Great, but how could they possibly enforce it? It's infeasible.

I think they do understand what they are doing. Just like with modifying a "protected" program locally, a native one. They are making laws about what you can and can't do, and outlawing tools allowing you to do that.

Honestly until it's possible to make laws forbidding you to do something that doesn't violate anyone, such will be made. If you can spend N money if forcing something through markets, and a bit less than N if lobbying for a law, then you'll do the latter.

Anyway. The problem is in the Internet and the Web as things which encourage this behavior.

It doesn't matter what Adblock plus is doing, it is perfectly legal, there is no case here. If a verdict affects adblock plus it will affect all browsers. No matter what they claim editing html files on the client side is not a copyright violation.

So basically its "we get to decide how data is processed on your hardware when we send it down the pipe". Somebody should explain server/client roles to these clowns.

The "owners" of our world want us to be passengers, not drivers. They own the carusel, and we rent our rides.

They say we have no skin in the game. Truth is, SKIN is ALL we have in this game. We must have assets in the game as a birthright to make it worth playing in good faith. If most are landless and assetless, sorry, the game sucks. That means untill we get the rules that protect all of our interests, as opposed to protecting massive wealth accumulations at everyone's expense, we will ignore the rules, the norms, decorum, civility, etc.

If the hoarders break the social contract repeatedly, like they have since 2008, it takes people some time to internalize and digest the fact of what it means for none of us to be bound by a social contract. Once people catch on, there will be hell to pay.

This would make even a dark mode extension something illegal.

It should/would then also be illegal to block virus/spyware delivery, or everyone's favorite, 50 porn window pop ups. The latter was "fixed" by browsers maybe 10 years ago.

I'm gonna modify Springer's websites so hard, they're gonna resemble a Picasso's painting

I speak German legalese (don't ask) so I went to the actual source and read up on the decision.

The way I read it, the higher court simply stated that the Appeals court didn't consider the impact of source code to byte code transformation in their ruling, meaning they had not provided references justifying the fact they had ignored the transformation. Their contention is that there might be protected software in the byte code, and if the ad blocker modified the byte code (either directly or by modifying the source), then that would constitute a modification of code and hence run afoul of copyright protections as derivative work.

Sounds more like, "Appeals court has to do their homework" than "ad blockers illegal."

The ruling is a little painful to read, because as usual the courts are not particularly good at technical issues or controversies, so don't quote me on the exact details. In particular, they use the word Vervielfältigung a lot, which means (mass) copy, which is definitely not happening here. The way it reads, Springer simply made the case that a particular section of the ruling didn't have any reasoning or citations attached and demanded them, which I guess is fair. More billable hours for the lawyers!

[Edit: added "The way I read it, coz I am not 100% sure, as explained later.]

I wouldn't call it fair, this is a clear cut case of copyright law abuse and they shouldn't be able to make dumb stuff up and waste everyones time. This shouldn't even be a case.

The company is also shady: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE

Correct, this case (as far as I'm aware) is only about modification. I simply mentioned distribution and derivative works to talk about libre licenses like GPL being different than what the court case is about

As long as they can reduce the adblock usage, it is a win for them. 100% success is not the goal. Right now there is nothing stopping everyone from using some sort of adblocker (0% revenue is possible actually), which must be scary.

Honestly, a lot of modern copyright law is very shady. You can get in major trouble for ripping a CD or DVD? That sounds insane. And what about not being allowed to repair your own tractor? Do you remember the baby dancing to some music, that was then DMCA-ed away?

My favorite is still the absolutely bonkers almost 100 years on copyrights. That has absolutely nothing to do with "the Progress of Science and useful Arts," everything with lining the pockets of copyright holders.

lining the pockets of copyright lawyers

With the recent insults to privacy (including E2E encryption) and the pro-corporate legislation, has Germany lost its way? Seems like newer generations are forgetting the lived experience of the Stasi. Also, I feel that pro-tenant legislation is at risk.

Update: the top comment is the best; don’t read my bullshit.

If what manxu said is true it might be both courts agree its clear cut. It sounds more like a pull request getting rejected because of quality issues. "Fix it and resubmit. We don't want this happening again"

I've learned courts have a lot of jargon and procedures that don't make sense on the surface. some things that sound bad actually are for your benefit and it's best to get a lawyer to translate.

Health care here still uses fax machines.

Africa tech is just Chinese tech so they're already cooked.

Australia basically banned encryption long ago and in doing killed off their tech industry.

We need a New Zealand tech revolution, which is where all the Australian IT firms relocated to following the encryption ban.

Encryption laws are hurting Australia's tech sector, Atlassian says | Australian security and counter-terrorism | The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/27/encryption-laws-are-hurting-australias-tech-sector-atlassian-says

Back in the 90s when the current iteration of copyright laws were being passed, many lawyers disdainfully referred to the act as the 'Mickey Mouse Copyright Act' In no small part because Disney was such a huge driver behind it. They did everything, and I mean EVERYTHING possible to delay the release of their IPs to public domain. There is a reason why the earliest iterations of Mickey Mouse coming out were such a big deal. Did you know that if they didn't act like assholes back in the day, and pre-70s copyright were still in effect, Mickey and Minnie Mouse would be fully public domain as early as 1984?

What should be illegal here is the kind of misinformation, if you permit some ads and allow others, you're an advertising agency and should be upfront about it. If your whole business model is "I hide ads" but you only hide those ads that didn't pay you, that's false advertisement.