Are we pirates?

[IPD]

49 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

As demonstrated earlier, digital piracy = copyright infringement. Copyright infringement = using content without following the rules the content provider has established for using it.

The Youtube TOS forbid you from "interfering with the service as it's intended to be shown to you" while using Youtube.

 

Law is complex, vague, subject to interpretation etc, but if Youtube's TOS have any legal value then there is a case that using an adblocker on Youtube is illegal.

 

As Linus said he doesn't care whether you agree or not and act accordingly or not, you do what you feel is right, but the one thing is you can't deny that there is technically a case for it. A case that obviously could be either judged as right or wrong if challenged, but it's there. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_piracy

 

Nope, gonna disagree again.  Digital Piracy != copyright infringement.  Copyright infringement != "following rules content provider has established".  That's 2 fallacies of logic already.  Copyrights are controlled by the government.  They are defined as life of the creator + 70 years.  This isn't something that a creator can arbitrarily determine for their own content.  Copyright infringement means that the offending party has violated a goverment-defined principle of copyright protection; not simply acted in a way contrary to the whims of the content creator.

 

People who use word definitions incorrectly (intentionally) in order to punctuate their own agendas--should be ruthlessly called out on it.  Apologetics are uncalled for, as they prevent the correction of this aberrant behavior.

 

p.s.

Youtube's TOS are not even worth the digital page they are listed on.  Their oversight is wantonly capricious, arbitrarily applied, and follows no known principles--least of which are made public.  Determinations about monetization or lack thereof; when a content creator gets a "strike"; and how millions of viewers get randomly unsubscribed from content they follow--all are opaquely nebulous.

 

It is laughably preposterous to expect users to strictly abide by rules laid down by the most tyrannical and draconian of oversight committees.

[IPD]

15 minutes ago, Alpha-Toxic said:

So if I may turns this around, when Youtube says that the content is free, and then try to extract payment in the form of ads without notification after the fact, they are actually breaking their own implied contact? Got it, they are breaking the law...

It goes both ways. The implied contract can't be just what suits you and if there was NOTHING between us, then there is no contract, not even an implied one.

Worse, they know that they only are the 800lbs gorilla of online video content because of posturing.  If they start kicking people off for using adblockers, or start bypassing adblockers and forcing ads on everything--they will soon lose out to any of a number of competitors like Rumble.

 

Loyalty got MySpace nowhere.  YT knows this.

[IPD]

10 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Simply because it's not in their interest at this point in time, but that does not make it legal, only unchallenged. If at some point they did decide to go after someone legally on that basis, a court could judge that yes, the user did violate its contract with youtube. Or not.

https://torrentfreak.com/adblocking-does-not-constitute-copyright-infringement-court-rules-220118/

 

And Alphabet would be losing millions in legal fees, and likely getting counter-sued for malicious lawsuits.  Because it's not illegal.  There's just some people who want it to be illegal.  There's a difference.

[Kilrah]

4 minutes ago, IPD said:

Nope, gonna disagree again.  Digital Piracy != copyright infringement.  Copyright infringement != "following rules content provider has established".  That's 2 fallacies of logic already. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

 

Quote

Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works.

It can be by commonly used definitions. 

[woodman_victory]

1 minute ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

Cost/benefit analysis.

5 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Simply because it's not in their interest at this point in time

I guess that might be the case, but if content owners are stingey enough to go after torrent users and have ISP's send letters out and go after repositories, it seems kinda trivial for youtube to write some code to either break the website or just suspend users who use adblock. Even smaller news sites do this kinda stuff so I dont think it would be that hard to break the website if they didnt want to go through the hassel of legal actions.

 

5 minutes ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

Just because they allow you to use the service while blocking ads doesn't make what you are doing amoral or right.

I don't consider it moral or right, I just dont wanna watch the ads and I dont care if a youtuber misses out on the tenth of a cent for my view. 

[IPD]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

 

It can be by commonly used definitions. 

 By your own definition, none of those things is happening.  No one is distributing, displaying, performing or making derivative works.

[Biohazard777]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

1 hour ago, IPD said:

There is no two ways of interpreting the word "piracy" in the digital sense.

As demonstrated earlier, digital piracy = copyright infringement. Copyright infringement = using content without following the rules the content provider has established for using it.

The Youtube TOS forbid you from "interfering with the service as it's intended to be shown to you" while using Youtube.

 

Law is complex, vague, subject to interpretation etc, but if Youtube's TOS have any legal value then there is a case that using an adblocker on Youtube is illegal.

