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Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

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Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#71

Post by betterunix2 »

Reason077 wrote: post #41
betterunix2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very small part. Trying to replace subscription fees with targeted ads was one of the greatest mistakes made by the publishing industry. Paywalls should have been put in place years ago, and journalists should always have focused on writing quality articles that people are willing to pay for instead of clickbait "experiences" meant to drive ad impressions.

Were subscription fees ever the primary revenue source for print newspapers and magazines? I was always under the impression that the majority of their revenue came from ads.

It depends on which newspapers you are talking about, but what I said was that newspapers should not have tried to replace subscription fees with ads, because subscription fees were never trivial and were always needed for serious newspapers to be profitable. There is also the issue of online ads generating far less revenue than their print counterparts, and the fact that newspaper ads include the formerly profitable classifieds section which now has to compete with things like Craigslist.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#72

Post by [deleted] »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #69
quickben wrote: post #60

The real problem is Google indexing it. Wasn't there even a rule from Google that you can't serve different content from what the general public is seeing?

The problem is people having opinions but lacking the most basic facts... This is about "soft paywalls" that allow you to read maybe a dozen articles per months.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#73

Post by austincheney »

matt4077 wrote: post #18
decasteve wrote: post #5

This breaks the social contract of the web. If you publish on the web (over HTTP) using HTML (with or without css+js) then you respect the concept of a User-Agent that renders the content on behalf of the user. If you wish to get around this then create another file format and protocol and application/plugin to do so — one that enforces the DRM for the owner. Don’t take agency away from User-Agent.

There’s also a social contract about respect for the law. It’s arguably much older. It involves aspects like “following the spirit of the law”. Also “technical ability is not the same as permission”. It’s why the old shopkeeper’s waning ability to see is no license for you from the produce displayed outside. (This is mostly to show that I, too, can argue with invented “contracts”).

Broad baseless claims are pedantic.

> There’s also a social contract about respect for the law.

Which law, and as it applies in which context?

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#74

Post by dralley »

the8472 wrote: post #49
totfz wrote: post #17

This would not be a problem if Mozilla had sided with users for once and allowed us to install xpi extensions from outside their app store.

I would even say mozilla invited this to happen by assuming sole authority which addons can get installed. They created a single point of failure. Now that SPOF gets exploited.

I'm not convinced this is a worse evil than the previous situation, which was that any and every crapware installer injected browser plugins/toolbars without consent.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#75

Post by visarga »

wpietri wrote: post #44
Angostura wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, the add-ons break the social contract, whereby content creators request payment for their content. If you visit stuff on the web, you respect the concept of a social contract between you and the provide. Don’t try to circumvent their wishes.

It's obviously not a "request" if they're making legal threats. And it's not payment they're demanding, it's the ability to track anybody who visits their site, whether or not you agree to be tracked. And it's not part of any social contract I agreed to; the (very short) history of the web is an ongoing negotiation. Paywalls were invented this decade. This plugin is part of that negotiation. Browsers already have a m…

> Paywalls were invented this decade.

Paywalls were used in adult industry even before the 2000's.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#76

Post by naasking »

Angostura wrote: post #12
decasteve wrote: post #5

This breaks the social contract of the web. If you publish on the web (over HTTP) using HTML (with or without css+js) then you respect the concept of a User-Agent that renders the content on behalf of the user. If you wish to get around this then create another file format and protocol and application/plugin to do so — one that enforces the DRM for the owner. Don’t take agency away from User-Agent.

Alternatively, the add-ons break the social contract, whereby content creators request payment for their content. If you visit stuff on the web, you respect the concept of a social contract between you and the provide. Don’t try to circumvent their wishes.

> Alternatively, the add-ons break the social contract, whereby content creators request payment for their content.

That's what access control is for. If you don't secure your content, you don't get to whine that someone is reading without paying.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#77

Post by timbit42 »

shaki-dora wrote: post #30
monocularvision wrote: post #22

The publishers want it both ways. They need to publish their full article content for search crawlers to read but don’t want humans to see it. The idea that this is a form of DRM protected by the DMCA is laughable in my opinion, but IANAL.

They mostly just want to survive... But in this case, they specifically want to allow you read maybe a dozen articles per month for free, but also (see above) to eat.

Then they should get real jobs.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#78

Post by pedrocr »

shaki-dora wrote: post #63
monochromatic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their business model has been broken for years. It’s not incumbent on me to help them survive.

Yes, but considering you seem to be keen on reading their content: have you considered that their survival may, just possibly, be in your interest ?

That's a great discussion to be had anywhere but on an HN thread about how those same organizations are trying to create a precedent for limiting the kind of software you can choose to run on your own computer.

These organizations are making the issue harder and harder for themselves by consistently arguing for insane concessions from society and other companies after they were caught napping during the biggest technological revolution in their business since the printing press. We should definitely have discussions on how to have a healthy press in the digital age but that should never include putting up with bullshit like this

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#79

Post by DanBC »

wpietri wrote: post #44
Angostura wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, the add-ons break the social contract, whereby content creators request payment for their content. If you visit stuff on the web, you respect the concept of a social contract between you and the provide. Don’t try to circumvent their wishes.

It's obviously not a "request" if they're making legal threats. And it's not payment they're demanding, it's the ability to track anybody who visits their site, whether or not you agree to be tracked. And it's not part of any social contract I agreed to; the (very short) history of the web is an ongoing negotiation. Paywalls were invented this decade. This plugin is part of that negotiation. Browsers already have a m…

> Paywalls were invented this decade.

Compuserve paywalled all of their content way back in the 1980s.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#80

Post by betterunix2 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #56
betterunix2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure it would make a difference to the courts.

Firefox is just a platform to run addons, like Windows is OS to run programs. Do you think that Microsoft should curate software allowed for users to run?

IANAL but my perspective has been that the courts care more about your ability to control what runs on a "platform" than about who hosts what. So if Firefox in its default configuration will only run addons that Mozilla approves, then the courts might not care about where the addon is hosted or how users technically receive it, and could just order Mozilla not to sign the addon.

My personal opinion is that curation is fine if users can opt-out of it. There is value in having someone certifying that the software you are installing is not malware, or even that it meets some threshold for quality (e.g. does not drain the battery), but users should have the ability to pick the curator or to have no curation at all. That said, it is a totally separate argument from whether or not the courts would care about how software is distributed, and totally separate from how the courts will view the role of a software curator (and whether or not courts will insist that curators refuse to certify software that does certain things, like blocking paywalls).

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