A recent statement by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has reopened that the use of advertising software can violate copyright legislation in Germany.
In A decision Last month, the BGH-the final Court of Appeal on civil and criminal matters and a decision of the Court of Appeal in a 11-year copyright dispute by publisher Axel Springer against Adblock Plus Maker Eyeo GmbH.
The ruling says that the Court of Appeal wrongly established when it established that the use of advertising blocking software does not infringe the exclusive right of a copyright holder to change a computer program.
Springer has – so far without success – argued that her website – code is under the control of the German copyright act. So changing the document object model of the webpage (Dom) or Cascading style sheets – a usual way to change or remove web page elements – represents copyright in the interpretation of the law by the company.
The Court of Appeal that initially heard and rejected that the argument will now have to visit the case again, a trial that will probably add several years to a case that Eyeo believed was regularly Seven years ago.
Eyeo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Although it offers advertising blocking software, the company generates income from advertisements through its Acceptable advertisements Program – Advertisers pay to have advertisements that are “respectful, non -reducing and relevant” exempt from filtering. Non-commercial open source projects such as Ublock -Oorsprong Trust community support.
Philipp-Christian Thomale, senior legal adviser for Axel Springer, celebrated the ruling in one after to LinkedIn, mentioning “a real milestone in the copyright protection of software, especially with regard to cloud-based applications (SaaS).”
One of the implications, he argues, is that “software providers are better equipped to defend themselves against manipulation by third -party software.”
Although the result remains undecided, Mozilla Senior IP & Product Advisor Daniel Nazer makes sure that if the German courts will ultimately enforce the copyright claim, that the choice of users on the internet will ultimately impede the internet.
“We sincerely hope that Germany will not be the second jurisdiction (after China) to ban advertising blockers,” he wrote in a Blog post On Thursday.
“This will considerably limit users to control their online environment and possibly open the door for similar limitations elsewhere.
Advertisement block, or wider content blocking, is possible Save the battery life life On mobile devices, improving the loading times of the pages, reduce the consumption of the bandwidth and bandwidth and Protect against malignant advertisements and nation states that use advertisements for offensive cyber activities. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2022 advised”Use an advertising blocking extension when performing internet search assignments”, as a defense against malignant search advertisements.
And as Nazer notes, there are many different reasons than blocking advertisements that one may want to change a web page, such as Improvement of accessibility” Evaluation of accessibilityor Protect privacy.
However, online advertising is also one of the most important ways in which publishers pay their bills. Advertisement blockers prevent publishers from earning the income that they may need to remain in business.
Alexander Hanff, Managing Director of Privacy and Data Protection Consultancy Hanff & Co. AB and incidental contribution to The irrigationHe said he thought that the problem of advertising blocking had already been arranged and noted that from 2015 to 2018 he served as a lobbyist and consultant for Eyeo and attended some of the relevant lawsuits.
“If the German Supreme Court rules that this is a violation of copyright, they would be in direct violation of his Tfeu [Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union] As such, an opinion would not comply with EU legislation, “he said The register In an e -mail, pointing to Recital 66 of 2009/136/EC.
Hanff said that around 2016 he was told by the legal services of the EU committee that “advertising blockers and other such tools absolutely fall into the category” appropriate settings of a browser or other application “as a means to give or refuse permission for such technologies (Adtech).”
Hanff suggested that someone submitted an amicus assignment to inform the court that a judgment against AD blockers would open Germany for infringement procedure under the Tfeu. ®
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