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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cracking code/verification systems on your computer is also code running on your system, there are literally people in prison for running the code that cracks a program, BECAUSE of copyright laws.
So I’m not sure your setting how bad it already is for users.
(What should be, is not what we are talking about, for the record)
Thanks, that’s a super helpful explanation :)
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.
lining the pockets of copyright lawyers
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?
German copyright laws?
I know nothing of copyright laws in Germany.
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 …
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.
Good thing my computer isn’t in Germany. I will stop using web browsers before I disable ad blockers.
I wonder how much money Google bribing Germany to make it happened ?
Bribing Merz*
EU please stop, you were suppose to save us from American Tech abuse not join them.
It was never about freedom, but about restoring control of European governments over their citizens’ online presence and their data, so that everything they do on the internet is subject to European laws and regulations, not American ones.
And much of that driven by lobbyism by the same media empires who are trying to get rid of ad blockers.
You can make ad blockers illegal, but you can’t actually enforce it unless you have a dystopian totalitarian government with a secret police to track down anyone using one. Does Germany have that?
Had that
longer in the eastern part
Working on it
Funny how this thread isn’t over-run with copyright shills standing up for the poor journalists. Maybe once the law needs to be changed?
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.
We are all criminals on this blessed day.
I’m gonna modify Springer’s websites so hard, they’re gonna resemble a Picasso’s painting
That would be totally unenforceable, imo.
The copy of the web browser is mine, the data I’ve downloaded is mine, I can do what I want with it.
How can it be illegal? Makes no sense whatsoever.
I know I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this because everyone here despises ads, but I can see an argument for it. I don’t know if it is legaly sound, but morally, it boils down to the fact that you are literally using a service without paying for it. The website is offering you a product and the payment is ads. If you don’t want to pay for it, don’t use it, otherwise you really are just stealing it (even if that “stealing” costs very little to the site). I personally use an adblocker and agree that ads on most sites are obnoxious, but I also feel like people make adblockers out to be completely black and white, which they are not.
‘using a service without paying for it’ alright. do you want us to sign contractual agreements before visiting websites? Most companies want people to use mobile apps these days because of the legal implications of editing those apps. The ads are baked in.
it comes down to the philosophy of internet systems you ascribe to.
I’d like to see your reaction to that television patent that forces people to stand up and clap after the advertisement.
I’d like to see your reaction to me placing sticky notes on my physical screen over the advertisement’s location such that I never perceive the content.
I’d like to see you kneel, subordinate human worker. Do my bidding. Watch my ads. It’s the moral thing to do.
I’m not advocating for you being forced physically to watch ads, I’m saying that as it stands, ads are the payment method and you actively blocking them means you’re not paying for what you’re using. I’m not criticising people for that, I’m simply stating a fact. If everyone on the internet was to use adblockers, most of the web would die out, and first to die would be actually useful sites that provide helpful information that they invested time and money into making, such as news, review sites, etc. Perhaps the threat of adblockers itself is benefitial for the internet as it might force websites to find alternate, better payment methods, but I don’t see what you could replace ads with since people won’t be willing to pay a monthly subscription for every site they visit, and most people won’t pay for donations if you try a donations based model.
If everyone on the internet was to use adblockers, most of the web would die out
Websites existed before internet ads came about, and while it may be true that most would die without ads I’d be happy to see them go because the vast majority of websites have no value and only exist to try and make a few bucks off ads.
Hosting for most websites these days is virtually free. For about 80% of mine I only have to pay for the domain names, and I have no desire to serve ads to my visitors under the guise of covering costs.
The alternatives are directly charging for access to a service, or providing it for free and relying on donations or payment just for extra/bonus features/content. These methods are very successful when something is actually worth paying for.
Hosting costs heavily depend on the type of service, YouTube’s costs are very much not negligible, but it is true that for most sites it is very cheap. But hosting costs aren’t the only cost, many sites provide useful reviews, news, or testing that costs them money to produce, which they pay for with ads. Yes, some sites survive using alternative payment methods, but I’m skeptical that this can scale to the rest of the internet. My fear is that we’ll end up in a situation where 90% of the internet is just YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and other giants and people get all of their news, reviews and other information from those sites, which I think is worse than having ads.
My fear is that we’ll end up in a situation where 90% of the internet is just YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and other giants and people get all of their news, reviews and other information from those sites, which I think is worse than having ads.
This is pretty much already the case though. And they all have plenty of ads despite being incredibly profitable through their paid offerings.
the types of ads that are being blocked are effectively a type of malware
Ads that hide the content, ads that hijack your navigation, unwanted ads that consume your bandwidth which may or may not be on a paid plan, ads that will slow down your device, increase battery usage, or plain crash the site you’re trying to see, all of these are just malware. There’s no excuse for malware.
For a time, adblockers had a provision to allow non intrusive ads. The mere idea is so dead that the option doesn’t even make sense anymore.
It’s ilegal to photograph people in Germany but it will be fully legal to gather everything about their psyche to serve them ads
The server is sending me data and I’m choosing what program I’m using to interpret that data. That shouldn’t be illegal, regardless of the purposes of the data.
How? Simple. A parliament of sort writes the law, it gets accepted. Then, the thing, whatever it is, is illegal.
It have no bearing on your ability to use the thing, of course. However, people providing the thing, people that are found out of using the thing, and people that facilitate using the thing are now easier to arrest.
deleted by creator
So much for Europe being more progressive. They’re shilling for corporate on par with the states.
Germany, progressive? Have you ever lived there? I’m amazed they even use web browsers enough to notice now, compared to their fax machines.
Health care here still uses fax machines.
