Piracy is taking shit that doesn't "belong" to you but also doesn't cost anything to duplicate. It's a silly concept that shouldn't exist and only does so because we have a broken intellectual property system (though other broken systems contribute). That being said adblocking is still piracy. It doesn't matter that there are a bunch of good reasons to do it, it's still piracy.

Piracy is fine.*

[*] To be clear it's really not quite that simple because piracy does constitute some abstraction/derivative of lost revenue in our current systems and that does deprive people of value, however I think morally speaking it's pretty easy to come out on top if you are diligent about supporting creators in other ways. I don't make these choices easily, in general I'm down with drinking the hemlock, but the laws surrounding IP in the digital age are so obviously unjust and harmful that I'm not losing sleep.

I'm not telling my self any lies. I deeply believe that my computer is my private property and I get full control over what executes on it. If you think otherwise you're delusional.

I want to control what runs on my computer because by not doing so I run the risk of allowing something malicious to execute and thus I suffer long term, and perhaps others directly connected to me also suffer. I want to prevent that and I do so by stopping JavaScript from running automatically in my browser.

I use uBlock for the same reason: I want to block elements from running on a website that aren't directly associated with the content I asked for. If after visiting the website it comes to light that the webmasters are actually only showing genuinely good adverts that are ethically and morally rendered (i.e. they're not using abusive practices), then I can choose to either whitelist that website or stop accessing it.

I get to choose who does what with my computer.

Not wanting to have something imposed upon me without my permission, and not having the ability to first accept or reject a website's TOS before entering, means I have to assume the worst case (malware, malicious intent, bad practices, etc.) and therefore protect my self ahead of time.

This is not piracy because I didn't know there were going to be adverts in the first place. And what adverts would have rendered were stopped by an adblocker or script blocker because I have to assume the worst will happen.

I'm saying it's not piracy because it's (digital) self defense. It's assuming the worst going into a website, putting up defenses to protect against that worst case scenario, and the side effect of that is the website's revenue source is blocked. Sorry, not sorry.

Find a better way of telling me about your products and services that doesn't mean I'm opening my self up to a good old fashioned digital screwing over.

AD (Youtube) Youtube says watch AD, then I'll give you the video. Pirate/Contested term: I will technologically circumvent the process and take the video anyway.

Traditional piracy: Store says give money, then I'll give you the video Pirate: I will technologically circumvent the process and take the video anyway.

The only difference here is that the "payment" is cash in one case, and an ad view in the other. Both cases deal with the same output, both put a barrier around the content, and both cases get that barrier circumvented via technological means that allow access to non-scarce content.

The most charitable I can be here, is that "it's really really close, but because it's not explicit monetary payment, it's not piracy".

But that's just playing word games. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck, or some close relative of said waterfowl. There's no shame in admitting that. I happily adblock too, but I'm not going to pretend I'm doing some virtuous deed by rising against the man to block an ad. I'm blocking them cause I don't like the inconveniences and issues with ads, and to hell with the creators ad revenue.

So yes, I do think that those who skirt around that definition and rage at that are largely just trying to rationalize it with themselves.

So you do acknowledge that continuing to access a website while blocking its ads is some kind of "moral wrong", no matter how minor?

What you're trying to ask is: do you white list once a website has shown itself to be decent?

Yes, when and where I remember. Sometimes it slips my mind.

Personally I will not pirate software but I'll block ads 'till the cows come home.

I find the two completely different from a moral stand.

Piracy is about illegally reproducing and or distributing copyrighted work.

There’s no requirement for the recipient to view or even acknowledge the ad. The onus is on the distributor to do better.

Is ad stripping in DVRs considered a violation of copyright?

Why don't we ask TiVo?

Studios and broadcasters claim copyright violation, but it’s a dubious claim and overreach.

At first define piracy and only then it would be possible to determine whether something is or is not piracy.

> Piracy is taking shit that doesn't "belong" to you...

This is a vague and imprecise description. If you are going to make definitive claims, you need a serious definition.

I have a subscription to a number of news sites. I actually pay for their content. My ad-blocker still blocks a bunch of banners, trackers, and various other bits and bobs.

In the real world there are advertising banners outside my house. If I were able to block them, what exactly would I be 'pirating'? The skyline? The roads I already pay my local authority and national government for?

Adblocking isn't even always about monetary stuff. At some point in 2020 I installed a machine for a friend. On the first load of the browser I checked a news site. It had propaganda banners in the ad slots paid for by HM Gov about COVID-19 along both sides and the bottom of the screen in massive fonts telling me that I'm banned from going outside or whatever.

I don't need that stuff following me around either as it's obviously an attempt to manipulate my psyche. I use the Internet to learn things, not to be shouted at.

If I weren't able to use an adblocker then I'd limit my Internet use to only "old-web" style sites like HN. If that became impossible, I'd go back to books and encyclopedias, advertising is proletarian bollocks for weak minds, the more you remove it the better you are as a person because you are more in control of your own emotions.

Amusingly if you just switch the wording, "ad-blocking is copyright infringement" is obviously logically false without further work required.

