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Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

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Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#541

Post by hunter2_ »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #526
hunter2_ wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a site can't make me pay, and doesn't want it's content to be viewed unless I pay, simply don't send me the content. I'm fully on your side here, but to play devil's advocate, I think it's fair to consider an analogy like "if a restaurant doesn't want its food to be consumed unless I pay, simply don't serve me the food." You ask a server (of the web or the hospitality variety) to serve you the usual. The server…

But there is no expectation that a restaurant will serve you without paying. There is an expectation that a website will ask for payment/authorization if required, otherwise I'm not required to pay. Moreover, there is no way to know if the content you're requesting will require a transaction (unlike a restaurant where the prevailing expectation is payment for service, even if prices are left off the menu). It has alw…

Perhaps the better analogy, then, is that it's kind of like an unattended farm stand with an honesty box. Except the honesty box isn't visible on the way in, it's located on the back of the enter sign so you only see it on the way out, and the driveway is so long that surely you've already started munching on the fruit while starting to leave. Since I'm still on a food kick the whole expectation-of-paying thing is still clouding the analogy a bit, but at least this is closer to the situation than a sit-down restaurant analogy. Oh, and of course our hypothetical farmer needs to have primarily fixed costs, little or no variable costs based on the amount of fruit taken.

It may very well be more common for such hypothetical farmers to forego having an honesty box hiding where you don't see it until you've consumed the fruit, but for those who do choose to have one, are you stealing the fruit if you don't drop in a few bucks?

More on topic: I also think courts would see quite a difference in intent between using a mainstream graphical browser with an ad blocker vs using things like a text mode interface, a screen reader, a braille display, or libcurl. The former is like driving past the honesty box while chuckling; the latter is like not even knowing it was there.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#542

Post by somebodynew »

xigency wrote: post #54
richardknop wrote: post #4

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this alternative: disable JavaScript. It's fairly easy in any browser to create a list of websites to ignore JavaScript on.

If disabling JavaScript allows you to circumvent copyright access controls, you're right back where you started ostensibly violating the DMCA.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#543

Post by codedokode »

The reason why this is possible is because DMCA by itself is biased towards interests of copyright holders and therefore can be abused. You can always claim that some domain is used for protecting copyright and therefore blocking access to that domain as well as distributing software that can do it is clearly a violation of DMCA.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#545

Post by codedokode »

goodplay wrote: post #215
danarmak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC, the DMCA says that if there's some technological mechanism X that's used to enforce copyright, and a tool Y that is (or can be) used to circumvent X, then making or distributing Y is itself illegal (as opposed to the act of using Y to circumvent X, which is already illegal even without the DMCA). The DMCA then provides a notice-based method for 'taking down' online copies of Y. In this case, X is the Admiral te…

What does ad-blocking have to do with copyright circumvention or copyright enforcement? The only think on that list is the domain name. I'm certain that including a name in a list does not fall under copyright (ample precedent that backs it up). In the unlikey (and unfathomable) case that it is protected under copyright, I bet it would fall under fair use. Trademark law isn't relevant to an entry in a machine databas…

For example, the web page with copyrighted content can load a script from admiral's domain that would check whether a user is allowed to view the page or not. Adblocker is blocking that domain and therefore circumventing copyright protection scheme which is illegal under DMCA.

The people who invented this are really smart I must admit.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#546

Post by codedokode »

warcher wrote: post #444
goodplay wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does ad-blocking have to do with copyright circumvention or copyright enforcement? The only think on that list is the domain name. I'm certain that including a name in a list does not fall under copyright (ample precedent that backs it up). In the unlikey (and unfathomable) case that it is protected under copyright, I bet it would fall under fair use. Trademark law isn't relevant to an entry in a machine databas…

I think the argument would be that, say, the New York Times wrote an article, and that article included ads for their sponsor. This third party tool is making unauthorized edits to the New York Times' copyrighted material. I'm a hardline free speech dude, but I find it difficult to justify "We changed around your copyrighted work to remove stuff we decided we don't like." If you don't like ads, pay up or go elsewhere…

> We changed around your copyrighted work to remove stuff we decided we don't like.

