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Clarification: May I embed Arivertisements on a paid site? #1

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opened 2026-05-10 19:24:01 +00:00 by rose · 4 comments
rose commented 2026-05-10 19:24:01 +00:00
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Am I allowed to embed Arivertisements behind a paywall? The ads are licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, but does embedding an iframe count as "distributing"?

This excerpt from a US court case sounds reasonable to me (and it's about hotlinked images, which seem more distributey than iframes), so I think it's allowed:

Instead of communicating a copy of the image, Google provides HTML instructions that direct a user's browser to a website publisher's computer that stores the full-size photographic image. Providing these HTML instructions is not equivalent to showing a copy. First, the HTML instructions are lines of text, not a photographic image. Second, HTML instructions do not themselves cause infringing images to appear on the user's computer screen. The HTML merely gives the address of the image to the user's browser. The browser then interacts with the computer that stores the infringing image.

Am I allowed to embed Arivertisements behind a paywall? The ads are licensed CC BY-**NC**-SA 4.0, but does embedding an iframe count as "distributing"? This excerpt from [a US court case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_aspects_of_hyperlinking_and_framing#Perfect_10_v._Amazon) sounds reasonable to me (and it's about hotlinked images, which seem more distributey than iframes), so I think it's allowed: > Instead of communicating a copy of the image, Google provides HTML instructions that direct a user's browser to a website publisher's computer that stores the full-size photographic image. Providing these HTML instructions is not equivalent to showing a copy. First, the HTML instructions are lines of text, not a photographic image. Second, HTML instructions do not themselves cause infringing images to appear on the user's computer screen. The HTML merely gives the address of the image to the user's browser. The browser then interacts with the computer that stores the infringing image.
ari commented 2026-05-10 20:27:11 +00:00
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Hey!

I'd like to prefix my response by stating that I am not a legal expert (far from it!), therefore my claims may be (in part) inaccurate. The basis of my response would be how I understand it from my perspective without going through years of international law school. I will cite my sources to ensure that my claims could be verified or disputed in the future. Take everything in my response with a formidable grain of lawyerly salt and scepticism.

Now onto your inquiry.

TL;DR? Probably not. While this is a legally grey area, from personal perspective I would argue that you cannot embed Arivertisements on a paid site if you are using the upstream https://ad.ari.lt/ instance, due to licensing of the upstream image index, but you can spin up your own commercially-safe image index and run the back-end yourself (to use your image index) as long as it complies with AGPL-3.0-or-later.

First and foremost, the US court case only applies to USA. Even in the USA it seems to be inconsistent, considering this is only a 9th Circuit decision rather than federal law, let alone international law. This Server Test doctrine you've brought up has already been disputed even in the USA regarding other, more recent cases (one you cited is from 2006-2007) in other Circuits, arguing that it doesn't matter whose hard drive the picture is sitting on, you are still displaying the content as a part of your service/product/etc.1

In any case, Arivertisements is an international project with contributors from all corners of the world so USA-specific law in specific Circuits is near-irrelevant.

Because I don't own most of the images (only the back-end & images I created, which is only a fraction of what Arivertisements is), I cannot give you an absolute "Yes" or "No". Legally speaking, I am merely an aggregator. This further makes things a messier, especially as copyright is distributed and held by individual contributors and not a centralised party.

The banners are art, meaning the only permissions you legally have from the artists (Arivertisement creators) are listed in the terms of the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license shipped with the project2. During the process of contributing their art, the artists only agreed to license their work under this license for the Arivertisements project without covering any relicensing or exemption grants - you have to get those from individual creators. Notably, I made this choice intentionally to avoid the Arivertisements project ever becoming monetised/corporate and to decentralise responsibility. Also, having all images under one license makes management a lot less of a pain :)

According to the CC license, non-commercial (section 1(k)) is defined as:

k. NonCommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards
commercial advantage or monetary compensation. For purposes of
this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for
other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital
file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is
no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the
exchange.

By this definition, charging users to see a page where the iframe lives could constitute a commercial purpose (advantage) because you are using Arivertisements art to provide value to the customer. Moreover, putting the banners behind a paywall could be seen as becoming as a part of an exchange related to a monetary compensation, which is explicitly forbidden in the NC clause.

