- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34873574
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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.
I wouldn’t worry if that’s their argument: you can modify whatever copyright-protected work you wish as long as you don’t redistribute it, otherwise taking notes in books or using an equalizer when listening to music would be copyright violations. Surely you can do the same with the programs you run on your computer (also regarding computer programs, live patching is a thing).
That said, copyright law has been so absurdly twisted and stretched (suffice to say it was born to protect authors and it now protects megacorporations’ profits) that it’s worth to keep an eye on this.
PS: You may want to take a look at Axel Springer’s newspapers/brands
Maybe it doesn’t matter legally speaking, but as a software engineer I would object when someone says HTML/CSS is a computer program. It just is some specially formatted text that is interpreted by browsers (which are the actual programs here).
Isn’t every high level programming language just a specially formatted text, that is interpreted by the compiler? Now for C you could say it is compiled into machine code, and the machine code is then the actual program. But what about Java using the JRE or Python and other script languages? That seems kind of similar to what browsers do, from my limited software understanding.
You could make that argument for interpreted languages, I guess. But still I would say there is a difference between those languages and HTML. HTML just describes the layout of a website and CSS describes how this layout should be presented exactly. What I consider a programming language (and output a “computer program”) can do stuff like perform calculations, follow some control flow (e.g. conditions, loops, etc) and can handle user input/create output dynamically.
Anyway, I’m just here to argue against people making my ad blocker illegal 🥴
This is my *well akchually" moment of the day: CSS is technically turing complete and thus should be counted as a programming language
True, you can technically compute anything in CSS with enough hacks—but if your boss asks you to implement a sorting algorithm in CSS, it’s probably time to question their sanity. So I acknowledge the “well akchually”, but still stand by my previous point😅
PS: You may want to take a look at Axel Springer’s newspapers/brands
And “taking a look” here means blocking them all so your poor adblockers don’t need to bother…
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheBlockList/Blocklist/master/axel-springer
Funnily there was a recent court decision ruling that a cheat module for the PSP is not a copyright violation as it is not modifying the code, just the memory of the device.
German article: https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/i-zr-157/21-bgh-zur-zulaessigkeit-von-cheat-software-sony-psp-datel
Also there is a very simply solution to this problem. They could just provide a static HTML page. But this would go without all the tracking and dynamic ads and would be privacy friendly.
At least this time they cant argue with §202a the “Hackerparagraf” because an adblocker doesn’t help you access more data. It actually helps you access less data.
PS: You may want to take a look at Axel Springer’s newspapers/brands
No, you don’t 🤣🤣 if some company thinks they can dictate me what i see online, they can go where the pepper grows 😎
Axel Springer is a huge POS and professional liar.
What the fuck is going on with European politicians right now?
This time, it’s judges, not politicians.
Not that this makes it any better, though. German judges tend to be a very special kind of crazy.
Previously, this claim was rejected by a lower-level court in Hamburg, but a new ruling by the BGH found the earlier dismissal flawed and overturned part of the appeal, sending the case back for examination.
To me it sounds like there was some formal mishap and that the case is back to square one, from where it is likely to be rejected again. I don’t see evidence of any crazy judge this time :)
To me it sounds like there was some formal mishap
No. This special Hamburg court is known to be very corp friendly. That’s why all the corps who have trouble with freedom on the internet go there to try and abuse the law.
In their grounds for the judgement, they have once again displayed an utterly insane understanding (or lack thereof) of computer technology, as typical for people employed in the German legal sector.
I wouldn’t trust them any further than I could throw a barrel of paint. (before the judges drank it)
It’s always been this way. If you have the impression that Europe protects the little guy against those evil tech bros… Well, think about who would have told you that and consider that this is a media empire suing a tech firm.
You can see on Lemmy how it goes. The copyright industry always wants more far-reaching and harsher laws; currently to “protect the poor journalists” from AI. In the US, the constitution and free speech culture with its fair use mandate keeps that in check. Europe proudly doesn’t have that.
Note how Germans here blame judges for applying existing copyright law as intended instead of demanding better laws.
Here’s Section 14 from German copyright law:
The author has the right to prohibit the distortion or any other derogatory treatment of his or her work which is capable of prejudicing the author’s legitimate intellectual or personal interests in the work.
(This is just to illustrate what the law is like. The media is making a different argument.)
Axel Springer says that ad blockers threaten its revenue generation model and frames website execution inside web browsers as a copyright violation.
So it’s my fault Axel Springer decided to generate revenue from ads rather than other sources, such as subscriptions/paywalls? Fucking lol, sounds like someone chose the wrong business model then and something they should be discussing with their customers (of which I am not one).
Colonialism 👍
Ad blockers 👎
