The defeat before the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) almost exactly a year ago does not hold the Axel Springer-Verlag from a fresh start: The media company has filed a lawsuit against the leading adblocker provider Eyeo at the Hamburg district court, as a company spokesman said. Previously, "Horizont.net" reported about it.
So far, Springer has tried in vain to stop the developers of the popular browser extension Adblock Plus with a competition lawsuit. The Federal Supreme Court saw in its judgment of April 2018 in the Eyeo offer no unfair competition and no unlawful aggressive business practice. The decision on the use of the ad blocker lies with the user of the Internet pages and not with the defendant company.
Springer: Adblock Plus violates copyright
Springer is now attempting to do so by copyright, declaring that ad blockers caused millions of dollars in damages for German publishers each year, thereby jeopardizing the refinancing of professional journalism on the Internet. "Advertising blockers change the programming code of websites and thus directly access the legally protected offer of publishers," said Claas-Hendrik Soehring, Head of Media Law at Axel Springer. "We will not accept that."
Eyeo rejects the allegations. "The argument that we intervene in the 'programming code of websites', I would like to call almost absurd," said company spokeswoman Laura S. Dornheim "heise online". "It does not take much technical understanding to understand that a browser-side plug-in does not make it possible to modify anything on Springer's servers."
In own thing
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