The Federal Supreme Court of Germany has ordered a retrial in the legal dispute between media company Axel Springer and Eyeo, the developer of Adblock Plus. The case centers on whether browser-based ad blockers violate copyright by altering website content.
Axel Springer initially argued that ad blockers interfere with the presentation of web content and thus breach copyright law. The company sought to ban the use of such tools, claiming they undermine the business model of online publishers.
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The legal proceedings have spanned over a decade. Early attempts to frame ad blocking as an anti-competitive practice were rejected by German courts, which recognized user rights to control their browsing experience.
Subsequent claims that ad blockers violated copyright also failed. In 2022, the Hamburg Court of Appeal ruled that Adblock Plus does not rework website code, but only modifies how pages are displayed in the browser. This decision was upheld in 2023 by a higher court, which concluded that changes to the DOM tree and CSS structures do not constitute a violation of copyright.
Axel Springer appealed to the Federal Supreme Court, asserting that the appellate rulings did not fully consider arguments about the protection of dynamically generated code. The Supreme Court agreed that the handling of browser-side processing required deeper examination. It partially overturned the prior decisions and sent the case back for retrial.
The new trial will examine whether the dynamic code produced by browsers falls under copyright protection and whether modifications made by ad blockers are legally permissible. The court will also review recent rulings on game cheats, where interference with program behavior was deemed lawful if it did not alter the underlying code.
The outcome will clarify the boundaries of user control versus publisher rights in digital content delivery.
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I wonder what will happen to DNS blockers if this goes through? It is also possible to block ads via host files on the computer if you want. However, I prefer blocking with router, Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, or similar solutions. Blocks on the entire network.
This will be a very dangerous rule for anything that modifies the content in the browser.