15 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Simply because it's not in their interest at this point in time, but that does not make it legal, only unchallenged. If at some point they did decide to go after someone legally on that basis, a court could judge that yes, the user did violate its contract with youtube. Or not.

Except for it have any chance of being legally binding you'd have to "accept" the ToS.
Now open up YT in incognito / not signed in and tell me when does that pop up come up? It doesn't (for me at least, ad-block off, vanilla Chromium browser).
Also even if you do click somewhere that you "accept" it doesn't automatically mean it is legally binding, the party being sued can challenge it (granted at which time both parties are at court).

[Kilrah]

6 minutes ago, IPD said:

 By your own definition, none of those things is happening.  No one is distributing, displaying, performing or making derivative works.

Again these are only examples, the sentence mentions "a usage where such permission is required", viewing being the usage in that case. 

 

Anyway as summarised by another poster above the whole point, behind all the legalese and details is "you're watching a video, the platform and creator would have made money from that should you have watched the ad, you know that but you decided not to, your choice but you cannot deny the fact they're not getting it", and that's all there was to it...

 

  

7 minutes ago, woodman_victory said:

I guess that might be the case, but if content owners are stingey enough to go after torrent users and have ISP's send letters out and go after repositories, it seems kinda trivial for youtube to write some code to either break the website or just suspend users who use adblock. 

Of course it's trivial to do, but they'd be dead as a platform if they did it, it would cause massive outrage and nobody would want to use Youtube again.

Hollywood majors etc are just in a position where they can, because there's no where else for people to go to get the same type of content. 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

4 minutes ago, woodman_victory said:

I guess that might be the case, but if content owners are stingey enough to go after torrent users and have ISP's send letters out and go after repositories, it seems kinda trivial for youtube to write some code to either break the website or just suspend users who use adblock. Even smaller news sites do this kinda stuff so I dont think it would be that hard to break the website if they didnt want to go through the hassel of legal actions.

Yes, they could absolutely do that, and they choose not to. They have determined that whatever benefit they may get from doing so is not worth the financial, social, and others costs of doing so. It's that simple.

6 minutes ago, woodman_victory said:

I don't consider it moral or right, I just dont wanna watch the ads and I dont care if a youtuber misses out on the tenth of a cent for my view. 

Well at least you acknowledge it. I do care about the revenue that creators lose out on. I care about their work and would like to see them continue. The revenue lost from me personally using ad block isn't very much, but it adds up in the aggregate. That isn't enough to make me disable my ad block, though, because like I said, I f*****g hate that s**t. The importance of acknowledging the consequences of my actions is that it allows me to make choices about how to support creators in other ways. For instance I am wearing LTT underwear, I own several Bitwit mugs and shirts, and I have the Gamersnexus X570 Metro Poster among other things.

[IPD]

11 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Again these are only examples, the sentence mentions "a usage where such permission is required", viewing being the usage in that case. 

 

Anyway as summarised by another poster above the whole point, behind all the legalese and details is "you're watching a video, the platform and creator would have made money from that should you have watched the ad, you know that but you decided not to, your choice but you cannot deny the fact they're not getting it", and that's all there was to it...

 

But that's still not piracy.  No one is distributing content.

 

It's the same bogus argument for why I shouldn't be able to record cassette of songs on the radio--because I can listen to them later, and there is no revenue changing hands for when I do so.

[Blademaster91]

15 minutes ago, IPD said:

https://torrentfreak.com/adblocking-does-not-constitute-copyright-infringement-court-rules-220118/

 

And Alphabet would be losing millions in legal fees, and likely getting counter-sued for malicious lawsuits.  Because it's not illegal.  There's just some people who want it to be illegal.  There's a difference.

Alphabet would have to go after every person using an adblock, i'm sure they know who uses one considering how much analytics Google collects from everyone, but calling it copyright infringement would be quite a stretch of the definition as that law usually refers to outright stealing copyrighted work, I can understand someone using tools to download youtube videos, but it makes no sense for the point of blocking ads.

Also an actual copyright lawyer, Leonard French discusses the topic, he thinks using an adblocker isn't piracy, and agrees that using an ad blocker is almost essential for viewing most sites nowadays, you don't know what ads are carrying malware so a lot of people have no trust for disabling add-ons like ublock origin or adblock plus.

 

[IPD]

2 minutes ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

Well at least you acknowledge it. I do care about the revenue that creators lose out on. I care about their work and would like to see them continue. The revenue lost from me personally using ad block isn't very much, but it adds up in the aggregate. That isn't enough to make me disable my ad block, though, because like I said, I f*****g hate that s**t. The importance of acknowledging the consequences of my actions is that it allows me to make choices about how to support creators in other ways. For instance I am wearing LTT underwear, I own several Bitwit mugs and shirts, and I have the Gamersnexus X570 Metro Poster among other things.

