rickdeckard (u/rickdeckard)

rickdeckard commented on 'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court torrentfreak.com/ad-block... · Posted by u/gslin

nobody9999 · 5 days ago

>I believe a case needs to be made that content B is not part of the original work provided.

>Not easy though...

IANAL, and definitely not eine Rechtsanwalt.

That said, assuming that digital ads work the same way in Germany as they do elsewhere, such ads are tacked on to the site after an auction that takes place moments before that ad is displayed.

Given that the "copyright holder" of the site doesn't even know what ad will be displayed and, in point of fact, will likely never know which ads will be displayed to which individuals viewing their website, how is their "expression" being thwarted?

Given that simple truth, the only "expressive" claim that the copyright holder could make would be that "there should be an ad of some sort here."

If that's actually the case, just having a box where the ad would be that says "this is a space for advertisements" should be enough to satisfy "violations" of the copyright owner's "expression."

rickdeckard · 5 days ago

> Given that simple truth, the only "expressive" claim that the copyright holder could make would be that "there should be an ad of some sort here."

Or he steers away from that and states "my program places an Ad here, removing this operation modifies my work", making not the Ad itself part of the work but the process (and outcome?) of an Ad being placed there...

I do hope there's a better legal conclusion the court can take here. If I am legally required to execute arbitrary code on my machine as part of some openly accessible content, I expect a clear contract to be agreed upon...

rickdeckard commented on 'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court torrentfreak.com/ad-block... · Posted by u/gslin

HDThoreaun · 5 days ago

The addition of a payment is not wanted nor in any way beneficial to the consumer when they sign up for any subscription. Guess what, that’s how the content is paid for. You think they should just make stuff for free? The deal is you get the content in exchange for loading the ads.

rickdeckard · 5 days ago

That's not what I'm pondering.

On payment there is a clear transaction and a contract is made. Both parties agree on their duties for this exchange.

In this case there is no contract, instead the selling party doesn't want a contract (paywall) to reduce friction, but is packaging the product with something the user is supposed to consume, and is now seeking to secure this ROI somehow.

rickdeckard commented on 'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court torrentfreak.com/ad-block... · Posted by u/gslin

zeta0134 · 5 days ago

It may be substantially simpler to acknowledge that there is no binding contract involved between me and the supplier of content B. Were this some sort of purchase or legal arrangement that I had consented to in some way, then the content provider would have a much stronger case.

In practice, I arrive at any given site with nothing more than a crude hyperlink and almost no description of the contents. (Maybe I have a search page summary, often I don't. If I do it's usually rather out of date and incomplete.) I cannot trivially know whether content B is present, or what sort of agreement I may or may not be entering into, until data is actually transferred to my device. By that point, I typically already have content B, before I could possibly make an informed choice about whether I wanted to spend my bandwidth downloading it, what cost it may represent, etc.

Technological solutions already exist here. A provider can choose to lock content behind a paywall, communicating an actual cost, and require that I pay it. Providers can also usually quite trivially detect ad blocking technology, and require that I disable it before delivering the content. (At that point, I am making an informed choice!) A provider doing neither of these things has a very weak case imho. I suppose we'll see if the courts agree.

rickdeckard · 5 days ago

Agree, but the publisher of content A is also the supplier of content B. They are sourced differently on delivery but they are legally delivered as a single piece of "original work" (as this is a law for PC-software, all included libraries in some app are also part of the "original work")

Maybe a case can be made that the work is not shipped in entirety but needs to be assembled at the consumer...?

rickdeckard commented on 'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court torrentfreak.com/ad-block... · Posted by u/gslin

rickdeckard · 5 days ago

> Axel Springer’s argument is that when Adblock Plus blocks or manipulates its website code (‘computer program’) present in the user’s browser, that amounts to a violation of its exclusive right of modification available under § 69c (2) and its reproduction right under § 69c (1).

It's really interesting, because the addition of Ads is not wanted nor in any way beneficial to the consumer in this transaction, it just happens to be part of the business model of the seller that he now seeks to protect.

Would the same apply if I buy a printer and modify it to use 3rd party cartridges?

How about a company that could remove the addictive elements of cigarettes?

If you want me to provide additional revenue on top of the transaction, then enter a contract with me. Just because you made it "free" doesn't mean you must be legally allowed to force me into some other consumption...

rickdeckard commented on 'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court torrentfreak.com/ad-block... · Posted by u/gslin

sidewndr46 · 5 days ago

Interestingly, if I use a 'browser' like wget I've basically transformed that computer program into what amounts to a non-program. Wget doesn't even have the facilities to run that Javascript. So it is possible that using wget in Germany is illegal?

rickdeckard · 5 days ago

I guess legally at some point you have to either execute or "decompile" that non-program, and the same violation would apply if you remove the ads ("violation of its exclusive right of modification").

The complex part here is that they don't sue you as the consumer, or consider the execution/decompilation illegal, but AdBlock as the tool which removes the unwanted content from it.

In that interpretation the only legal way to consume the content is completely unmodified, and the seller built a business-model based on adding something that only he benefits from. Weird scenario...

rickdeckard commented on 'Ad Blocking Is Not Piracy' Decision Overturned by Top German Court torrentfreak.com/ad-block... · Posted by u/gslin

zeta0134 · 6 days ago

> The decision notes that this is not just about “changing variable data in the memory of a computer, but rather changing code created by the bytecode of the website ‘computer program’ as a form of expression of the website programming itself.”

