2 Responses to “SCRIBD.COM – Screen Shots Proving Copyright Violation”

1. Alexey Verkhovsky says:

   January 25, 2010 at 1:22 pm

   I’m not speaking on behalf of Scribd here, although I am working there. I’m simply curious – infringing content is an obvious problem, what is your solution?

   Every legitimate web site that allows users to publish anything has to deal with this problem. If you think that’s how all these villains make money, I can disappoint you – in those cases that I’m aware of, infringing content is responsible for well under 5% of revenue and is a net cost; pretty big one at that.

   Some smart people thought long and hard about it, and came up with
   DMCA. It’s a pretty ugly compromise for all involved (not just the copyright owners), but at least it can be implemented in practice.

   If you can think of a better solution that doesn’t involve banning the Internet, please enlighten.
2. Wilfried F. Voss says:

   January 25, 2010 at 2:05 pm

   Alexey,

   I am sorry if I sound harsh, but you are totally missing the point. First, scribd.com is making big profits – if indirectly – through allowing copyright infringement, and that profit is made partly through profound losses to authors and publishers. The scribd.com method of storing documents in their database (without the owner’s permission) to verify them against illegal uploads, is a solid legal problem in itself (talk to some legal experts – I did). Secondly, scribd.com does not provide any means to copyright holders to contact users who are illegally, or at least unauthorized, uploading their documents. Thirdly, the sign-up process at scribd.com is highly flawed. As I wrote in one of my entries, you can sign up as JohnMcCain@TheWhiteHouse.com and upload any kind of document, copyrighted or not. Other, similar web sites send at least an e-mail to a new user that needs to be confirmed, otherwise the account will not be activated. This simple measure – really, a standard in the industry – would help as a first step to discourage unauthorized uploads.

   The next point that you are missing is the amount of roughly $20,000 my business lost according to the number of “reads” from the scribd.com web site. Another publisher, booklocker.com, found one of their books being read a mere 13,000+ times! You can imagine the damage that was done here. Apparently, that’s not scribd.com’s problem.

   I do agree that it would be difficult to make the scribd.com web site fool-proof, but I also see that scribd.com didn’t do enough. As I wrote, the idea behind Scribd.com’s “Copyright Management System” is flawed, but it could be corrected if scribd.com would allow copyright holders to have the documents removed if requested. Another measure would be increased discouragement – like a full-blown legal document displayed at each new upload as it is industry standard. These are just a few ideas I had in the last two minutes, and I don’t have enough time to list the other 100+ ideas (which also tells me that these “smart people” you mentioned missed the whole picture).

   The real problem, though, is the scribd.com management. Let me quote from South Park: “Sometimes what’s right isn’t as important than what’s profitable.” There is nothing wrong about making a good profit with a good product. In the same sense I would like to have my $20,000 back…

   Regards,
   Wilfried

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