Let's just assume that I somehow watch 2000 YT vids of some form or another over the span of a year.  So that's like $2.  If it makes you sleep better at night, I'll give that to the next homeless person/drifter I see.  Then we can call it a wash.

[MultiGamerClub]

2 hours ago, IPD said:

That's the #1 reason why I recommend HTPC, rather than using a smart TV's features.  Better interface, and you can block out all that crap that the MFG's really want you to use (as it's the primary reason why TV costs have cratered). 

Dont have a smart tv, i buyed it a few years before it really took on.. Think i have a 42 inch electra tv..

 

What really makes ads annoying now is apps within ps4 store puts big ass advertisments on the home screen.. Would love to find a way to permanently block those adresses x'D

[IPD]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

Alphabet would have to go after every person using an adblock, i'm sure they know who uses one considering how much analytics Google collects from everyone, but calling it copyright infringement would be quite a stretch of the definition as that law usually refers to outright stealing copyrighted work, I can understand someone using tools to download youtube videos, but it makes no sense for the point of blocking ads.

 

Again, they'd lose.  Becasue--as Louis noted with the RIAA--the UPLOADING, making content available...THAT'S what gets you in hot water.  DOWNLOADING it does not.  Nor would YT be able to tell for very long--whether something was a legitimate "hit" or someone downloading for later consumption.  Nor would it benefit YT to extend the middle-finger to podcast lovers by attempting to get draconian against people who download.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

8 minutes ago, IPD said:

So that's like $2.  If it makes you sleep better at night, I'll give that to the next homeless person/drifter I see.  Then we can call it a wash.

Yes. Please do that. And let me know when you do. That'll be a nice bright spot on that day. 

[IPD]

Side note:

 

Since YT and only YT determines what can be monetized and what cannot, What if I want to support people whose content is (again) "arbitrarily and capriciously" demonitized by YT?  Now I can't even support them via ad revenue...because YT has disabled it.  Thus disabling adblock on YT is a de-facto way of sanctioning these arbitrary rules.  It's a way of saying "ok, YT, I support your heavy-handedness", by filtering money only to those who color inside the YT drawn lines.

 

That means content "too edgy" for YT either gets demonitized (or worse taken down).  So discussions about CCP virus vs actual medical studies.  Shooting breakdowns by Donut Operator.  Legal reviews for court cases (aka how feeds for Rittehouse all magically "disappeared" simultaneously).  Review/listings of all the sworn testimony/evidence regarding election tampering.  Discussions on CRT.  And the list is virtually endless.  All things YT thinks are "naughty".

[joaopt]

1 hour ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

The companies running ads are fully informed about what they are paying for. They know full well the viewership and click-through rates for the ads that they run. They aren't being cheated, because they get exactly what they pay for.

 

I block ads because I f*****g hate that s**t. But I'm not deluded enough to think that what I am doing has no harm, or is justified, or is moral.

 

I don't understand how it's impossible for others to simply acknowledge this simple truth...

 

 

Just as linus is fully informed i can skip the ads, he made done dozens of videos about skiping ads, like everyone is the tv bussiness is informed i can change the channel and not watch the ad. Your just making assumptions to stear the conversation your way.

 

That's not imoral, the video is public, put it behind a pay wall and if then someone goes around it then it's imoral, and literally illegal

There is no harm, you're assuming people would watch it if they couldn't skip the ads. There is no loss.

Maybe justified or not, that's up to the ones doing it.

[rustynail]

2 hours ago, Kilrah said:

As demonstrated earlier, digital piracy = copyright infringement. Copyright infringement = using content without following the rules the content provider has established for using it.

The Youtube TOS forbid you from "interfering with the service as it's intended to be shown to you" while using Youtube.

 

Law is complex, vague, subject to interpretation etc, but if Youtube's TOS have any legal value then there is a case that using an adblocker on Youtube is illegal.

 

As Linus said he doesn't care whether you agree or not and act accordingly or not, you do what you feel is right, but the one thing is you can't deny that there is technically a case for it. A case that obviously could be either judged as right or wrong if challenged, but it's there. 

 

The idea that Checkpoint, Cisco, Palo Alto, HP and every other firewall and IPS manufacturer are engaged in the nefarious, criminal act of "piracy" is ludicrous.  Every single one employs web-advertising blocks that are enabled by default and point to a DB updated by the manufacturer and 3rd-parties.

