Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.
Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.
Adblocking has been ruled a constitutional right in Germany. Let them try.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43838308
Axel Springer tried again recently, arguing that ad blockers “infringe copyright by altering HTML elements on their sites”, and Germany waits, because a similar lawsuit happened in Luxembourg which will be settled on the European level.
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/bundesgerichtshof-will-entscheidung-auf-europaeischer-ebene-abwarten-104.html (in German)
Another article, where they tried the exact same thing two years ago: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/landgericht-hamburg-ueber-adblock-plus-springer-verlag-verliert-erneut-a-5e058ee7-e0fa-4f0e-aa10-d95d9cfad654 (also in German)
(Also it’s not a constutional right (Verfassungsrecht), since it wasn’t the BVerfG that ruled in the first case (they tried to get them to rule, but no response was given), but a civil case ruled in the first instance by the BGH, after the local courts told Axel Springer to get bent)
(Edited: Added more context)
LOL that’s like saying you’re infringing copyright if you rip a page out of a book or magazine, or scribble some notes in it.
More like putting a post-it on the ads in magazines. You are not altering anything for the next person, or even for yourself after reloading a page.
Ah nice, thanks for the update and correction! Hope Axel Springer will get shafted for good. Nothing of value comes from their publications.
Agreed. Even though I dislike Eyeo’s practices as well (letting the ad companies pay for whitelisting their ads), it’s a better outcome than outright banning ad blockers (or if Axel Springer had gotten their ways, “light” web-browsing via reader modes would have been turned illegal as well)