4 ms·

In which jurisdictions is this deliberate circumvention of access controls legal?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yAnonymous 8y ago
In many jurisdictions it depends on whether the paywall protection is considered effective or not. One could argue that an overlay is not very effective. You can teach most non-technical persons to bypass it in a minute.
ckastner 8y ago
The effectiveness of the access control is usually a factor. If there is just a banner hovering over the actual text, and the extension merely removes that banner, than one could question whether there even was an access control in the first place. As an extreme example, a Finnish court ruled that CSS (as used by DVDs a long time ago) was ineffective. https://www.turre.com/finnish-court-rules-css-protection-used-in-dvds-ineffective/ https://www.turre.com/finnish-court-rules-css-protection-use...
- edf13 8y ago
  I agree that a banner or any over overlay is not protection - the content has already been delivered to the recipient.
darekkay 8y ago
In Germany, this is defined in § 95a UrhG [0], as in "bypassing safeguard measures to gain access to copyright material". "Anti-Anti-Adblocks", as in Adblock filters bypassing adblock popups, were already declared illegal in the BILD case [1]. [0] https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/95a.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/95a.html [1] https://www.wbs-law.de/it-recht/verbreitung-einer-anleitung-zur-umgehung-einer-adblock-sperre-ist-rechtswidrig-71569/ https://www.wbs-law.de/it-recht/verbreitung-einer-anleitung-...
- yanonymous2 8y ago
  It still depends on whether the protection is considered effective. In the case of this addon, the paywalls are often just overlays that you can also remove manually with a few clicks.
- zaarn 8y ago
  Whether or not clearing cookies would count as bypassing is an interesting question, because Adblockers themselves are legal. The specific BILD case is about blocking and disabling a tool to detect adblockers, in which case it fully denies access to the article. Ie, the anti-anti-adblock is actively interfering with the site's function on the client side. Cookies and referer are handled on the server-side and outside the user's control. I would question if the last sentences of 95a apply to setting a referer and clearing cookies. They are more closer to tampering with computer system (263a).
- Tepix 8y ago
  The first word of the law is "wirksame", which means "effective". It's very easy to argue that this protection that is trivial to circumvent is not "wirksam".
  - darekkay 8y ago
    Yes, that's why I've added the second link. Someone posted a tutorial on how to bypass the BILD Anti-Adblock. He argued that this is not an "effective" protection, but a court ruled an "Anti-Adblock" script as "effective".
    - yanonymous2 8y ago
      It depends on the court. IIRC, that ruling came from the Landgericht Hamburg, which has become a bit of a running gag because of their copyright friendly rulings.
calimac 8y ago
What gives the access control identifier any standing that is binding in any jurisdiction?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

In many jurisdictions it depends on whether the paywall protection is considered effective or not. One could argue that an overlay is not very effective. You can teach most non-technical persons to bypass it in a minute.

ckastner 8y ago

The effectiveness of the access control is usually a factor. If there is just a banner hovering over the actual text, and the extension merely removes that banner, than one could question whether there even was an access control in the first place. As an extreme example, a Finnish court ruled that CSS (as used by DVDs a long time ago) was ineffective. https://www.turre.com/finnish-court-rules-css-protection-used-in-dvds-ineffective/ https://www.turre.com/finnish-court-rules-css-protection-use...

edf13 8y ago
I agree that a banner or any over overlay is not protection - the content has already been delivered to the recipient.

darekkay 8y ago

In Germany, this is defined in § 95a UrhG [0], as in "bypassing safeguard measures to gain access to copyright material". "Anti-Anti-Adblocks", as in Adblock filters bypassing adblock popups, were already declared illegal in the BILD case [1]. [0] https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/95a.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/95a.html [1] https://www.wbs-law.de/it-recht/verbreitung-einer-anleitung-zur-umgehung-einer-adblock-sperre-ist-rechtswidrig-71569/ https://www.wbs-law.de/it-recht/verbreitung-einer-anleitung-...

yanonymous2 8y ago
It still depends on whether the protection is considered effective. In the case of this addon, the paywalls are often just overlays that you can also remove manually with a few clicks.
zaarn 8y ago
Whether or not clearing cookies would count as bypassing is an interesting question, because Adblockers themselves are legal. The specific BILD case is about blocking and disabling a tool to detect adblockers, in which case it fully denies access to the article. Ie, the anti-anti-adblock is actively interfering with the site's function on the client side. Cookies and referer are handled on the server-side and outside the user's control. I would question if the last sentences of 95a apply to setting a referer and clearing cookies. They are more closer to tampering with computer system (263a).
Tepix 8y ago
The first word of the law is "wirksame", which means "effective". It's very easy to argue that this protection that is trivial to circumvent is not "wirksam".
- darekkay 8y ago
  Yes, that's why I've added the second link. Someone posted a tutorial on how to bypass the BILD Anti-Adblock. He argued that this is not an "effective" protection, but a court ruled an "Anti-Adblock" script as "effective".
  - yanonymous2 8y ago
    It depends on the court. IIRC, that ruling came from the Landgericht Hamburg, which has become a bit of a running gag because of their copyright friendly rulings.

calimac 8y ago

What gives the access control identifier any standing that is binding in any jurisdiction?