Automated advert skipping on videosharing sites

[polakgaughan]

On certain free audio/videosharing programmes it is easily possible to skip the advertising merely by skipping on to the next track before the current one has ended, and if done one second before the end does not sizeably disrupt your enjoyment of it. Would it be possible to create a programme to automate this process and - if so - would it be legal and/or moral? Does the skipping of the adverts effect the company who is sharing the audio in any way?

I appreciate your vigilance, but people can stop reporting this thread now.

- Az

[lutzj]

There's certainly nothing illegal about it; if their software allows you to simply skip to the next track then you can do it. (I know that Hulu et al play the ad anyway if you skip to a point beyond the ad.)

If nobody finds out what you're doing, you're really only hurting the advertiser by not watching their ad, and you hardly have a moral obligation to watch commercials anyway. However, if ad-skipping becomes prevalent enough that the advertiser decides that they are not getting the amount of exposure they are paying for, they will demand a lower price or leave, and this will hurt the website facilitating the media.

[CorruptUser]

Unless you signed a contract not to use third party software (or make your own), then this is legal.

As for moral, it's about as amoral as taping a tv show and skipping the commercials.

[KnightExemplar]

Unless you signed a contract not to use third party software (or make your own), then this is legal.

As for moral, it's about as amoral as taping a tv show and skipping the commercials.

I'm not a lawyer... but based on the big stink with DeCSS in DVDs (the illegal prime number). If the file format contains some form of "copyright protection", it is illegal to circumvent the protection in the US. The loophole is as follows: if this "copyright protection" forces you to watch the commercials, it would then be illegal to try to circumvent the protection.

IIRC, this hasn't been tested in court, as the DMCA is still a relatively new law. But the court cases seem to side with the MPAA / stronger copyright.

[polakgaughan]

The method of skipping does not involve hacking into the programme or modding their software in any way, it is something that is readily doable on any version on the programme. The question is whether it is an issue to automate the use of an unclosed and morally sound loophole; albeit one that is sometimes awkward to normally exploit (i.e. one needs to be listening intently to the music or regualrly monitoring spotify).

[Xeio]

There isn't anything "wrong" here, if it allows you to press a button to skip them (or whatever). Probably the bigger issue is actually implementation, as having something interface nicely with the GUI (probably in flash?) would be much less straight forward.

Of course, if you ever do see a tool like this become popular, you can quickly say goodbye to the ability to skip the ads (or the functionality changing just enough to break the existing tool).

EDIT: You might actually need to read the ToS for the service you're talking about by the way, if it has a specific clause preventing something like this.

[Jorpho]

I thought Adblock Plus took care of those ads all by itself.

[CorruptUser]

I think it's more for things like Pandora, where it pauses every few songs to make you listen to some awful commercial or something.

[roflwaffle]

It should be legal. IIRC even downloading streams from sites like hulu or anything offered for "free" for offline viewing is legal (but usually against the TOS), as is anything that involves an analog loophole. Whether or not it's moral is a personal decision.