Please ATS Members and Non-Members alike, STOP Blocking Ads- Or there may be NO ATS at ALL

a reply to: Discotech

Whats interesting is that when Fox tried to stop Dish Network, LLC who built set top boxes that skipped ads they lost the case

en.wikipedia.org...

Commercial skipping
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2015)
Commercial skipping is a feature of some digital video recorders that makes it possible to automatically skip commercials in recorded programs. This feature created controversy, with major television networks and movie studios claiming it violates copyright and should be banned.

Fox Broadcasting Co. v. Dish Network, LLC
en.wikipedia.org...

Fox Broadcasting Co. v. Dish Network, LLC (C.D. Cal. January 12, 2015), is a copyright case in which the United States District Court for the Central District of California by granting partial summary judgment denied most part of the copyright claims presented by Fox Broadcasting (Fox) against Dish Network (Dish) for its service DVR-like device that allowed users to record programming that could be accessed later through any Internet connected device (Dish Anywhere). The service offered by Dish also allowed users to record any or all Fox’s (and the four major broadcast networks) prime time programs (Prime Time Any Time or PTAT) and to automatically skips commercials (AutoHop).

Fox argued that Dish Network was guilty of copyright infringement and breach of contract. The district court held that Dish Anywhere did not infringe Fox’s public performance right because the service only could be used by subscribers to get access to their own recordings. The recording action and the later transmission depended on the subscribers engage in a volitional action. Therefore, there was no direct infringement from Dish. Neither was there a secondary infringement of the company because Dish’s users did not publicly perform by using Dish Anywhere.

The very existence of ATS depends on our posting and making comments;

from my reading of the above ATS through the T & C has allowed us to comment and post, granted the post becomes the property of ATS... BUT we are not "performing" or retransmitting the "data" for profit.

ATS is not free - we give ATS our content.

I am no lawyer but I dont see how the actions of an AD blocking user can be illegal. The illegality may stem from the actions of the Ad Blocker company attempting to extort money from ATS BUT then that becomes a criminal action ie extortion and blackmail whereby for a payment of a fee ATS gets removed/whitelisted. If that is the case then the FBI should get involved and chase the extortioner.

We are simply choosing to close our eyes to ads, the same as we do when flicking through the back pages of a magazine which are usually loaded with ads.

from SkepticOverlord

In France, Germany and the UK, class action lawsuits are being started against the ad-blocking companies for criminal copyright violation. The case is relatively strong, the ad-blocking firms are profiting from modifying a copyright protected item without permission from the copyright holder.

Using the above reasoning we may as well bless every other anti-consumer Law. This is like using the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaties to squash the implied rights of the consumer.

Now I know some will say that a web page residing in my temporary files is not an infringement of copyright as that goes to the nature of how web pages work, but to me I say you cant have it both ways - use the arm of the Law to vicariously punish the Users.

Granted ATS is entitled to make any profit they desire.
The motto of ATS is "deny ignorance"
How ignoble to go down this path and become yet another Alex Jones
Bring on a paid subscription & let the market decide.

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: introvert

Which, again, begs the question which I have posted twice with no response. Where did the money go?

Well I have my own homepage that I have customized for no fee-however if I want the full suite that tracks traffic and cookies then that's only $500 a month...

I don't understand how ATS can punish it's generous donators because they use Adblock-it's a slap in the face to those who were generous enough to keep this site afloat.

You are using a service that upsells and rips it's customers off though. It's the equivalent of buying coc aine, cutting it with baking soda, and selling it at market value.

a reply to: Misterlondon

That comment made me laugh out load in room full of people and everyone just stopped what they were doing and looked at me.. lol

hehe...did they ask you what site you're on...did you give an honest answer?...hehe

originally posted by: TrueAmerican
Then stop what you are doing, RIGHT NOW, and disable your ad blocking software. Simply click "Disable ad-blocking on abovetopsecret.com"

There. Now, Don't you feel better? You did your little part. And even though that may still not be enough in the long run, at least you did that. And it would also help to actually CLICK on an ad that interests you either once in a while and go check it out.

Disable adblock, and start actually clicking on those ads? I'll have to decline, that's a risk for getting unwanted adware, possibly spyware and malware too, sure the owners could be careful with what ads are allowed on the site, but there is the risk that something unpleasant can slip through and cause problems for other users in a short amount of time, and it is why some visitors and members use adblock in the first place.

originally posted by: Kryties

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Culling the herd are you kidding me....you have noticed that not many people post and add content right ....far out culling the herd would be like cutting your nose off despite your face, this site needs more active traffic not less

But if most of that "herd" is blocking ads anyway then what are they contributing?

Are you familiar with the story of "The Goose That Laid the Goldn Eggs"?

a reply to: Aazadan

One thing you mentioned was the Google project where people would pay into a pool to not see ad's. It seems like a good idea but I'm concerned it would end up in a situation if it gets popular where site owners add extra ad's no one sees just to raise the amount of revenue they bring in

You know whats funny...in a "far away place a long long time ago" (not really funny) broadcasters and publishers made their money from ads...now they want us to pay to reduce the number of ads we see...sound like double dipping to me.

a reply to: theySeeme

But ... but... but... if they do that, they won't be able to make a profit

Bottom line is we all agreed to the T&Cs not to use AdBlockers.

