News publishers secure takedown of popular 12ft Ladder paywall bypass website
The landscape for paywall circumvention has changed as the News/Media Alliance has announced it has secured the takedown of 12ft Ladder, a well-known site that bypassed paywalls. 12ft Ladder allowed users to access articles behind subscription barriers by displaying Google’s cached versions, effectively providing unrestricted access to copyright-protected content without payment.
In explaining the initiative, the News/Media Alliance described 12ft Ladder’s approach as an illegal circumvention technology. The group stated that the site enabled users to access restricted articles without paying the required fees set by publishers. Following these actions, the service’s domain, 12ft.io, was blocked by its web host effective July 14th, 2025, rendering the tool unavailable.
While the immediate takedown addresses one of the most visible paywall bypass tools, the News/Media Alliance indicated that it will continue pursuing legal and technical methods to enforce copyright protections. It specifically noted a commitment to acting against similar unauthorized technologies that undermine publisher paywalls.
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External links
- News/Media Alliance Secures Takedown of Illegal Paywall Bypass Website 12ft.ioNews/Media Alliance • Official source
- News publishers take paywall-blocker 12ft.io offlineThe Verge
Comments
Do people really pay to read articles online instead of looking on YouTube? All right, this is new to me.
You can't stop information to spread freely on the cyberspace !
That's right, the Streisand effect! Thoughtpolicing (i.e. Copyright as CENSORship) will backfire spectacularly so download and archive everything while it's still up there. Should somebody gets caught into a SLAPP by a Thoughtpolice, this can be the evidence.
Back then, copyright is supposed to protect the creators, now it is weaponized as a Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP), here it is used to censor Freedom of Information.
(Even the fighters, i.e. Aaron Swartz, Jamal Khashoggi, and Julian Assange became Unperson because of this)
Other ongoing SLAPPs driven by Copyright Extremism: FBI-assisted Nintendo takedown Hachette v. Internet Archive (also music publishers) Konami v. Cygames Nintendo v. Palworld
TL;DR Nowadays copyright is heavily abused to make end-users "You Own Nothing and Be Happy", the ultimate fraud where purchasing is no longer owning, along with archival and preservation being criminalized as infringement. The Critical Window of Information Age is about to SHUT DOWN upon us.