Paywall bypass
 

I'm using two paywall bypass tools,

Archive Today https://archive.ph/
so far works 100% of the time

and
12 Foot Ladder https://12ft.io/
Works about 90% of the time

I will post this thread in GT and then move it to PC Hardware/Software after a few weeks.

Yes, that works with quite some websites, though not all. I use the first one since a few months for several German newspapers. It works in 2 of 3 cases, or papers.

Combining it with Google website translator however often fails.


Will try the second one, too, that one was new to me.

Isn't that a violation of the CFAA? (not the software itself, but the bypassing of paywalls)

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)

https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreute...%20information.

MaDef is right and he's maybe wrong at the same time, where are Subsim's barrack room lawyers when you need them. The software takes a snapshot of a web page and archives them somehow, that is probably not illegal, but, the software has to access that paywall site and if you haven't paid for the privilege of seeing such information that is probably illegal.

Hmmmmm.
As a fine upstanding member of my local community (I don't know where I got that from but it sounds nice) I would never use any software that would potentially give me a criminal record even though it's freely available to use on the interweb.

Case Ongoing.

The first of Neal'S two softwares is available as a Firefox app, and I would assume that Mozilla has a lawyers' backroom club taking care fo such things and checking them out. They have withdrawn apps for legal reasons in past years. Its in Mozilla's own interest to make sure its apps do not violate legal standards and by that criminlaise the behaviour of Mozilla. Why woudl they allow an app to compromise their legal status?

In Germany it is illegal only when the original material, the text you want to read, gets altered or manipulated in the process of evading the paywall. It is up to the website owner to install measures that make sure the paywall cannot be avoided. And some do it: as I said, the tools do not work with every website, some stay blocked with them.

If somebody wants to make sure nobody unwanted gets to read his texts, he can make sure that nobody can for sure.

Note that available common VPN software does allow you to access foreign content and streams that originally were blocked for the world region you live in. So far, nobody has taken legal action over that, too, AFAIK.

And youtube constantly alters its schemes by which it tries to neutralise currently existing video grabbers that allow you to download youtube videos. The availability of such tools/apps could simply be declared illegal by the lawmaker, but instead the companies must take the tougher way of constantly fighting the uphill battle and changign their technical ways to spoil it for the existing tools. So that new tools get developed and released. I think there are also mods for Android that allow you to shut down the screen on your smartphone but having the sound of youtube (music) playing on. Google does not want it, they want you to buy a monthly abo to allow you that. Still, the apps/mods existed last time I checked. I am just not interested in that noise.

I've had pretty good success with refreshing browser page and stopping it before it completes the process.

Skybird, a regional block is different from a paywall. Bypassing a regional block is analogous to smuggling (ie; importing goods not legally available), whereas bypassing a paywall is like stealing a newspaper or magazine (aka theft).

Your post poses a moral question, If bypassing a paywall isn't considered theft, what is the rationale behind that position. and if it is considered theft, why is it acceptable to engage in the behavior.

Not making judgements here, just curious. While I'm not particularly religious, I do hold hard and fast to a few tenets of the Bible. The top 2 are, Do Not Lie & Do Not Steal.

I found this last summer.


https://popzazzle.blogspot.com/2022/...-paywalls.html


Respect for respect. Its a mutual thing.

And this is what archive.today actually is and what it does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today

Neal, as a website owner/operator, I am surprised you would post such a thing.

How is this different than your policy on video game pirating posts?

I don’t think using something like the above links is actually bypassing any effective security features. Especially when all I have to do for some websites is just turn off Java Script and I won’t even know a paywall exists. It’s also my IP and I can change it anytime I want with a VPN.

Paywall or no paywall the only thing that might be considered illegal is what you do with the content you have access too.

I'm becoming more liberal with age.

Olympus has fallen.
London has fallen.
Angel has fallen.

Now soon in the cinemas:
Lone Star has fallen.


:D

After a lot of obfuscation and twisted logic, the article comes to the conclusion that bypassing paywalls is not a good thing, and could very well result in internet user privacy issues in the future.

