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DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

blog.getadmiral.com

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21–30 of 33 posts

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#21

Post by bitwize »

gergles wrote: post #4

The thing I found most hilarious about this is that the author of this post previously worked at Grooveshark, a company that was only remotely successful because they flaunted copyright the entire time they operated. That he's now using the DMCA (incorrectly) to protect his business model is the height of ridiculousness in my book.

That's a typical corporate stance to copyright: The rules should apply to everybody else but not me. Both Disney and Nintendo fought for looser interpretations of copyright law for themselves than they litigated against others, to name two examples.

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#22

Post by josteink »

23o3o9d wrote: post #17
quadrangle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next thing you'll be telling us is that you can play a European DVD in an American DVD player…

Haha. I have a beautiful hardware-based-region-unlocked bluray player sitting right here in fact. It works beautifully. One of my prized possessions from my spouse. I have no idea where she got it from.

> hardware-based-region-unlocked bluray player

Thanks for reminding me one of the reasons I could never bother to get a bluray player.

Regions? In the age of internet? Really?

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#23

Post by stordoff »

> We asked them 24 days ago to remove functionalclam[.]com on the original commit. / Their response seemed to indicate they would only take action if GitHub agreed.

That's your take on that interaction? To me, the commit comment reads as someone borderline impersonating GitHub. "has been reported to circumvent copyright access controls" - reported to whom, exactly? By linking to GitHub's policies, you suggest that it is GitHub, but A) according to your post did not report it until _after_ that comment, and B) a report to GitHub doesn't mean you can demand removal through alternative channels.

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#24

Post by jasonkostempski »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

How would one configure Adblock Plus to ensure Admiral's domains are blocked irrespective of whether EasyList capitulates? (Asking as a hypothetical, of course.)

Are you using Adblock Plus on purpose? It is no longer an ad blocking tool.

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#25

Post by dreae »

stordoff wrote: post #23

> We asked them 24 days ago to remove functionalclam[.]com on the original commit. / Their response seemed to indicate they would only take action if GitHub agreed. That's your take on that interaction? To me, the commit comment reads as someone borderline impersonating GitHub. "has been reported to circumvent copyright access controls" - reported to whom, exactly? By linking to GitHub's policies, you suggest that it…

Let's not forget that the commentor is named 'dmcahelper' with a profile description which reads 'Help all parties understand and resolve DMCA issues efficiently and effectively to minimize file and repository impacts.' And as far as I can tell the account's only activity has been to comment on EasyList.

Doesn't seem very borderline to me, looks like a blatant attempt to confuse the issue by pretending to be some sort of authority.

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#26

Post by mgbmtl »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

How would one configure Adblock Plus to ensure Admiral's domains are blocked irrespective of whether EasyList capitulates? (Asking as a hypothetical, of course.)

Are you using Adblock Plus on purpose? It is no longer an ad blocking tool.

For what it's worth, ABP's slogan is "Surf the web without annoying ads" and they've gone to court to defend that. (I stick to ABP for this reason, and disable the "display acceptable ads" option -- assuming that's what your rant is about?)

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#27

Post by tuupola »

dotBen wrote: post #18
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

How would one configure Adblock Plus to ensure Admiral's domains are blocked irrespective of whether EasyList capitulates? (Asking as a hypothetical, of course.)

and I'll answer totally non-hypothetically ;) Adblock Plus > 'Open the dashboard' > My Filters. add 'functionalclam.com', no quotes, which will be treated as a HOSTS entry to be ignored.

While you are at it, you could hypothetically add rest of the Admiral domains too.

https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/admiral-domains.txt

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#29

Post by y4mi »

danielhlockard wrote: post #12

I had no idea who Admiral was before, and I can't say I have a great opinion of them now. I'm sorry, but you don't get to control what I can and cannot ad block. This is mind blowing since Dan was the COO of GROOVESHARK which basically didn't care about copyright, at all.

at least we've got another uri to add to the adblock list now.

Re: DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

#30

Post by orclev »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #20
msimpson wrote: post #9

It's important to note that Admiral is making the claim that this domain is used as part of their platform which protects the integrity of paywalls, which in turn guards copyrighted material of their clients. Therefore, this would be a correct application of the DMCA according to 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 Subsection A specifica…

As far as I can tell, Admiral's code detects use of ad blockers, and puts a wall around the content in response. If you're not using an ad blocker, there's no wall, and the content is freely accessible. So in a roundabout way, they're effectively claiming that the ads themselves are the paywall. It's a clever argument, to be sure, but I'm not sure it's a reasonable one.

There's also a question about if the ads are collecting any tracking info or not. There's a specific exception to the anti-circumvention clause in the DMCA for anything that can be used to collect personally identifiable information. If the ads being shown are of the typical variety then it's perfectly valid to circumvent them per the DMCA.
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