 

Blocking aspects of a packet, that are potentially harmful (malvertising) and siphon personal data, is "modifying a service" is equally insane.  Once a packet
touches your network and intercepted by a user-agent working on your behalf, in absence of a client-side 3rd-party service, you can do whatever you want with it.  By claiming we're modifying their service, is saying it's theirs and they're responsible for it.  Google isn't responsible for MitM attacks...
They're only responsible for what happens on their server, i.e. their network.  Unless they've deployed some egregious security breach.

 

The real, underlying issue is the advertising landscape that content creators and consumers have found themselves in, and are we're unfortunately sharing the burden of.

 

[Magada Da Skolin]

Remember how being kids we  were skipping ads on tv and taking bathroom breaks during 30 min ad time? I wonder if whoever tweeted that will compile list of all TV channels and compensate them $$$

 

P.S. If adblocking is piracy, viewing html source is hacking. And as ultimate mega HAX0r. I say site that serve ads, should be held accountable for any malware damage caused by those ads, how about that?

[joaopt]

17 minutes ago, Magada Da Skolin said:

I say site that serve ads, should be held accountable for any malware damage caused by those ads, how about that?

We all know there is no accountability between the ones serving the ads and the ones receving it on the other hand, as there is no accountability the other way around. If we went the contract even implied then i think you are absolutely right. Or even those weird flashing ads that couldn't give a f about if someone can have an attack watching them, or serving penis enlargement ads to kids, etc...

[tikker]

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Everything I can find also indicates that pressing the skip button on Youtube ads will result in the creator not getting paid.

I wasn't machoistic enough to watch the entire WAN show last week so I don't know for sure, but these seems to be the only explanations I can think of:

 

1) Linus was talking about in-video sponsors and not the Youtube AdSense ads. If you skip ~30 seconds in a video the Youtuber still gets paid, but if you skip the pre-roll ads they don't get paid. It might be that the type of ad Linus talked about, and the type of ad Arika is talking about, are two different types of ads.

 

2) Linus doesn't know that skipping pre-roll ads results in them not getting paid and incorrectly assumes it does. Wouldn't be the first time Linus assumes something to be true, says it is true in his videos, and then it turns out he was completely wrong.

 

3) All the sources Arika and I are finding are wrong. Either they were wrong at one point in time but that has changed, or everyone has just been wrong all along.

 

 

My guess is the first one. If Linus was talking about pre-roll ads when he said skipping them still results in the creator getting paid then my guess is on the second option.

 

No idea if a distinction between full amount and reduced amount is made in YouTube's ad payments, but he does seem to be talking about pre-roll ads (timestamped):

Quote

"...or at the very least watch the first 5 seconds of the ad, before you click skip, which does btw count for the creator..."

 

  

4 hours ago, Alpha-Toxic said:

In fact, when you go to the app store to install youtube, it literally says it is "Free, Offers In-App Purchases". Nothing about ads as the price of admission.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/youtube-watch-listen-stream/id544007664

The website doesn't tell me that ads are the price of the content wither.

It is youtube that is trying to sneakily insert the ads without asking any sort of confirmation first. It is them that are stealing my time from me. Not the other way around.

"Free, offers in-app purchases" refers to the app, not the videos. The YouTube app is free to install.  You say you're not told ads are the price, well the website also doesn't tell you the content is free to consume at no cost without ads either.

4 hours ago, Alpha-Toxic said:

So if I may turns this around, when Youtube says that the content is free, and then try to extract payment in the form of ads without notification after the fact, they are actually breaking their own implied contact? Got it, they are breaking the law...

It goes both ways. The implied contract can't be just what suits you and if there was NOTHING between us, then there is no contract, not even an implied one.

Where does YouTube say the content is free? Nothing when I visit the site tells me explicitely that it's free. The examples given for implied contract are like letting people mow your lawn, coming for payment after X times. You didn't stop them from mowing your lawn, knowing that it may not have been free, so there's an implied contract between you two. Similarly, one can argue that you didn't stop using YouTube knowing that the ads are supposed to play before and/or during the video, and that as such the implied contract was created.

 

  

4 hours ago, joaopt said:

Skiping the video is the exact same thing as letting it run and go to the bathroom and not watch it.

It's not, Linus' point is sound there. If you go to the bathroom and let the ad run, it still gets served, plays out and counts as a view. If you skip it, it doesn't count as a view (it seems) and if you block it ,it doesn't even get served at all and thus also doesn't count as a view.