Exactly. This is my point: the ad industry is abusive.

Tech reviewers have been flying under the radar a little bit, in what they do is actually already a form of advertisement. But wait, most of them are not really paid to review things... they're just given products for free in most cases that they have to return and so on. In reality this simply means the cost of the product is actually off-set to the users. When LTT gets the brand new nvidia graphics card (which he will return after testing) what he is doing is promoting the product and in my opinion he should be paid for that. By nvidia. Not by us.

Truly this is a very weird state of things, companies are getting tons of extremely cheap marketing (the cost is basically sending review units out) and there is a whole set of journalists that take advantage of our consumerism to generate content. Now, is this really a win for all? I don't think so.

In reality, I think, by using adblock you are sort of taking the cover off this completely irrational system. Why do we have to watch advertisement to watch advertisement? Reviews are obviously interesting, we want to buy good products and with so much offer it might get tricky to choose what is the best; but the way youtube reviews are sustained I believe is harmful to our interests... LTT do a great job to promote products for brands and that's why they are always some of the first to get review units but they are not some little joe talking about their experience with the phone they bought.

So I guess my point is kinda that professional reviewers are part of the advertisement machine and pretty much serve as a way of advertisement laundry for companies and like that maybe there's not really a need for them to exist as reviews are compiled and aggregated over the internet anyway. But idk, it's a difficult topic!

I would say it is. Provided the coverage of the product's features is accurate and not misleading, if I see a product that I think is neat and buy it because of that, that's a win-win. I have something I like, the company gets money, and the reviewer gets content. This is basically advertising's idealized form. It only gets shady if there's misrepresentation of the product, or any of the other hacks.

>There's not really a need for them to exist as reviews are compiled and aggregated over the internet anyway. But idk, it's a difficult topic!

You wish, and I do too. One of the main features of a tech reviewer is relative consistency in review process. A GPU's performance is going to change drastically with the different devices with case, cooler and even climate affecting performance. Reviewers provide a degree of consistency there which cannot be replicated by the public at large. This can be somewhat mitigated by sufficient scale, but generally you're going to have to do far more work here. Note that one of the most common forms of compiled reviews are compilations of said tech reviewer's observed results.

It's your prerogative to view this content in whatever browser you want. Is using lynx also piracy? It doesn't show ads and it doesn't even have JavaScript. No it's just how the web works.

And content creators don't have a monopoly on our attention. Going to the toilet during an ad break on TV isn't piracy.

If his comment had been that using some plugin like bypass paywalls was piracy, he'd have more of a point IMO. I use that one too by the way but I'm not really against piracy anyway. Using an adblocker however is too far-fetched a link for me.

Ps not that I'd watch LTT anyway. He's not very technical at all. Most of his videos are basically ads themselves.

Do you feel copyright laws don't apply, or?

It sounds ridiculous, because it is.

Ad blockers are an extension of this.

If I put a video online with a paywall, but you figure out you can (non trivially) bypass the payment screen, I’d call that piracy.

In this case, the payment screen is the ad before the video.

No, it is not. All a regular user needs to do in order to remove all YouTube ads is to either:

1. install a browser extension like uBlock Origin or 2. install a mobile YouTube client like NewPipe or 3. install a script like youtube-dl

None of it is in any way difficult.

> payment screen is the ad

No, it is not. It is a mere inconvenience. An obstruction that can easily be avoided. Similar to newspaper ads or billboards. You can skip over them or just look away.

Precisely because of the simplicity to avoid YouTube ads, they cannot be used as a "payment screen" in any reasonable way.

That is possible. And irrelevant.

What matters is that it is simple for the end user.

===

Consider, for instance, a "payment screen" which would require the user to enter the exact value of a product of two huge numbers. It is difficult for any human to calculate it on their own. And the merchant is willing to provide it to them for a fee.

However, the user can also simply use e.g. a calculator in their mobile phone and get the correct number themselves in seconds.

There indeed was a lot of work put into the design of calculators and mobile phones etc. or into whatever other device the user chooses to use to get this number. But that is irrelevant. The important part is that a regular user can easily do it.

Now, consider another example where a "payment screen" would require the user to enter a unique number that only the merchant is able to issue and they will only provide it to the user in exchange for a fee.

In such case, the user can have any readily available resource at hand and they still would not be able to circumvent this kind of "payment screen" in any way. The only way through for them would be to obtain the required unique number from the merchant and pay for it in the process.

The later example can be considered a payment screen precisely because it requires the user to pay. That should, after all, probably be the definition of a "payment screen".

However, in the earlier example, the "payment screen" is only asking the user to pay. It does not enforce it. So, the users have an option to pay, if they like, or to not pay and calculate the correct number themselves by any of the trivial means that are readily available to them.

It is in my opinion disingenuous to suggest that there is any obligation to pay for a service that is offered in exchange for an optional fee. Similarly, I believe that judging those who choose not to pay for such a service or labeling their behavior as unethical is absurd.

It is the merchant's choice to have the payment optional. And therefore, they need to accept the consequences of this decision. In reality it would probably mean that some users will indeed choose not to pay.