That is totally ok. For example, if I record a video from TV and remove the ads is that a violation? I think it is not as long as I use this video for myself and do not distribute it.

Copyright laws should not regulate what I do in my house or on my computer. I should be able to modify any copyrighted work as I wish as long I am not redistributing it (and yes, I should be able to inspect and patch copyright protection schemes too).

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#547

Post by codedokode »

warcher wrote: post #519
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a hardline free speech dude, but I find it difficult to justify "We changed around your copyrighted work to remove stuff we decided we don't like." How? How can that possibly be hard to justify for anyone that even believes vaguely in the notion of freedom, much less someone "hardline"? Do you think I break the law (or ethics) if I take the ads insert out of a newspaper I buy without reading them? How about if…

I get in a lot of arguments with dudes who believe they have a right to stuff other people made without payment or consequence. The last one I remember is a bunch of DJs who didn't want to get permission to use samples. I find the arguments pretty spurious and it's best not to engage. It's their website. If you don't like their website, we got a whole other internet to enjoy.

It is their website but after I download the content to my hard drive it becomes my files and I can do whatever I want with them privately (as long as I do not redistribute it, claim authorship etc). That is how copyright should work, but of course the actual laws might be biased to the interests of some party. There is nothing new if you learn the history of human society, some groups of people always wanted to have more rights than others.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#548

Post by codedokode »

goodplay wrote: post #529
danarmak wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admiral's domain serves software that enforces access restrictions to copyrighted content. Including their domain in an ad-blocking list is a way to circumvent the restrictions. Whether distributing a list of domain names counts as distributing "tools" or whatever the exact language of the act is, I don't know. This other subthread contains a better discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14991624

I doubt failing to contact a server would circumvent DRM. Blocking their servers would only make their DRM scheme fail and prevent access to said copyright material. Using the DMCA to protect company's defective and flawed DRM scheme does not constitute circumvention. As such, I do not believe that DMCA's anti-circumvention laws are relevant.

They might use a scheme that would allow access by default and block it with a script from that domain. So blocking the domain becomes a circumvention (today I finally learned how to write this word).

Or that domain could be used to collect views stats for copyrighted content and make decisions based on that stats. Blocking this domain is obviously messing with copyright protection scheme which is illegal inder DMCA.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#549

Post by codedokode »

lloeki wrote: post #394
sbarre wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you understand the comment you replied to? The DMCA is not just about direct copyright infringement, but also about preventing the circumvention of technological protections for copyrighted content. No one is saying there was copyright infringement here. You can think that this is super bogus (I sure do) but make sure you understand the nature of what you're mad about. ;-)

What about this? - Host content A subject to copyright on site X - Devise platform Y on site Z whose claimed role is to check whether user has rights to access content A - Send DMCA on any list or apparatus that tries to block site Z on the ground that it would be a circumvention attempt of platform Y to unlawfully access content A - Piggy-back on platform Y to do some tracking/stat building about ad-blocking - Manic…

That is smart but the primary reason why that is possible is the copyright laws that are biased towards the interests of copyright holders.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#550

Post by codedokode »

jxramos wrote: post #237
vinylkey wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in that blog post, they state: "We asked them 24 days ago to remove functionalclam[.]com on the original commit." Their request is here: https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/1ba8d4afeec6d562... And was made by this account: https://github.com/dmcahelper So, they made a github account the same day they made the "request" with an account that in no way indicates where the request is coming from? The github p…

I wonder if folks could get sneaky and change the design from a literal url to a regular expression tailored to single out that url but would also include additional sites that are just gibberish and could be relaxed if useful sites ever do fall into the URL overlap. This might be a new line of research to craft regExs to filter out a specific string while also throwing out a bunch of sister gibberish strings that wo…

You probably did not understand the issue. The domain in question is a part of a copyrigth protection scheme. Blocking access to it is a circumvention of copyright protection scheme and it is illegal under DMCA. No, you cannot block hosts that are a part of a copyright protection scheme and you cannot distribute the software that does that.

How you block the domain - with a simple string or an automatically trained neural network - doesn't matter.

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