For a while I’ve always thought ad blockers were illegal, since they keep a certain part of a web page from displaying (thus modifying a copyrighted work). But I started thinking about this even more since I saw this little charm on Digg, and I have come to the conclusion that they are perfectly legal.
When you copyright a website you are copyrighting the code, not what it looks like. When you copyright a program, you copyright the code, not what it looks like. When you copyright a book you are copyrighting the text, not what it looks like.
“Look and feel” cases have been fought in court over and over (Apple vs Microsoft, for example), and for the most part the “look and feel” of something isn’t really copyrightable. The individual items are copyrightable, but you can’t really copyright having a menu bar up top, or having an icon bar here or a link list there. You can patent it, however, but how many people get a $10,000 patent on a website’s design?
Adblockers don’t really modify the code, all they do is prevent a certain section from being displayed. How is it any different from that part of the site being incompatible. How is it any different from not having flash installed, thus not being able to view a flash object. How is it different from viewing the site in a text-based browser?
The logic of “ad blockers are illegal” also means “not having flash installed when visiting a flash-enabled site is illegal”. That part of the site isn’t being displayed, so yeah it must be illegal.
Another common argument is “oh, well they are stealing from me by reading my free content without viewing ads” Now think about that for a second. They are giving away free content and bitching about people stealing it by not showing advertisements. How the heck is that stealing? Stealing would be taking paid-membership-only content and posting it for free somewhere or taking free content and claiming it as your own.
So, what do you think: legal or illegal? Ethical or not ethical?
Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?
August 19th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I always tune out ads anyway, so I would not usually click them. I only use Adblock so that pages look a little tidier and load quicker. Plus, even IE7 now blocks some ads by default with the popup blocker.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Yeah I also rarely click on ads. Maybe it’s because I’m broke…
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:41 am
I don’t use an adblocker but if someone wants to use it then thats there right.