[MageTank]

4 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Again these are only examples, the sentence mentions "a usage where such permission is required", viewing being the usage in that case. 

 

Anyway as summarised by another poster above the whole point, behind all the legalese and details is "you're watching a video, the platform and creator would have made money from that should you have watched the ad, you know that but you decided not to, your choice but you cannot deny the fact they're not getting it", and that's all there was to it...

 

  

Of course it's trivial to do, but they'd be dead as a platform if they did it, it would cause massive outrage and nobody would want to use Youtube again.

Hollywood majors etc are just in a position where they can, because there's no where else for people to go to get the same type of content. 

This is a pretty weak argument though. If I were to buy a DVR through a TV provider (or use Hulu's Live DVR function) and fast-forwarded through commercials to skip to the show I plan to watch, am I committing piracy? Is the cable service that got paid to run those ads facilitating piracy by selling me a service/device that lets me bypass the ads? Or is it okay because money has already exchanged hands between the ad company and cable service provider? Seems like a pretty subjective take to have on this, as I am pretty sure the ad companies lose out on this, lol.

 

Luckily we don't have this conundrum online with adblockers because ad companies only pay websites for ads that were served. They know when an ad is blocked and are not incorrectly charged for an ad that wasn't delivered. The user doesn't see it, the advertiser doesn't pay for something the user didn't see, both of those parties are satisfied. The content creator and platform host would be the ones that "lose" here, because they didn't get paid by the advertiser for ads that were not delivered. Is this piracy? I don't think so, but lets explore further.

 

You could argue that adblocking circumvents one of the benefits of YouTube Premium, which I believe they get a bigger portion of revenue from YouTube Premium views vs standard. You could then argue that you are "pirating" features of YouTube Premium without paying for that service. That is a harder argument to circumvent and would be more applicable than just calling the use of adblock in general to be piracy. It would only be "piracy" if you are using it to circumvent paid alternatives. In that context, you are "pirating" a benefit of the paid service, not the video or content per se.

 

Again, I personally wouldn't consider this "piracy", but I could understand and potentially get behind this argument if this were the proposal being made. Simply telling viewers that they are pirating your content because you are blocking ads served by their platform host is just silly because they are not infringing on a copyright or downloading/distributing their work for free. The content is already being served for free, you are just "skipping the commercial", from the previous analogy I made above.

 

I pay for YouTube Premium because it offers ad free content for me and my household and the price isn't terrible. It comes with YouTube Music as well which I frequently use. I also run AdBlockers on every other website due to the ads they serve and their impact on my browsing experience and (for the more malicious ads) computer security.

 

It is certainly an interesting discussion and it begs the question of whether this is an issue with ads in general, or simply the manner in which they are being delivered. For example: I don't mind in-video ads as long as they pertain to the subject matter of the video I am watching. I seldom ever skip these because more often than not, they keep me up to date on the modern market for specific products. On the other hand, I despise ads that I cannot skip, especially if they have nothing to do with the content I am consuming. This is especially annoying when they occur during moments in the video that shouldn't serve as a break. "We are going to be soldering near these pads. It is very important that you do not touch thi- RAID SHADOW LEGENDS! PLAY NOW FOR FREE" -s SMD because you may end up clipping it out of place". DIY videos are the worst for this, especially if you are following along as the video plays...

 

TL:DR? I don't think adblocking is piracy, at least not by any currently known definition of the word. I do however see why people would lean towards it being piracy especially when paid services exist to prevent these ads from showing up in the context of YouTube videos in particular. Hopefully this discussion brings about more specific definitions as to what piracy is and when it applies.

[joaopt]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

It's not, Linus' point is sound there. If you go to the bathroom and let the ad run, it still gets served, plays out and counts as a view. If you skip it, it doesn't count as a view (it seems) and if you block it ,it doesn't even get served at all and thus also doesn't count as a view.

 

and it's absolutely honest to not count as view if you didn't seen the ad, or are we now scamming the companies that buy the ads. I'm sure Linus would not defend that, it would be "literaly piracy"

[tikker]

11 minutes ago, joaopt said:

 

and it's absolutely honest to not count as view if you didn't seen the ad, or are we now scamming the companies that buy the ads. I'm sure Linus would not defend that, it would be "literaly piracy"

Nobody's argueing that not seeing the ad not being counted as a view is wrong. What's being argued is that you are not watching things you technically should be watching. Or, better said, not letting things that are supposed to play, play.

[WTF916]

is disabling telemetry on Windows hacking? piracy?

 

what does standing up during TV commercial brake classify as?