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Posted by: Jake Casper	9/5/2007 11:53 AM
If the controversy over ad blocking ever winds up in the courts, it could result in an interesting legal battle. Because any litigation would likely take place in US courts – Germany, the home country of Adblock Plus, is not such an easy jurisdiction in which to bring lawsuits, especially from overseas – the governing legal framework would ultimately be the US Constitution. The First Amendment of the Constitution famously guarantees freedom of the press – and, by extension, the liberty to create, possess and disseminate information without hindrance by Federal or State governments. Under the First Amendment, website owners are allowed to place any combination of advertising and information on their sites that they please. Equally, the makers of Adblock Plus are free to distribute the code of their plugin. Beyond those basics, both sides could run into legal problems. Site owners could argue that users of Adblock plus are using the software to modify copyrighted information – a position that would be complicated by the fact that the copyrights present in an advertising-enabled web page are distributed among several owners. Supporters of Adblock Plus have no absolute legal protection except insofar as they are permitted to possess and distribute the plugin code. Although the Constitution guarantees the right to create, possess and disseminate information via private means, there is no right to information in itself. The law is libertarian rather than egalitarian: someone who gives away information freely is not forced, by law, to give it to everyone equally.
Copyright ©2007 Jake Casper
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Re: Adblock Plus and the US Constitution

By Ugh on 9/6/2007 3:34 PM

Here's why this is all stupid. Bear with me now because only stupid people cause a stir over such a silly issue. You could accomplish the same task by editing your host file, simple as that; done. There are plenty of websites that distribute lists to paste into it that will get rid of a huge majority of ads. Which means this isn't a Firefox issue alone and pointing the finger at a single browser or browser extension is a silly, fruitless attempt at garnering some debate on the web. What if you didn't have Flash installed? Then you wouldn't see any flash advertisements. How about a text-only browser? Oh my gosh, what if you were blind?! I bet blind people *really* piss off people who run websites with ads. Don't take my idea though, I'm already registering "keeptheblindofftheweb.com". As for the whole "Do they have the right to edit copyrighted data?" you're going at it from the wrong perspective. It's akin to saying something along the lines of "If you want to read this book you have to read EVERY SINGLE word!" Not only is it downright impossible to prove that the person read every single word, it's self defeating because in the end, if you do find a way to enforce it, people will just skip over your information which will result in less profits for the author/publisher. In short: does this really deserve a site devoted to it?

Re: Adblock Plus and the US Constitution	By Some Body on 8/1/2008 1:14 PM
The U.S. Constitution guarantees that you have a right to freedom of speech; it does NOT guarantee that people must listen to what you have to say.

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