Obviously crime pays , or there’d be no crime.
- G. Gordon Liddy

The crime in question may be copyright infringement. The fact is, Scribd, Inc. – the owner of scridb.com – creates income by enabling copyright infringement through their web site. Scribd.com, in their own words, “is the largest social publishing company in the world, the Website where tens of millions of people each month publish and discover original writings and documents.” Also according to Scribd: “All content on Scribd is uploaded and maintained by Scribd’s users with no editorial intervention or approval from Scribd employees.”

Further: “Scribd is breaking down barriers to the publishing process, making written works available to people on the Web and mobile devices, and most importantly, fueling the conversations happening around them. Documents published on Scribd are accessible to Scribd’s community of readers, indexed by search engines, and easily embedded and shared on thousands of other Websites, including Twitter and Facebook. Many leading media companies and businesses distribute content through Scribd, including The New York Times, Ford Motor Company, Simon & Schuster, O’Reilly, World Bank, Chicago Tribune, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and more.”

The absence of “editorial intervention” does come with some serious downsides:

• Scribd does not verify the identity of their users.
• Scribd does not verify that a user has in fact the authority to upload copyrighted material.

The damage done to the publishing industry can only be a guessing game at this time as many authors and publishers are not aware that their copyrights might be infringed.

The Sign Up Process

The “Sign Up” button is located on top of the Scribd.com web site, and upon clicking appears a window similar to those on many other web sites.

The entries I used were :

• E-Mail: tully.bascombe@grandfenwick.com
• Username: tullybascombe
• Password: Victoria12

Now we’re in! No, there will be no e-mail sent to my inbox asking me to confirm my sign-up. No, there is no box asking for my address information, etc. No, there is no “I accept the terms and conditions of Scribd.com.”

And now, I will scan Dan Brown’s The Monty Python Code and upload it to their web site… Just Kidding! Dan Brown never wrote such a book. I will use one of my books that has already been illegally uploaded by another user (and has not been removed as of yet, even thouth I e-mailed the proper legal form).

So, let’s click on the “Publish” button, and on the next screen I go with the default settings – Publishing Options: Standard, Privacy: Public (No, I have no idea what they do).

Let’s click the “Publish” button again: Up comes a window through which you select the document and I chose my book. Up comes a message box:

Do you understand the Scribd Terms of Service and Copyright Policy, and confirm that you uploading of this material complies with those policies and does not violate anyone’s rights?

Well, honestly I haven’t seen the Scribd Terms of Service and Copyright Policy, and if I was a criminal I probably wouldn’t care. After all, even if a user violated any copyrights by uploading the document, Scribd would not be able to point to the perpetrator. You just click OK and, provided the user didn’t have the rights to upload the document, the crime has been committed. It is as easy as that.

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• A New Scammer In Town: Google Profit Library
• SCRIBD.COM – How I learned about the copyright infringement
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