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Adblock Plus and other ad blockers may violate the law.
A decision by Germany's highest court has created uncertainty around ad blockers, reports Cyberinsider . The question that has arisen is whether ad blockers that work by changing how websites are displayed are even legal.
The decision concerns a dispute between media group Axel Springer SE and Eyeo GmbH, the company that develops the browser extension Adblock Plus, which has been ongoing for ten years. Axel Springer has argued that the extension violates German copyright law by changing the way copyrighted websites are rendered.
The Supreme Court has not assessed whether the add-on actually violates the law, but overturned a ruling made in 2023 by the Hamburg Regional Court. According to the decision, the lower court failed to conduct a proper legal analysis of whether so-called byte code – in this case the Document Object Model (DOM) and CSS Object Model (CSSOM) – achieves the level of a work, and whether ad blockers like Adblock Plus infringe copyright by modifying how the code is then rendered.
In a blog post, Daniel Nazer at Mozilla writes that the case risks leading Germany to become the second country in the world after China to ban ad blockers. If the court were to rule that this type of change to how a website is rendered violates copyright, it would also put other add-ons that, for example, increase readability or prevent tracking, Daniel Nazer writes.
Source: https://cyberinsider.com/ad-blockers-face-possible-ban-in-germany-after-court-ruling/
Source2: https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/...user-freedom-privacy-and-security-is-at-risk/
FCK them dudes, what is your reaction?
A decision by Germany's highest court has created uncertainty around ad blockers, reports Cyberinsider . The question that has arisen is whether ad blockers that work by changing how websites are displayed are even legal.
The decision concerns a dispute between media group Axel Springer SE and Eyeo GmbH, the company that develops the browser extension Adblock Plus, which has been ongoing for ten years. Axel Springer has argued that the extension violates German copyright law by changing the way copyrighted websites are rendered.
The Supreme Court has not assessed whether the add-on actually violates the law, but overturned a ruling made in 2023 by the Hamburg Regional Court. According to the decision, the lower court failed to conduct a proper legal analysis of whether so-called byte code – in this case the Document Object Model (DOM) and CSS Object Model (CSSOM) – achieves the level of a work, and whether ad blockers like Adblock Plus infringe copyright by modifying how the code is then rendered.
In a blog post, Daniel Nazer at Mozilla writes that the case risks leading Germany to become the second country in the world after China to ban ad blockers. If the court were to rule that this type of change to how a website is rendered violates copyright, it would also put other add-ons that, for example, increase readability or prevent tracking, Daniel Nazer writes.
Source: https://cyberinsider.com/ad-blockers-face-possible-ban-in-germany-after-court-ruling/
Source2: https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/...user-freedom-privacy-and-security-is-at-risk/
FCK them dudes, what is your reaction?
