DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral | Hacker News Reader

DMCA, Easylist, Adblock, Copyright Access Control and Admiral

blog.getadmiral.com

108 pointsbitshiffed32 comments

So... pardon the language but:

Fuck you Admiral, and congratulations.

I had no idea who you were before but you've become a shining example of corporate authoritarian entitlement.

It's my damn computer and if I want to deface a webpage on my computer I can do it however I want--I can adblock it, I can use MS Paint to draw bananas on it, or I can get my toddler to do it with an eraseable crayon.

Next thing you'll be telling us is that you can play a European DVD in an American DVD player…

Haha. I have a beautiful hardware-based-region-unlocked bluray player sitting right here in fact. It works beautifully. One of my prized possessions from my spouse. I have no idea where she got it from.

> hardware-based-region-unlocked bluray player

Thanks for reminding me one of the reasons I could never bother to get a bluray player.

Regions? In the age of internet? Really?

The thing I found most hilarious about this is that the author of this post previously worked at Grooveshark, a company that was only remotely successful because they flaunted copyright the entire time they operated.

That he's now using the DMCA (incorrectly) to protect his business model is the height of ridiculousness in my book.

I thought the OPer name looked familiar. On our second point though, the OP seems to suggest that this was the mechanism GitHub recommended using and the DMCA does seem to include language for tooling that circumvents access controls, but if I remember the DVD situation correctly it wasn't upheld at least in that situation, at least in some jurisdictions -- fair use.

That's a typical corporate stance to copyright: The rules should apply to everybody else but not me. Both Disney and Nintendo fought for looser interpretations of copyright law for themselves than they litigated against others, to name two examples.

I had no idea who Admiral was before, and I can't say I have a great opinion of them now. I'm sorry, but you don't get to control what I can and cannot ad block.

This is mind blowing since Dan was the COO of GROOVESHARK which basically didn't care about copyright, at all.

at least we've got another uri to add to the adblock list now.

> We asked them 24 days ago to remove functionalclam[.]com on the original commit. / Their response seemed to indicate they would only take action if GitHub agreed.

That's your take on that interaction? To me, the commit comment reads as someone borderline impersonating GitHub. "has been reported to circumvent copyright access controls" - reported to whom, exactly? By linking to GitHub's policies, you suggest that it is GitHub, but A) according to your post did not report it until _after_ that comment, and B) a report to GitHub doesn't mean you can demand removal through alternative channels.

Let's not forget that the commentor is named 'dmcahelper' with a profile description which reads 'Help all parties understand and resolve DMCA issues efficiently and effectively to minimize file and repository impacts.' And as far as I can tell the account's only activity has been to comment on EasyList.

Doesn't seem very borderline to me, looks like a blatant attempt to confuse the issue by pretending to be some sort of authority.

This comment should be higher, they literally tried to impersonate a Github "dmcahelper" bot.

Far cry from "We asked them 24 days ago to remove functionalclam[.]com on the original commit."

If blocking the domain grants access to the material, somewhat like a door that opens when no key is presented, it would seem unclear how this is an "effective[]" technological control.

Also, the DMCA (Section 1201(i)) permits blocking of effective technological controls that are capable of collecting or disseminating personally identifying information about the online activities of a person. Admiral does not address this, and looking at the details it seems perhaps the issue would be the rationale for the blocking (privacy or a mixed purpose).

It looks like the EFF has offered assistance, and I really hope they follow-through to prevent this from setting a precedent.

Follow up from yesterday's EasyList takedown https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14978228 .

EDIT: Summary of issue up to now http://telegra.ph/Ad-blocking-is-under-attack-08-11 .

How would one configure Adblock Plus to ensure Admiral's domains are blocked irrespective of whether EasyList capitulates?

(Asking as a hypothetical, of course.)

and I'll answer totally non-hypothetically ;)

Adblock Plus > 'Open the dashboard' > My Filters.

add 'functionalclam.com', no quotes, which will be treated as a HOSTS entry to be ignored.

While you are at it, you could hypothetically add rest of the Admiral domains too.

https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/admiral-domains.txt

Manually add the domain to your filters.

Are you using Adblock Plus on purpose? It is no longer an ad blocking tool.

For what it's worth, ABP's slogan is "Surf the web without annoying ads" and they've gone to court to defend that. (I stick to ABP for this reason, and disable the "display acceptable ads" option -- assuming that's what your rant is about?)

Slogans don't mean anything. It's now an extortion tool. Their definition of "acceptable" is already bad (tracking of any kind is unacceptable) and subject to change on a whim. Maybe your "option" won't work one day. Why not just use a tool without a huge conflict of interest? EFF will continue to fight against legal threats against ad blocking. ABP needs to defend it because they want to continue extorting large companies.

I use ABP and don't see any ads.

Anybody know the usual amount of time it takes for GitHub to post a DMCA notice?

They should've received Admirals takedown at least 2 days ago, but it still hasn't shown up on https://github.com/github/dmca/tree/master .

It finally appeared: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2017/2017-08-02-L... , received 01/August/2017.

tell us more about how you are garbage

It's important to note that Admiral is making the claim that this domain is used as part of their platform which protects the integrity of paywalls, which in turn guards copyrighted material of their clients. Therefore, this would be a correct application of the DMCA according to 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

Subsection A specifically states, "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

So while I do not endorse the mechanism of paywalls: if Admirals narrative and claims hold true, this is in fact a correct application of the DMCA.

But the content has already been delivered by the time this "access control" replaces the original page content with itself. There is no middle step/layer actually guarding the content on Admiral's system. Disabling JavaScript would have the same effect. There is no guarantee that clients must process all network requests or execute all script actions specified by a webpage. If you need access control for a website, your job is to implement it on the server, in a way that is not dependent on client actions, like a login system.

Others within this thread are claiming, without evidence, that this is an incorrect application of the DMCA. I'm simply quoting the portion of the law which is in accordance with Admiral's claim. I care nothing about the mechanism they've created or the philosophical implications or discrepancies of protecting content after it was already made available, etc. I'm simply restating their argument here so others may view it in regard to the letter of the law, and stating that on its face it seems to be a valid claim.

Yes. I wasn't disagreeing with you, but with Admiral's argument. Your distinction is helpful for those thinking that the domain name itself is somehow copyrighted, and the target of this DMCA request.

As far as I can tell, Admiral's code detects use of ad blockers, and puts a wall around the content in response. If you're not using an ad blocker, there's no wall, and the content is freely accessible.

So in a roundabout way, they're effectively claiming that the ads themselves are the paywall. It's a clever argument, to be sure, but I'm not sure it's a reasonable one.

There's also a question about if the ads are collecting any tracking info or not. There's a specific exception to the anti-circumvention clause in the DMCA for anything that can be used to collect personally identifiable information. If the ads being shown are of the typical variety then it's perfectly valid to circumvent them per the DMCA.

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