Are Ad Blockers Illegal? > Individual vs Business

Individual vs Business

I agree, use of ad-blocking software is not contrary to any existing principles of law. Some new theory could be introduced by statute or court decision, but it would be wrong in terms of traditional copyright law.

By putting up a website you offer copies of your content to the public. A "terms of service" notice purporting to impose a contract has no effect unless you require visitors to indicate agreement as a condition of letting them see the pages.

Then once they've retrieved the pages, they're entitled to do whatever they want with them, as long as they don't republish without permission. To understand this, consider buying a magazine, or receiving one for free: the publisher still has a copyright on the intangible content, but the particular copy of the content is now your property, and you're within your rights to cut out pictures if you want to, or throw away those subscription cards.

Also, note that a web page is only a text file with (a) text for humans to read (b) html formatting and (c) scripts and links that instruct the browser to retrieve other files or take other actions. It would be absurd to pretend that by downloading this hunk of text you somehow take on an obligation to make your browser follow the instructions in it and retrieve other files. If you tell your browser not to retrieve certain things you haven't altered the html in any way by doing so.

its no different than a firewall with blocked adresses
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Canada = Hollywood North