Talk about splitting hairs, Theft is ok as long as the lock is weak?

A quote by Anselme Batbie (1872) comes to mind, but I understand it's bad form to insult you're host.:D

What I meant by paywalls are not an effective security measure. Is they are simply not considered a security measure.

The biggest issue with using JavaScript is it could insert malicious code and that will directly affect your computer. What’s illegal about me preventing a source from downloading script to my PC?

Legal issues over articles arise from copywrite laws. Such as copy & pasting articles regardless if it’s free or not even if you acknowledge the source or not.

Not that my reasoning means much or is a good argument for bypassing paywalls, but here goes:

I agree bypassing a paywall is theft of content. If these content providers would stop showing up in my Google newsfeed, I wouldn't bother. I can tell how you much I go to the NY Times or Wash post to seek out news - 0% So, if they would stay on their side of the fence, so will I.

And

Some of the news outlets like New Yorker, the Atlantic, NYT, etc. have been aggressively pumping out slanted and factually inaccurate information. I consider it an assault on my understanding of the world around me when I see a headline in my Google news feed that seems to be wildly false, and to get the context and confirm the basis for the article, I will hop the paywall and check.

And

I've had my fill of preachy liberal news outlets telling me that straight white men are the world's number 1 problem so f 'em. I'm gonna live up to my reputation. ;) If a tranny friendly writer wants to bash JK Rowling, then I'll bust that paywall.

and finally

I finished a book by one of my favorite authors while listening to a song by one of my favorite singers the other day, explaining how "the poor" should be assisted and supported and excused for their issues... then I realized I needed to stop fighting it and go along. The Washington Post pays their writers a heap ton more than my dwindling pension pays me so, ok, thank you wealthy liberal writers, I don't mind if I do.

Not claiming that excuses paywall theft, just my thinking...:O:

Paywalls are akin to ticket booths in the real world, you are paying to access the venue, just like a cover charge to enter a bar, a fair, or an amusement park, it doesn't become "theft" or "copyright infringement" until you DL content. I would think bypassing paywalls would fall along the lines of trespassing, right to privacy and/or "theft" of services. In the "real world" that is considered unacceptable behavior, on the internet, not so much. I'm just curious as to why.

Onkel Neal has an interesting justification, I don't know if I agree with it, but I do understand his reasoning. It could be my frustration with stupid isn't quite as high as his.

A paywall that used for exmaple cookies or Javascripts on my systemposes to be a paywall by additionally implementing itself in a way that now violates MY RIGHTS if I obey the advertised claime dinetion (of being a paywall). Becasue such a paywall only works if I forfeit on my freedom to delete cookies or not use Javascript on my won system as I see fit. And that is why in my view this paywall, by this nature if works, is so to speak a violation, an illegal irregularity itself.

Der Tagespiegel for exmaple is like this. It has a simple paywall for some articles that easily gets avoided by archive.today.

Then there is the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and that is a different callibre. Their paywall cannot be avoided, at least not by me and my means, nor do i put any effort into it. If they make an article unaccessible (what they sometimes do after leaving it open for the first 12-48 hours after release), then thats it. However, the method of making stuff locked up with delay is kind of baiting, as is criticised in the essay I linked to. Here is however a paywall that seems to not work by just cookies or javascripts, therefore its existence does not collide with my own rights to do with and on my computer as I want. So i have no claim of "self defence" to make, and therefore I accept things as they are and leave them alone. I was paying subscriber to them for some months, btw. But I then realised that it was not worth it for me, although I think its one of the best newspapers left in Europe.

If a newspaper is serious about locking content, it certainly has ways and knowledge to make sure it works and then it will not chose cookies or Javascript that the owner of the PC is exected to not touch although it is his property. Like Rockstar, I always have Java and Javascript turned off, and automatically delete cookies - already hand-picked for only y very few websites - every time I close the browser.

Plus I have adware and spyware blockers on duty.

The more comfortable it is to handle a PC and access all the stuff on the web easily, the more open and thus unsafe the system is.

Found they have a Chrome extension, makes it one click easy now :up:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...ipbia?hl=en-US