Furthermore, the license also covers what Share means (section 1(l)):

l. Share means to provide material to the public by any means or
process that requires permission under the Licensed Rights, such
as reproduction, public display, public performance, distribution,
dissemination, communication, or importation, and to make material
available to the public including in ways that members of the
public may access the material from a place and at a time
individually chosen by them.

Under international law3, a "public display" or "communication to the public" occurs whenever you make a work viewable to an audience beyond a private circle (although the core idea is generally the same, interpretation seems to vary a bit across jurisdictions, so keep that in mind!), regardless of the technical method used to deliver the image.

In other words, you are technically making the embed visible to a "new public" (a paying customer that wouldn't see the banner otherwise... "indie/open web" vs "paid web" publics, when upstream Arivertisements licensing only accounts for the former)4, however this point is a bit legally squishy from my research thus far.

Basing further reasoning on this doctrine, even embedding an iframe behind a paywall could still be seen public display despite it only being "a pointer". It could technically take a single author to claim you are exploiting their work for monetary gain to cause a legal headache... though on a real note, considering the niche/indie nature of the project, I really doubt anyone cares all that much unless you manage to make a significant amount of money or something :)

Additionally, it's also worth considering the "social contract". Even if the banners aren't strictly locked behind a paywall (e.g., always available regardless if the user has paid), incorporating them into a commercial platform could constitute so-to-say brand building. It could be argued that using upstream Arivertisements art to provide aesthetic value or "indie credibility" to a for-profit venture creates an indirect commercial advantage, violating the spirit of the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Therefore, taking the CC legal code, past similar legal cases, and international law into account, I would think that embedding an iframe on a site behind a paywall could constitute a violation, but at the end of the day... this is a very legally grey area.

Although, I am just a developer, not a cop, so I can't really stop you, Though the legally sound, safe approach is not to embed upstream Arivertisements. I'd say a good rule of thumb with CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 would be "if the site's goal is to make money, then the content shouldn't be there."

However, if you still want Arivertisements-like banners on a paid site, no-one is stopping you from forking Arivertisements :) The back-end is under AGPL-3.0-or-later5, which allows commercial use as long as it meets the license's terms (like providing full source code to the back-end).

Only the upstream images are strictly non-commercial. The back-end uses the same index.json format6 regardless of who owns, maintains, creates, or stores it. You can easily generate an image index yourself by using internal tools (for example, the metadata file format is a custom thing in my version to make organisation and collaboration easier via git (like avoiding merge conflicts and alike). It all compiles down to a JSON monolith anyway via CI7 and for all the back-end cares you can update the JSON yourself by hand.

I hope my response was helpful (and hopefully accurate) :) If you have anything to add/interpret please let me know! I never really thought about this issue that much until now, and I think it would be a valuable addition to the FAQ.

  1. Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, LLC, 302 F. Supp. 3d 585 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 15, 2018). Rejection of the "Server Test" in favour of the "Display Right" under 17 U.S.C. § 106(5). EFF (PDF) [viewed 2026-05-11]. ↩︎

  2. https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/arivertisements/raw/branch/main/LICENSE ↩︎

  3. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT), Art. 8: "Right of Communication to the Public" (Dec. 20, 1996). UK Treaty Series No. 30 (2011), Cm 8161 [viewed 2026-05-11]. ↩︎

  4. Case C-466/12, Nils Svensson and Others v. Retriever Sverige AB, (Feb. 13, 2014) ECLI:EU:C:2014:76, para. 24: "New Public" Doctrine. EUR-Lex (PDF) [viewed 2026-05-11]. ↩︎

  5. https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/ad.ari.lt/raw/branch/main/LICENSE ↩︎

  6. https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/ad.ari.lt/src/branch/main/docs/image-index-format.md ↩︎

  7. https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/arivertisements/src/branch/main/index.py ↩︎

