The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

How should Bypass Paywalls Clean (a browser extension that circumvents paywalls on news websites) be listed in Wikipedia:Find your source § Newspaper articles? — Newslinger talk 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1 (adapted from Special:Permalink/1081572939):

Use the Bypass Paywalls Clean browser extension to bypass paywalls on a number of news websites.

Option 2 (adapted from the guide's introductions to Sci-Hub and Library Genesis):

Note that tools like Bypass Paywalls Clean offer free and direct access to paywalled news articles, but there are legal questions about their use and neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor the Wikipedia community endorses them.

Option 3: Do not list Bypass Paywalls Clean on this page.

— Newslinger talk 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1. Bypass Paywalls Clean (BPC) is an immensely useful tool for accessing reliable news sources that are locked behind paywalls. I have used this browser extension to access thousands of news articles for the purpose of researching article subjects, adding citations to articles, and verifying existing citations. BPC supports hundreds of news websites, whereas it is only feasible for the average Wikipedia editor to maintain subscriptions to a fraction of the supported sites.
  Although the extension has been targeted by DMCA takedowns, these takedowns are not court judgments; the DMCA takedown process has been used to remove perfectly legal content from the Internet on numerous occasions. BPC does not do anything that you cannot legally do yourself. For example, it is not illegal to clear your browser cookies or to use your browser's JavaScript-free reader mode to bypass a paywall; BPC simply does it for you automatically when it is needed to access the page. — Newslinger talk 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• It seems to me that, as long as no copyright is violated, the question of using BPC (of which I never had heard, and never had used) barely arises. Consider: suppose I pick up a copy of a publication in a library, or even hear its text read out to some third party by a validly subscribing reader, then as long as I refrain from printing significant sections of the text, as a reviewer should refrain, and from plagiarising the work or representing it as my own, or misrepresenting it, there is no offence. As long, in particular, as I cite the work correctly, it is in fact to the advantage of the publisher and the author. If it had been the case that the work were confidential or legally classified as secret, that would be another matter, but then it shopuld not have been published at all, even behind a paywall.
  Accordingly, I would go favour option 1, possibly elaborated more or less as follows:
  Use the Bypass Paywalls Clean browser extension to bypass paywalls on a number of news websites, but pay particular attention to obeying the rules of fair use for purposes of review or similar functions.
  JonRichfield (talk) 11:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 I know Wikipedia has a strong libertarian bent, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to violate websites' terms and conditions using Wikipedia's voice. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 15:24, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 per Ahecht. Also, per WP:ELNEVER Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright might be considered contributory copyright infringement. Linking to the extension is not exactly the same, but we should not be encouraging readers and editors to bypass paywalls this way. Otherwise, why not mention other workarounds such as VPNs for geography restricted links, etc? RudolfRed (talk) 15:43, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3. We should not knowingly promote the general use of tools that are frequently used in violation of a website's terms and their ordinary expectations. Also, a lot of paywalled sources are available in Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library, and folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request are often willing to check a source for you, so we usually have good alternatives. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1.5: "Note that BPC exists to bypass paywalls." That's all that needs to be said. My reasoning is posted in the discussion section. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3. Fram (talk) 07:51, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 RoySmith (talk) 20:57, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 with modification to mention may violate a site's TOS, maybe a 'use at own risk' is what I'd say is best, as I agree with Newslinger, but I can also understand the objections based in endorsing breaking another site TOS. Also, to what WhatamIdoing said, I'd personally not want to rely on WP:TWL since many new and semi-experienced(although I admit I'm not quite sure what the standard for being considered experienced on enwiki is) don't have access to it, and I feel that just saying use this service we offer once you have 500 edits and have been around for half a year doesn't feel right(not to diss on TWL, it's an awesome thing to exist), as mention of BPC could help empower editors who may otherwise turn away at not being able to access some widely regarded sources. Resource Request is a valid mention I won't argue against, though IMO needing to use it adds a slight overhead that could be offputting to potential editors. --PixDeVl yell talk to me! 02:55, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 is the standard on this page for this kind of thing. Tessaract2^Hi! 20:17, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2. I rewrote a lot of this page last year, and yeah, if we mention Sci-Hub and Library Genesis, then BPC should be treated exactly the same way. (Technically LibGen is not a copyright infringer because it only seems to index content and not host it... yeah, right... but Sci-Hub hosts all papers on its servers). And even then at least in my country bypassing paywalls is not necessarily a crime, and no court has actually had a criminal case about it (technically it could be prosecuted as unauthorised access to a computer system; but that appears to largely depend on how the paywall is implemented). However, in my country according to the copyright laws it is perfectly legal to access any published content for personal use, though uploading/sharing it is definitely a prosecutable offense if you are doing too much of it. In other words, IANAL but it appears that BPC is legal in my jurisdiction so long as you don't send the articles over to somebody else, or especially use the access for commercial purposes, which is definitely illegal. (So yes, using LibGen and Sci-Hub are also legal according to this interpretation of the law. At least if you are only downloading their content for your own non-commercial use; uploaders still risk going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison). However, YMMV and these uses might be ruled illegal in other jurisdictions. It is for this reason that I oppose removal. It might be illegal elsewhere but it's not everywhere.