Everyone who actually writes software, meanwhile, and understands that code IS data, is collectively facepalming right now. I felt the tremors. Nevermind that almost since its inception, JavaScript has always been an optional component of the web, and my browser very well lets me turn that off. The ability to do so is critical to my security posture. That it also happens to remove distracting visual noise is a nice side bonus.

Firmly, without reservation: if you deliver to me content A, I am under NO OBLIGATION to actually consume content B, merely because you included it in the same package.

rickdeckard · 5 days ago

> Firmly, without reservation: if you deliver to me content A, I am under NO OBLIGATION to actually consume content B, merely because you included it in the same package.

The legal view here seems to be that a third party removed content B while delivering content A, and therefore violated the copyright of the provided work.

It's not even framed as redistribution of copyrighted works, it's violating the "exclusive right of modification available under § 69c"

I'm curious how this will play out.

The only content you're interested in is content A, and the supplier chose a business model which requires you to consume content B against your will. Now they sued a third party which is stripping content B as a service to you.

I believe a case needs to be made that content B is not part of the original work provided.

Not easy though...

rickdeckard commented on X-ray scans reveal Buddhist prayers inside tiny Tibetan scrolls popsci.com/technology/tib... · Posted by u/Hooke

grues-dinner · 6 days ago

The original idle clicker. With modern materials, vacuum pumps, and magnetic bearings for the mechanics and lithography for the writing, we can pump those numbers up!

All silent in the monastery except for the ultrasonic whine of thousands of prayer turbines.

Prayer ring gyros, encoding the prayers into ultra-fast laser pulses going round millions of turns of optic fibre may be a competing technology.

rickdeckard · 6 days ago

Reminds me of the Electric Monk from Douglas' Adams "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" [0]

It's essentially a robot built to believe things on behalf of its owner, offloading the tiresome burden of religion to a machine.

In the book it is explained as a natural evolution of other machines, like a dishwasher washes dishes for you, a VCR watches TV for you, an electric monk believes for you.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently%27s_Holistic_Detec...

rickdeckard commented on Foxconn is quietly shifting from iPhones to AI servers · Posted by u/alexandratabone

rickdeckard · 6 days ago

Some context is needed here.

Foxconn is quite in the spotlight for producing iPhones, but it's far from their only area of operation.

54% of their business is Consumer Electronics, and only half of that is estimated to be for Apple, with roughly 20% of their revenue being Apple products.

They have been producing cloud infrastructure and servers for more than a decade, and in the past quarters the revenue of that segment is growing while Smartphone production is rather stable. So somehow this is getting mixed into some general Taiwan tech-sector growth.

The reason why AI drives the Taiwan's tech sector is much less the production of servers, but more that Taiwan is the center of the semiconductor industry producing most of the chips for AI. With TSMC, the biggest semiconductor manufacturer in the world producing chips for Apple, nVidia, Qualcomm and many others, and companies like MediaTek (a huge fabless chip-manufacturer, basically No2 after Qualcomm), I would expect much more momentum in AI caused by those companies than server manufacturers.

Tl;DR: Foxconn is just one of many server-manufacturers (HP, Compal, Inventec, Flextronics, Wistron, Quanta, USI,...), but TSMC is THE chip-manufacturer for the AI-industry...

> Feels like in a few years Taiwan might be known less for iPhones and more for being the backbone of AI infrastructure

Just to note that Taiwan isn't actually producing any iPhones, the facilities are in Mainland China and India.

rickdeckard commented on Apple and Amazon will miss AI like Intel missed mobile gmays.com/the-biggest-bet... · Posted by u/gmays

bigyabai · 6 days ago

"The only risks" lol. Tim Cook thought those were the only risks to the App Store too, now look where he is. You lack imagination.

What if [Japan|EU|US DOJ|South Korea] passes a law preventing OEMs from claiming user data as their property? If Apple really tries to go down the road of squeezing pre-juiced lemons like this, I think they're going to be called out for stifling competition and real innovation.

rickdeckard · 6 days ago

True, I should have framed it wider: "If any of those anti-competitive shenanigans are identified as what they are"

rickdeckard commented on Apple and Amazon will miss AI like Intel missed mobile gmays.com/the-biggest-bet... · Posted by u/gmays

madmax96 · 6 days ago

Came here to say pretty much this. Hardware seems more valuable than a model.

I think AI could be commoditized. Look at DeepSeek stealing OpenAI's model. Look at the competitive performance between Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini. Look at open weight models, like Llama.

Commoditized AI need used via a device. The post argues that other devices, like watches or smart glasses, could be better posed to use AI. But...your point stands. Given Apple's success with hardware, I wouldn't bet against them making competitive wearables.

Hardware is hard. It's expensive to get wrong. It seems like a hardware company would be better positioned to build hardware than an AI company. Especially when you can steal the AI company's model.

Supply chains, battery optimization, etc. are all hard-won battles. But AI companies have had their models stolen in months.

If OpenAI really believed models would remain differentiated then why venture into hardware at all?

rickdeckard · 6 days ago

Moreover, Apple owning the access to the device-hardware AND to the data those models would need to create value for an Apple-user makes the company even more robust.

They could manage years of AI-missteps while cultivating their AI "marketplace", which allows the user to select a RevShare'd third party AI if (and only if) Apple cannot serve the request.

It would keep them afloat in the AI-space no matter how far they are behind, as long as the iPhone remains the dominant consumer mobile device.

The only risks are a paradigm shift in mobile devices, and the EU which clearly noticed that they operate multiple uneven digital markets within their ecosystem...