Hey! I'd like to prefix my response by stating that **I am not a legal expert (far from it!)**, therefore my claims may be (in part) inaccurate. The basis of my response would be how I understand it from my perspective without going through years of international law school. I will cite my sources to ensure that my claims could be verified or disputed in the future. **Take everything in my response with a formidable grain of lawyerly salt and scepticism.** Now onto your inquiry. **TL;DR?** Probably not. While this is a legally grey area, from personal perspective I would argue that you cannot embed Arivertisements on a paid site if you are using the upstream <https://ad.ari.lt/> instance, due to licensing of the [upstream image index](https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/arivertisements), but you _can_ spin up your own commercially-safe image index and run the back-end yourself (to use your image index) as long as it complies with AGPL-3.0-or-later. First and foremost, the US court case only applies to USA. Even in the USA it seems to be inconsistent, considering this is only a 9th Circuit decision rather than federal law, let alone international law. This _Server Test_ doctrine you've brought up has already been disputed even in the USA regarding other, more recent cases (one you cited is from 2006-2007) in other Circuits, arguing that it doesn't matter whose hard drive the picture is sitting on, you are still displaying the content as a part of your service/product/etc.[^1] In any case, Arivertisements is an **international project** with contributors from all corners of the world so USA-specific law in specific Circuits is near-irrelevant. Because I don't own most of the images (only the back-end & images _I created_, which is only a fraction of what Arivertisements is), I cannot give you an absolute "Yes" or "No". Legally speaking, I am merely an aggregator. This further makes things a messier, especially as copyright is distributed and held by individual contributors and not a centralised party. The banners are art, meaning the only permissions you legally have from the artists (Arivertisement creators) are listed in the terms of the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license shipped with the project[^2]. During the process of contributing their art, the artists only agreed to license their work under this license for the Arivertisements project without covering any relicensing or exemption grants - you have to get those from individual creators. Notably, **I made this choice intentionally to avoid the Arivertisements project ever becoming monetised/corporate and to decentralise responsibility. Also, having all images under one license makes management a lot less of a pain :)** According to the CC license, non-commercial (section 1(k)) is defined as: > k. NonCommercial **means not primarily intended for or directed towards > commercial advantage or monetary compensation.** For purposes of > this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for > other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital > file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is > **no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the > exchange.** By this definition, charging users to see a page where the `iframe` lives could constitute a commercial purpose (advantage) because you are using Arivertisements art to provide value to the customer. Moreover, putting the banners behind a paywall could be seen as becoming as a part of an exchange related to a monetary compensation, which is explicitly forbidden in the NC clause. Furthermore, the license also covers what _Share_ means (section 1(l)): > l. Share means to provide material to the public by any means or > process that requires permission under the Licensed Rights, such > as reproduction, **public display,** public performance, distribution, > dissemination, **communication,** or importation, and to make material > available to the public including in ways that members of the > public may access the material from a place and at a time > individually chosen by them. Under international law[^3], a "public display" or "communication to the public" occurs whenever you make a work viewable to an audience beyond a private circle (_although the core idea is generally the same, interpretation seems to vary a bit across jurisdictions, so keep that in mind!_), regardless of the technical method used to deliver the image. In other words, you are _technically_ making the embed visible to a "new public" (a paying customer that wouldn't see the banner otherwise... "indie/open web" vs "paid web" publics, when upstream Arivertisements licensing only accounts for the former)[^4], however this point is a bit legally squishy from my research thus far. Basing further reasoning on this doctrine, even embedding an `iframe` behind a paywall could still be seen public display despite it only being "a pointer". It _could_ technically take a single author to claim you are exploiting their work for monetary gain to cause a legal headache... though on a real note, considering the niche/indie nature of the project, I really doubt anyone cares all that much unless you manage to make a significant amount of money or something :) Additionally, it's also worth considering the "social contract". Even if the banners aren't strictly locked behind a paywall (e.g., always available regardless if the user has paid), incorporating them into a commercial platform could constitute so-to-say _brand building_. It could be argued that using upstream Arivertisements art to provide aesthetic value or "indie credibility" to a for-profit venture creates an indirect commercial advantage, violating the spirit of the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Therefore, taking the CC legal code, past similar legal cases, and international law into account, I would think that embedding an `iframe` on a site **behind a paywall _could_ constitute a violation**, but at the end of the day... this is a very legally grey area. Although, I am just a developer, not a cop, so I can't really stop you, Though the legally sound, safe approach is **not to embed upstream Arivertisements**. I'd say a good rule of thumb with CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 would be **"if the site's goal is to make money, then the content shouldn't be there."** However, if you still want Arivertisements-like banners on a paid site, no-one is stopping you from forking Arivertisements :) The back-end is under AGPL-3.0-or-later[^5], which allows commercial use as long as it meets the license's terms (like providing full source code to the back-end). Only the upstream images are strictly non-commercial. The back-end uses the same `index.json` format[^6] regardless of who owns, maintains, creates, or stores it. You can easily generate an image index yourself by using internal tools (for example, the metadata file format is a custom thing in my version to make organisation and collaboration easier via git (like avoiding merge conflicts and alike). It all compiles down to a JSON monolith anyway via CI[^7] and for all the back-end cares you can update the JSON yourself by hand. I hope my response was helpful (and hopefully accurate) :) If you have anything to add/interpret please let me know! I never really thought about this issue that much until now, and I think it would be a valuable addition to [the FAQ](https://ad.ari.lt/faq). [^1]: _Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, LLC_, 302 F. Supp. 3d 585 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 15, 2018). Rejection of the "Server Test" in favour of the "Display Right" under 17 U.S.C. § 106(5). [EFF (PDF)](https://www.eff.org/files/2018/02/15/goldman_v_breitbart_-_opinion.pdf) [viewed 2026-05-11]. [^2]: <https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/arivertisements/raw/branch/main/LICENSE> [^3]: _WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT)_, Art. 8: "Right of Communication to the Public" (Dec. 20, 1996). [UK Treaty Series No. 30 (2011), Cm 8161](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cb8e0ed915d682236224a/8161.pdf) [viewed 2026-05-11]. [^4]: Case C-466/12, _Nils Svensson and Others v. Retriever Sverige AB_, (Feb. 13, 2014) ECLI:EU:C:2014:76, para. 24: "New Public" Doctrine. [EUR-Lex (PDF)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0466) [viewed 2026-05-11]. [^5]: <https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/ad.ari.lt/raw/branch/main/LICENSE> [^6]: <https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/ad.ari.lt/src/branch/main/docs/image-index-format.md> [^7]: <https://git.ari.lt/ari.lt/arivertisements/src/branch/main/index.py>
❤️ 1
rose commented 2026-05-10 21:54:52 +00:00
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Thank you for the thorough response!