And you're not even being banned for proudly admitting on the boards.

Who is really being slapped in the face here?


It's ATS if you're honest with yourself.

a reply to: cruddas

The Ads are impression based.
It's been said repeatedly.


Meaning, you do not have to click the Ads for ATS to make the money.

If they appear on your screen it's payday.

No need for malware.

a reply to: stosh64

It is my humble opinion that the chase of $$ has been a downward spiral for ATS.

Really dont get it. If peeps need to make some money whats wrong with that. We all need to put food on the table.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

No.

The bottom line here is asking for money. That's the root, Money, $$$, £££. It's all about the monies. People aren't being banned because tensions are high and to be frank, the amount of members showing undue attention to those in authority in order to gain favour (brown nosing) is embarrassing.

a reply to: TheMadTitan

I haven't seen brown nosing.

I have seen flagrant disregard for the T&Cs we all agreed to when we signed up.



Disregard that had caused the monetary shortage...


So no the bottom line isn't money, that's the consequence.

originally posted by: TheMadTitan

the amount of members showing undue attention to those in authority in order to gain favour (brown nosing) is embarrassing.

LOL.

Apparently agreeing with staff and the owners constitutes "brown nosing" now.

How low can you sink?

originally posted by: theySeeme
168 million hits a day on a $10 vps (from digital ocean)
www.itsmdaily.com...

You're insanely misinformed, and not reading (or understanding) my response to you.

If you're going to continue to use "hits" as a metric (which is antiquated and deceptive), our actual "hits" are closer to 800k per day... some days, more, much more.

A Wordpress blog with a caching plug-in can be very low-resource. In that situation, the "hits" are rarely calling on the database until there's a new posting, especially if Diqus is used as the comment system. That's not us. We average 20 queries per second on the db; VPS providers with uptime guarantees in the SLA would charge about $5/hour for that.

a reply to: Kryties

Agreeing with staff is one thing, yet you have people who over do it and you know it!!

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

Extortion from the AdBlock creators caused this whole money debacle. Don't push blame onto users. If Ads weren't so invasive and annoying people may acquiesce. Lately Ads have ramped up so much that I can only browse this site on my laptop, my phone will freeze and the internet app will shut down on my phone because of Ads.

Some people simply don't have a choice, not to mention people who have low data plans, you've got Ads they don't want sucking on their data plan. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I noticed this on Forbes.com, there I was being yelled at for having an ad blocker.I HAVE NO CONTROL OF WHAT MY COMPANY CHOOSES TO BLOCK.
I do most of my searching at work, so I am sorry if ads are being blocked, but I highly doubt IT is going to give me free access to a conspiracy sight
I sympathize, but my hands are tied.
And I think I'd pay $10 a year to come here, with an option to upgrade to a $5 a month subscription for more devoted subscribers with greater access and an ad free experience.

a reply to: purplemer
I don't think that the majority of the folks that visit ATS regularly are bitching about people needing to put food on their tables. If most are like me, that is a constant struggle for them as well.

I would never complain if ATS went to a subscription fee service only, or a stripped down version for nonmembers. I would do exactly what I do when faced with that option with any other available services. I will either choose to go with the service, or I will pass. However, I believe it has been promised that if a fee for service is initiated, it will be by choice. So those that wish to be paying members, will do so voluntarily. We shall have to wait and see.

Being retired and living in the woods, I have had to pass on a lot of services over time. As my income decreased, so did the desired, but unneeded expenses in my life. I am just a few strokes away from ditching my internet service anyway, so all of this may soon be a mute point for me.

I ditched my Satellite TV years ago, right along with my cell phone. No cable available in my woods. I gave them up because they cost more than they were worth, and the service they provided "me" was less than optimal.

I had to laugh and couldn't help mentioning to my brother, how there seems to be new trending towards getting people to unplug. I saw 3 commercials today with that theme, and one for a restaurant that is gifting dessert to patrons that put their electronic devices in a lock box, and if they don't use them for the duration of the meal. A lot of people are even giving up their smart phones, returning to the basic call and receive phone. It makes sense, since most people have several other electronic devices that makes video watching and surfing the web a more pleasant experience, so why pay all that extra money for a phone call?

The only plus I ever saw with it any way was for the gloat factor. Don't you wish you were me factor. Hell what do I know? I was young and stupid once, and I even was stupid enough at one time to even pay a monthly storage fee to house a bunch of crap. I couldn't even name half of what was in there.

But I am rambling now. All of this just to say that people can't put food on someone else's table if they are having trouble putting food on their own. People are usually only generous when they have the ability to give. Making them feel less than, because they are having their own battles, will only alienate them further.

I know that most here are trying to be loyal and supportive of ATS, but some in their passion are throwing other, good, and well contributing members under the bus.

I just don't see how this helps.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

NO...

originally posted by: ilikebooze
So as I am reading this thread I looked over and see an ad for an adblocker.

Just thought that was ironic.

"Hey... I'm doing what you want me to do! What do you want from me???"