Copyright Alliance Strikes Back: Bypass Paywalls Clean Extension and Its 3,879 Forks Removed Following DMCA Complaints

Bypass Paywalls Clean, a well-known browser extension that allows users to circumvent paywall restrictions on certain websites to directly access content, has faced multiple complaints over the years due to copyright issues.

Paywalls are a common monetization strategy for news, magazine, and other content websites today, requiring users to register and pay a subscription fee to view complete content, with non-paying users only able to see titles and brief introductions.

However, due to different technology stacks used by various websites or operational needs, there are some "loopholes" that allow unregistered users to fully access articles. Bypass Paywalls Clean leverages these methods to help users bypass restrictions.

A notable example is the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology launched by Google years ago, designed for instant page loading. Some websites use AMP technology to increase traffic, which inherently provides full content access.

After installing the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension, when encountering a paywalled site, the extension attempts to bypass it by searching for the page in Google's cache or through AMP, although not all paywalls can be circumvented this way.

The News Media Alliance, representing 2,200 news, magazine, and digital media publishers, has strongly retaliated by sending a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice to GitHub, demanding the removal of repositories associated with Bypass Paywalls Clean.

Bypass Paywalls Clean is entirely open-source. Due to early complaints, its main repository is not hosted on GitHub. However, there have been numerous forks on GitHub, which have now also been subject to complaints.

GitHub removed as many as 3,879 repositories without prior notice to the owners, displaying a DMCA warning to visitors, making the resources unavailable for download.

It remains unclear if there are other versions still available on GitHub, but merely relying on DMCA complaints for removal proves challenging. Developers might quickly create new accounts to republish the resources, requiring copyright organizations to submit new complaints for each case.

Essentially, this becomes a cat-and-mouse game, with the significant issue being that websites are also upgrading their technology to prevent paywall circumvention. In fact, many major sites can no longer be bypassed using Bypass Paywalls Clean, a shift from previously.