German court rules: Adblock Plus blocks ads not infringing

​What is the existence of the Internet that most affects the user experience? That's right, there are ubiquitous advertisements, pop-up advertisements, text-link advertisements, client-side advertisements... There are many kinds. In the face of countless advertisement windows, the general ​user's approach is: either​​tolerate or block.

In 2018, a German publisher, Axel Springer, filed a lawsuit against Eyeo GmbH, the German software developer behind the well-known ad-blocking tool Adblock Plus, claiming that Adblock Plus interfered with their business strategy​.

But it was later ruled by the German Supreme Court that Adblock Plus and Eyeo GmbH did not violate competition law.

In 2019, Axel Springer sued again, this time on the grounds that Adblock Plus violated copyright law because Adblock Plus modified the code of their website, and its content and related code are protected by copyright law.

In addition, Axel Springer said the existence of ad-blocking tools has caused it to lose billions in ad revenue.

Axel Springer likens Adblock Plus' ad-blocking mechanism to a PSP's cheat tool, which modifies code in memory, which is a copyright violation.

In response, Eyeo GmbH stated that the code has not been rewritten, and that the blocking rules in Adblock Plus simply do not load specific code, They thought "this allegation is ridiculous" and asked the court to dismiss the other party's accusation .

On January 18, 2022, the Hamburg District Court in Germany ruled in the case:

"There is no evidence of unauthorized copying and/or re-creation of computer programs by Adblock Plus. Plaintiffs are not entitled to the injunction requested."

"The defendant did not infringe the plaintiff's rights to the web page production process, and the defendant was not an accomplice in assisting a particular user in copyright infringement."

Developer Eyeo GmbH expressed delight after the court's decision, saying the decision set an important precedent and defined who owns the underlying code for the site.

Publisher Axel Springer said it would continue to appeal.