How exactly does the DRM work when I refuse to download the DRM-protected content? That's like saying I'm circumventing DRM by not renting movies to watch in my Bluray player. Your comment is nonsensical.
That's an easy one. Construct the page so that the client can't tell the difference between real content and ads. There's no inherent reason ads have to be served from ad-specific domains or downloaded into HTML elements that are detectable as ad space. That requires you to download the whole package, including ads. Then, when the client attempts to analyze the content before display, it could potentially be construed as "circumventing DRM".
Pre-legal speculation disclaimer: IANAL.
They'd have to define DRM as not only preventing ripping the video outside of its normal context but any type of alteration prior to display, even if it occurs after the encryption module terminates. That'd be hard because the decoder ordinarily makes some alterations to the decrypted video stream, e.g., scaling for different displays, overlaying subtitles, applying filters, etc.
HDCP is intended to make DRM circumvention apply to any intermediary devices, like capture cards, but that wouldn't work for computers since HDCP is just working between the display and the GPU driver, if it supports HDCP; the program used to playback the content would be unconcerned with this.
Again I'm not a lawyer but I don't see how blocking ads could be construed as counteracting DRM, as long as the analysis is occurring after the normal decryption cycle.
The wiggle room for publishers is probably in whether or not destroying the ads creates a "derivative work" or not. The consumer's argument that the page is not saved and displayed only temporarily would probably not work due to the RAM copy doctrine.
Things like the Family Movie Act [0], which was passed in 2005 to pre-empt a lawsuit filed against ClearPlay, a DVD player that provided fast-forward and mute macros to bypass objectionable content in legitimate DVD copies, would not apply since they explicitly authorize "making imperceptible [...] limited portions of the audio or video content of a motion picture [...] for private home viewing"; scope limited to motion pictures only.
Ad blockers have been challenged several times in European courts, where they've won, but I don't see how they could expect to win a copyright challenge in American courts (beyond blatant judicial activism).
My assumption is that big shots like Google have not pursued this yet because they're more worried about the Streisand Effect than allowing relatively advanced users to install ad block. Knowing that the blockers are legal in Europe, there's probably nothing they could do to stop people from using them, and it'd just create a huge PR issue.
Maybe the DRM angle is intended to get European courts to rule against ad blockers? I don't know.
Modern "upgrades" of the DRM have completely locked out any kind of modification from the source to the destination and prevent you from even drawing over the content on screen.
I'm talking about the AACS 2.0 Blu-Ray DRM format, which requires you to have a compilant BR player, compliant motherboard with DRM support, compliant CPU with DRM module (!), compliant GPU, AVR and display. All of those components are built to lock you out from modifying or capturing the picture stream from BR to the display itself.
With the draconian craziness of DRM and widespread support for it (even here on HN), it's easy to see this kind of lockout being deployed on the web as well, especially if that allows advertisers to shove more ads in your face without the possibility of using an adblock.
It honestly sounds pretty convoluted and unenforceable, and with little payoff. How are you going to detect and sue someone for what they do on their own computer?
They can hardly successfully sue folks for torrenting. Text and image advertisements aren't affected by this, either.
As far as blocking video ads goes, you don't even need to access the video. EME protected video components still show their length in the browser. Blockers which never actually see the content are entirely possible by just looking for videos less than a minute or so.
>How are you going to detect and sue someone for what they do on their own computer?
MAI v. Peak is the case that proclaimed the "RAM copy doctrine", which says that loading a computer from disk onto RAM constitutes a new copy under the Copyright Act, and therefore may infringe.
The specific case was about whether Peak, a computer maintenance and repair company, had the right to load diagnostic software that the computer's owners had purchased. The Court ruled that they did not, and that by copying the program data from disk to RAM (that is, running the program), the computer technicians had violated copyright.
Congress addressed this case specifically with reference to computer repair by carving out a special exemption for repair technicians to run the software that the computer's owner had purchased. Said exemptions don't apply to anyone else, though the owner can "make or authorize the making of" copies if they are necessary to actually use the product (I don't know why the owner's authorization to make a copy wasn't good enough for Peak).
Practically speaking, of course it's unenforceable on the large scale because as you say, it'd be hard to detect who is doing it, and the more fuss they make about this type of stuff, the more damage they do to themselves.
