Scribd.com - Copyright Infringement As A Business Model?

Nov. 10, 2009 - PRLog -- Copperhill Media Corporation announces the release of an article series by Wilfried F. Voss, an accomplished author and recent victim of copyright infringement through the Scribd.com web site. One of his books was illegally posted on the Scribd.com web site, and it was downloaded or read more than 600 times. Another publisher reported a total of 13,000 downloads and reads of their books.

“The fact is,” says Mr. Voss, “Scribd.com, Inc. – the owner of scridb.com – itself does not actively infringe any copyrights, but it does create some of their income by enabling copyright infringement through their web site. The damage done to the publishing industry must be enormous, considering that most authors and publishers are not aware of the problem.”

Scribd.com, Inc., 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.”

Mr. Voss continues, “The absence of ‘editorial intervention and approval’ in combination with a highly flawed sign-up process posts a serious problem. Scribd.com makes it very easy to sign up with a fake e-mail address. You can sign up as johnmccain@thewhitehouse.com and then upload the latest Dan Brown, provided it exists in an electronic format. Scribd.com does not actively verify the users’ authority, and, in case of an illegal upload, they are usually unable to identify the perpetrator.
Of course, they pop up a dialog window asking you to confirm that you own the rights to the document in question. But, seriously, criminal minds don’t care, and there are a great number of users who may be unaware of the consequence of their actions.”

How can documents be removed from the Scribd.com web site?

“That is fairly easy,” says Mr. Voss. “Scribd.com provides an e-mail template and the author or publisher fills in the appropriate information. It usually takes only a few days to process the request, but it also means that the document is still available for view, print, or download until the verification process is completed.

And even then, Scridb is still holding on to your document, meaning it is still stored in their database, whether you like it or not. Officially, they use your existing copy to verify it against new uploads and thus prevent further copyright infringement. The problem with Scribd, in my personal opinion, is their obscure view that an author or publisher is not automatically protected by law.”

So, how does an author or publisher protect himself or herself from copyright infringement through Scribd.com?

“That is just another absurd feature on the Scribd.com web site,” says Mr. Voss with a grin and a shake of his head. “Scribd.com provides a so called Copyright Management System (CMS). You, the author or publisher, must sign up as a user and upload your document to the CMS. Again, they will verify it against new uploads and prevent further copyright violations. That’s their way of making business and bypassing our government.”

The law firm of Camara & Sibley has decided to take on Scribd, seeking class action status against the site in a lawsuit filed in a Texas federal court. The charge: Like YouTube, Veoh, and other user-generated content sites, Scribd makes it just too easy to upload copyrighted content without permission.

According to the Camara & Sibley web site:
“Scribd is a web site that publishes books submitted by users and makes these books available to users to download. Among the books that Scribd publishes are many books that are under copyright but that have been submitted to Scribd without any license or permission from the copyright holder. With respect to these works — which comprise a large part of the most popular works available on Scribd — Scribd is engaged in flagrant copyright infringement and in facilitating the copyright infringement of its users.
Scribd makes money in large part through advertising: it uses the copyrighted works that it publishes on its site to drive traffic to that site, where it displays ads targeted based on the content of the copyrighted works that a user requests. This advertising revenue is the direct result of Scribd’s piracy of coprighted works. Scribd’s investors include Paul Graham’s Y Combinator, Redpoint Ventures, The Kinsey Hills Group, and Charles River Ventures.
Elaine Scott, a Houston-based author of award-winning childrens’ books, has engaged Camara & Sibley to file suit against Scribd on behalf of herself and all other authors’ whose copyrighted works have been added to Scribd’s database without their permission.”

Ironically, a copy of the lawsuit is available through the Scribd.com web site (Search for Scott v. Scribd Complaint).

What should an author or publisher do?

Mr. Voss recommends, “I strongly suggest that each author and publisher check out the Scribd.com web site and search for names and titles. If your work is listed on Scribd.com, send an e-mail to copyright@scribd.com using the legal form they recommend. You will receive an automated response stating that your request has been received. They also encourage you to leave comments, and I dared doing just that, without being insulting. As a matter of fact, the person in charge at Scribd.com, their Customer Care Director, did not appreciate my feedback and closed the request immediately. I had to re-apply, and my book was finally removed from their web site.”

Mr. Voss maintains his personal blog at http://www.frogenyozurt.com, and he currently uses his blog for “data collection on Scribd business practices.”

Note: A copy of this release was forwarded to Scribd for comment, but no response was received.

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Copperhill Media Corporation is a publisher of technical literature with special interest in Controller Area Network, CANopen and SAE J1939.