlikely to lead to a ban on ad blockers. Worst case is probably that the judgment will imply some way to deliver ads that is illegal to block.
In any case, there are exemptions for certain assistive technologies. Those might not be much affected.