Your reasoning seems sound. I would think most Arivertisers would probably be okay with being Arivertised on a paid site, but I shall refrain. I hereby declare that anyone is allowed to display my Artivertisement(s) in commercial works, at least.

(For background, I've been thinking of making a "premium" mode for a web game that adds a few features, including banner ads as a bit of a joke. That's how I started looking at johnvertisements and Arivertisements.)

Thank you for the thorough response! Your reasoning seems sound. I would think most Arivertisers would probably be okay with being Arivertised on a paid site, but I shall refrain. I hereby declare that anyone is allowed to display _my_ Artivertisement(s) in commercial works, at least. (For background, I've been thinking of making a "premium" mode for [a web game](https://rose.systems/animalist/) that adds a few features, including banner ads as a bit of a joke. That's how I started looking at johnvertisements and Arivertisements.)
👍 1
ari commented 2026-05-10 21:56:39 +00:00
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Aha I see :) Best of luck with your projects! I wish I could give you the green light, but I feel the responsibility to project the community's work :D

Closing the issue as resolved & adding to FAQ!

Aha I see :) Best of luck with your projects! I wish I could give you the green light, but I feel the responsibility to project the community's work :D Closing the issue as resolved & adding to FAQ!
👍 2
ari closed this issue 2026-05-10 21:56:39 +00:00
ari commented 2026-05-11 18:59:58 +00:00
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I did more legal research on this so I updated my original response (all 20 or so edits are in the edit history of the comment if you want to see what I changed over time). I'm not a legal expert, so had to teach myself a thing or two regarding IP issues ;) I made the language softer, added more sources, and included nuance originally missing or not underlined strongly enough in the original version.

All in all, the conclusion still generally remains the same :(

I put in significant effort into updating the response, so I thought I should notify.

Have a great day!

I did more legal research on this so I updated my original response (all 20 or so edits are in the edit history of the comment if you want to see what I changed over time). I'm not a legal expert, so had to teach myself a thing or two regarding IP issues ;) I made the language softer, added more sources, and included nuance originally missing or not underlined strongly enough in the original version. All in all, the conclusion still generally remains the same :( I put in significant effort into updating the response, so I thought I should notify. Have a great day!
👍 3
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