That being said, it doesn't follow that it would make it illegal for any technology or any consumer to alter a website page appearance. You are free to modify copyrighted works as long as you don't distribute that work.
But ... that's what the browser itself does. We aren't shown raw HTML, we're shown a user-friendly rendering of that HTML.
By the way, Axel Springer SE, the "media" company suing, is investing heavily into the US market.
Even if you did… since when has distributing a used book with extra notes, highlighting, or even white-out in place been considered copyright infringement? You're selling an existing, authorized copy—even if it was later modified—not making a new one.
(I think most people would agree that the 9th Circuit's decision is wrong, though, but it remains binding precedent in that circuit.)
While in a browser the "reader mode" or an and blocker may reformat content and remove ads, etc, it's done strictly for the browser's user, the modified version is not distributed.
But e.g. Pocket allows to share a "pocketed" article with all the ads and most formatting removed; they even advertise some articles on their homepage. This may count as distribution of a derived work. They of course give the credits and a link to the original, but I wonder if some publishers might be unhappy enough to challenge this.
There are still only two legal entities involved - the operator of the web site, and the user displaying a page from the web site. What's the third entity that would redistribute a modified work to the user displaying a page from the web site?
Would that not be legal, as long as my software doesn't contain pieces of the original book copied verbatim?
Same thing here, if the modifications were happening on the server side and then sent to your browser that's probably not legal
Publishing it, however, is where copyright law kicks in. Publishing is a specific right that you need to be granted by the rights holders.
I don't see how software running on a client's computer that changes rendering of copywritten work is the same thing as publication. Browsers, video players and Adobe's products all allow users to view and modify copyrighted works on their machines, and that isn't publication at all.
Note too that trademark law can still apply. So your Harry Potter can be in trouble even if the only thing that remains is the name and the universe. (You can do a Harry Potter as the horse in your western novel)
[1] See. e.g., https://grr.com/publications/copyright-myth-ten-percent-rule...
That's...not quite right.
You are free to modify a legally owned physical copy of a copyrighted work (and to redistribute that modified copy), but you are not free to make a derivative work by copying-with-modifications, except (in the US) insofar as that falls within the bounds of fair use (and where it does, you can also distribute it.)
Well, no one is likely to know if you don't redistribute it, but legally, no, you may not:
17 USC § 106: “Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: [...] (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;”
i would assume that the purchase of the book includes with it a right to read it out loud in a private setting, such as home.
I guess it is a fuzzy line - what is the difference if i read it aloud in a very large auditorium that i own, vs publicly broadcasting it?
Creating the derivative work in itself would indeed not be a problem but further distribution of that derived work would be a problem. Axel Springer seems to have been arguing that it is the extension developer that is responsible for "distributing" that modified work to the user.
The court seems to have decided that instead this falls under what in US law would probably be called fair use that happens after the user has received a copy of the content instead of a new content that you (using the extension) created. All very logical of course but the law is not always that logical.
I think the page owners tried to argue that the page presented to the viewer was a single creative work / piece of art and that the ad blockers where defacing/misrepresenting that piece of art . As I understand the court basically decided that the final composition of the page lacked an overreaching creative process required to qualify.
> The HTML on a page should be automatically copyrighted to the author already.
<html> . Take that internet I own you now.
Bollocks. It's a data markup language.