[Svexark]

It's a felony to access a computer system without authorization, access a computer system to obtain unauthorized computer services, degrade or disrupt a computer system, take data without authorization, or to use data obtained through misuse of a computer system.

The law is so vague everyone technically commits a felony every time they load a web page. Did ycombinator give you explicit permission to use this server? No, they did not. If they want you punished for posting this and they can find a friendly district attorney, you're screwed.

I'm old enough to remember when the conventional wisdom was that sharing music on the internet wasn't stealing because nobody was being deprived of physical media. Give Google a few years to lobby and create PSAs and people will being going to jail for creating ad blockers.

[zdragnar]

The law isn't nearly so cut and dry as that. After all, if something operates as a business, and also has a brick-and-mortar storefront, then it is also liable to accessibility guidelines per the ADA (see the lawsuit against Target a few years back).

As such, publicly accessible websites are, in effect, no less common areas than storefronts.

Of course, there's a way around this; websites could establish 'membership requirements' such as using a browser that does not have an ad blocker enabled; the content for most of the website would require being a member and volunteering to abide by membership rules to access. Violate those rules, and you would risk losing your membership and access to the content, though I seriously doubt grounds could be established for a lawsuit over it.

[ajdlinux]

> Did ycombinator give you explicit permission to use this server? No, they did not. If they want you punished for posting this and they can find a friendly district attorney, you're screwed.

Did your local supermarket give you explicit permission to walk on to their premises to go shopping? No - they gave you implied licence to enter their premises which is made obvious by the circumstances.

Similarly, a court would almost certainly find that having a web server which is obviously intended to be publicly accessible would result in an implied licence for use of copyrighted material on the site for typical, expected usage of said site.