Ad blocking is under attack

Mismatching or contradictory incentives.

> However, your reward for successfully armchair-lawyering that may be a full-on Federal lawsuit.

I assume Github has a whole bunch of non-armchair lawyers.

But this is indeed the problem with the whole system, it comes down to who can pay the legal bills.

It seems obvious to me that Easylist is neither "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access", "has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent", nor "is marketed.. for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access."

But it could take a whole lot of legal fees to determine that in court, and as we saw in Oracle v Google, the courts don't always decide what seems obvious to us. For better or worse, any sane person or entity wants to stay out of court regardless of whether their lawyers think they have a great case. Unless they have a whole lot of money to burn.

At the least, I think Github should make it's policies clear about what it's doing. If they say a DMCA takedown notice must "Identify the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed" (as the law indeed says), they should not take action to complaints that don't do this. If they want to respond to other types of complaints, they should say so, and explain how. (And ask their lawyers how it effects their liability under DMCA, if at all).

Github appears to be trying for transparency with their docs and practices on DMCA, which is great and important and greatly appreciated. This is one area where it could be improved. Responding to DMCA takedown notices that are not in fact DMCA takedown notices and do not follow Github's own published instructions/requirements for DMCA takedown notices (cause they aren't DMCA takedown notices)... is not transparency. The DMCA regime has plusses and minuses; mis-educating people about the DMCA law doesn't help us evaluate what these may be in order to be engaged citizens.

Perhaps, but I think it's important to note that libdvdcss is perfectly free software.

> Is there any elaboration on what "effectively controls access" means

Apple Inc. v. Psystar Corp.[1] involved circumvention of a system that "effectively controls access" to Mac OS X, preventing it from being installed on non-Apple hardware.

Apple's anti-circumvention system is (in part) that some of the important system binaries are encrypted, the kernel transparently decrypts them when they are executed.

The key isn't secret (in fact it's a constant that hasn't changed in 10+ years), but it is only distributed inside the SMC chip on the main board of a real Mac.

There's no question that encryption is generally an effective access control method, it can't be circumvented without either having the key or breaking the encryption system in use.

The court found that regardless of how trivial it was to obtain the key, the fact that it was encrypted made it "effective":

> Psystar contends that Apple's anti-circumvention technology was ineffective because the decryption key for circumvention is publicly available on the internet. This argument fails.

> "The fact that circumvention devices may be widely available does not mean that a technological measure is not, as the DMCA provides, effectively protecting the rights of copyright owners in the ordinary course of its operation." Sony Computer Entm't Am., Inc. v. Divineo, Inc., 457 F. Supp. 2d 957, 942 965 (N.D.Cal.2006).

> Generally, measures based on encryption "effectively control" access to copyrighted works. Here, when the decryption key was not employed, the encryption effectively worked to prevent access to Mac OS X. And that is all that is required.

> See Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 294, 318 (S.D.N.Y.2000) (noting that when a decryption program was not employed, the encryption worked to control access to the protected work).

> Accordingly, Psystar has violated the DMCA by circumventing Apple's protection barrier and trafficking devices designed for circumvention. Apple's motion for summary judgment on its DMCA claim must be granted.[4]

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1557201/apple-inc-v-ps...

Admiral's claim does not seem to be entirely implausible. IF author of site A provides content on the condition that viewers also consume embedded content from site B, and then the viewers choose to view A anyway without viewing B (through ad-blocking) is it a violation of A's terms' of use or copyright?