We should emphasise archive.today, which does the job 95% of the time and seems legal. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:58, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Depending on the website, Bypass Paywalls Clean (BPC) works around paywalls by using techniques such as disabling JavaScript, clearing cookies for the site to reset your article view count, redirecting to the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) version of the page, providing a link to archive.today, or telling your browser to pretend to be Googlebot.
  The source code of BPC is currently available in the project's GitHub repository for public inspection. — Newslinger talk 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notified Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). — Newslinger talk 06:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I haven't decided where I stand yet, but I suggest people read Lock picking. That's another area where how you intend to use something is a factor in whether it's legal to possess it or not. I do have to take exception to JonRichfield's comment that it is in fact to the advantage of the publisher and the author. Copyright is a thing whether you like it or not. Option 1 is clearly not viable, but I could see myself supporting either option 2 or 3. RoySmith (talk) 14:06, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Just for clarification: the main point of what I said was that it is in fact NOT in violation of copyright to access such items in good faith in the manner that I mention. One does not in law or in custom violate copyright with such mentions for reviews or citations. It is not like accessing and publishing trade secrets or personal private information, but material that in any case is intended for publication.

  The "comment that it is in fact to the advantage of the publisher and the author" is legally and ethically redundant, and if the access were in fact in material violation of copyright, then it certainly would be unacceptable in terms of law, ethics, and WP principles and practice, but what I intended in mentioning it, was to point out that in failing to recognise that the access was not in violation of copyright, one also fails to recognise that citing a relevant point in its content, is in everyone's interest, including the author's and publisher's. We are not discussing copying the publication to avoid payment to the author and publisher, but directing interested parties' attention to the cited work. JonRichfield (talk) 08:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, maybe not copyright violation, but theft of services. To go back to my lock picking example, let's say there's a movie theater that's showing a movie you want to see. The deal the theater is offering is that if you pay them $10 they will let you come inside for a couple of hours and watch the movie. But you discover that there's a back door to the building with a low quality lock on it, you let yourself in by picking the lock, and watch the movie for free. Have you accessed the movie "in good faith"? I think not. That's exactly what's going on with Bypass Paywalls Clean. People put up paywalls to block access to their web site unless you pay them an access fee. The fact that the technical means they use to implement that block can be circumvented by somebody who knows how doesn't mean doing so is acting in good faith any more than picking the lock on the movie theater door is acting in good faith. RoySmith (talk) 13:02, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Theft of service is closer to a reasonable charge than copyright violation, but it still won't wash. Even if I were to accept the movie analogy, it would be more like a drive-in movie (remember drive-ins? Giving away my age!) that I am expected to turn my gaze away from if I pass in the street instead of entering and buying a ticket. If I stop and watch then the movie owner is no worse off than if I avert my gaze. What is more, he even benefits if I tell my friends that the movie showing looks good -- what say we get tickets on Saturday night and watch it with the girls and hear the sound as well?
  Compare it even more closely with a passer-by listening to an concert in the street outside.
  Similarly, suppose I cite an article or textbook in a WP item: neither WP nor the publisher nor author is better or worse off, or informed, whether I had read it sitting in the university library, or looking over a friend's shoulder, or heard it from a friend who had the link, or downloaded the info with a software package. It is not as though I did it to enrich myself; it was to benefit the readers, the WP, the authors and the publishers, and not to waste the paper for the sake of perhaps half a para out of the article, that I probably still had to paraphrase to comply with WP standards. And all that without costing the publishers a cent as compared to omitting to use the material at all.
  And even that is not the whole story. The whole point of the publication is to publish it, including the identities of the authors and publishers. Nothing whatsoever in the scenarios I presented inhibited any of that, nor in fact failed to promote it.
  As things stand, many of the journals make the author pay for publication, then have the brass neck to publish it only behind pay walls without paying the authors a cut out of the paywall fees. They then are the ones who are closer to being thieves of service, not I who read it on the screen of someone else who had in fact paid his way through the paywall.
  Sorry, there is not a scrap of theft on the part of a non-plagiarising reader.
  For one thing, the heart-searching is futile unless one identifies the various parties who have interests in the relationships. There is the author, his sponsors, the publisher, the taxpayer, the public etc, including the Proxmires and luddites who don't want it published at all. Their rights and interests overlap and to various degrees conflict in various contexts. All that kerfuffle is based on various gross confusions of ideas of whose rights are violated and in which ways. Such confusion commonly arises when one's standards fail to keep track of the implications of changes in circumstances or technologies.
  And at the risk of redundancy, I insist: theft does not come into this particular matter at all. I have not yet used any of the software under discussion, but in the context in question, I would neither hesitate nor apologise for it. JonRichfield (talk) 18:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I want to throw my reasoning for my !vote first here in case there's something to pick over: Option 1.5: Note that BPC exists to bypass paywalls. That's all. Is it really accurate to say at this point that there are "legal questions about their use", when all I've seen from legal scholars and actual lawsuits is questions about archiving sites, reposting hosts, and facilitating tools themselves? Also, that we don't "endorse them" both seems kinda wp:mandy-ish to say at this point, and also, if the heap is made up of individual grains of sand, perhaps of questionable accuracy as well (it's not true enough, but the opposite statement is not true enough either). SamuelRiv (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I wonder if Paywall#Counter strategies should become its own article. I would rather link to an article about the subject than name individual instances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• People here may be interested in the discussion at Talk:Bypass Paywalls Clean#Website links as well. Fram (talk) 07:52, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for the link, but that's not quite the same thing. In an article about a piece of software, it makes sense to provide links to project's website and/or source repository. The usage here is in a list of ways we recommend you use to access sources. I don't think we should be recommending the use of BPC. RoySmith (talk) 14:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]