Millions of documents and books at your fingertips! Read, print, download, and send them to your mobile devices instantly. Or upload your PDF, Word, and PowerPoint docs to share them with the world’s largest community of readers. – Source: Scribd.com

The problem with Scribd.com, however, is their – let’s put that diplomatically – lax policy when it comes to protecting copyrights. When users of the website post documents, which can also be eBooks in PDF form, they need to acknowledge that they have the right to do so, meaning they confirm they are the rightful owners. As it turns out, not only people in far away countries, but also a few right here in the United States don’t take that statement seriously, and Scribd.Com does nothing to prevent the posting of copyrighted material.

My reference is to “posting,” because, after all, Scribd.com allows you to contact them and have the document in question removed, provided you render detailed information that you are, in fact, the rightful owner of the document. It is kind of a reversed process, i.e. the author/publisher has to detect the copyright infringement and inform Scribd.com, and they will remove it. The question is, why are Scribd.com users not required to prove their ownership in the same strict way that rightful owners are forced to do after their copyright had been violated?

The fact is that Scibd.com is walking a very fine line between legal document sharing and illegal support for violating copyright laws. The legal situation is complex, to say in the least, and there have been lawsuits in the past that, apparently, didn’t have any impact on Scribd.com’s operation. The problem is the damage done to a great number of authors who lose their royalty payments, and I am one of them.

But let me refer to a real and personal example: Just yesterday, I did some research on a topic related to a technical book I wrote a few years ago, and I found my book in its entirety on Scribd.Com, downloadable free-of-charge for everybody interested in the topic. The book still sells well through Amazon.Com and other online bookstores all over the world. In addition, I sell the eBook (PDF) through my own websites. In the past, I had found two of my books posted on Scribd.com and had them removed, but there is no way of preventing the illegal posting of my other books. You find out by chance after the fact. You can also set an “alarm” at Scribd.com, which is helpful, but, again, the alarm comes after the fact and when the damage is already done.

Let me prove my case:

Click on image to enlarge...

The first page of my book clearly shows the title, the author, the ISBN plus a copyright statement. Thank you, Mr. Ravindra Pallwai – if that is, in fact, his real name and photo – for committing such a blatant copyright infringement. You have to wonder about his motives, his ignorance, or both.

According to the website, there were 2,436 reads, and I sell the document for US$9.95. You do the math. In total Mr. Ravindra Pallwai had 2,585 reads for his 5 uploads, which makes my book his top rated document.

Click on image to enlarge...

After all, it is good to know that my book is so popular, especially when it comes free-of-charge. And thank you to Scribd.com for the financial damage done. Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources of suing them.

See related topics at:

• Scribd.Com Comes to the Dark Side
• Update” Scribd Responds!

THE LONDONDERRY AIR

Testament of an Ulster Gunman
A Novel by Garrad Gawler 

It all changed for Charles Cunningham, a Physics teacher at the local College of Technology in the County Derry town of Maddenstown, on a June afternoon in 1973 when a bomb exploded in his neighborhood. He answers an advertisement by the UDR, the Ulster Defence Regiment, but, in the time to come, he will experience the consequences of his decisions, and how his involvement complicates matters with family and friends, Protestants and Catholics alike, to an unexpected degree.

With “The Londonderry Air – Testament of an Ulster Gunman” Garrad Gawler describes in minute detail and with an astonishing level of authenticity not only the inner workings of the Ulster Defence Regiment, but also the activities of underground paramilitary groups of regular citizens who planned and carried out the assassination of suspected Republican terrorists in their neighborhood.

The Londonderry Air is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon Kindle (US), Amazon.co.uk, Amazon Kindle (UK), Barnes & Noble, smashwords.com, and any other good bookstore.

For more information on Garrad Gawler and to read an excerpt of “The Londonderry Air,” please see the author’s section on this website.

- Embedded Networking with CAN and CANopen by Olaf Pfeiffer, Andrew Ayre, and Christoph Keydel

- A Comprehensible Guide to J1939 by Wilfried Voss

- Building XNA 2.0 Games by James Silva and John Sedlak

The first two books were illegally uploaded by a user named “gustafhaarhoff”. Needless to say, but the user name is faked, and scribd.com does not allow to contact other scribd.com users, unless they specifically contact you. Does that make sense?

Embedded Networking with CAN and CANopen on Scribd.com

A Comprehensible Guide to J1939 on Scribd.com.

Building XNA 2.0 Games on Scribd.com

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Attn: Jason Bentley, Scribd, Inc.

Pursuant to 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A), this communication serves as a statement that:

1. I am [the exclusive rights holder | the duly authorized representative of the exclusive rights holder] for [title of copyrighted material being infringed upon, along with any identifying material such as ISBNs, publication dates, etc -- or, if the material is a web page, the URL];
2. These exclusive rights are being violated by material available upon your site at the following URL(s): [URLs of infringing material];
3. I have a good faith belief that the use of this material in such a fashion is not authorized by the copyright holder, the copyright holder’s agent, or the law;
4. Under penalty of perjury in a United States court of law, I state that the information contained in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on the behalf of the exclusive rights holder for the material in question;
5. I may be contacted by the following methods (include all): [physical address, telephone number, and email address];

I hereby request that you remove or disable access to this material as it appears on your service in as expedient a fashion as possible. Thank you.

Regards,
[your full legal name]

You will receive an automated message from Scribd, also inviting comments. I would recommend you speak your mind!

Depending on workload they will remove your work within a few days (during which time it is still available for view, print and/or download).

The Absurd Part: Protecting your work on Scribd

According to scribd.com:

• Automated past protection: Each time Scribd receives a DMCA-compliant takedown request from a copyright holder, we quickly remove the unauthorized document and add a unique reference file corresponding to that document to our copyright database, deleting previously-uploaded copies of the same work identified by the system.
• Automated future protection: We also urge authors and publishers to proactively add the text of their work to the Scribd CMS.

Note: CMS = Copyright Management System

What they’re asking you is to sign up to their web site, thus gaining yet another user, and upload your work so that it can be “protected”, meaning you provide them the means to verify and prevent unlawful uploads. It works the same way when you have the document “removed.” In all consequence, your document remains in Scribd database, no matter what.

As a Scribd user they also provide you a feature to “Manage Keyword Alerts”, meaning you will receive an e-mail alert as soon as somebody attempts to upload a document that matches your keywords.

It is like an e-mail from your friendly car thief: “Hi, I just stole your car. I am so sorry! Can I sell it now, please? If you do not agree, please fill out the attached form. In case our verification process finds your claim to be legally valid, I will return your car to you. However, please be aware that it is already damaged.”

• Contacted author Steve Berry through his web site, asking him, if he was aware that his novel “A Templar Legacy” was posted in full on scribd.com (View & Print only, no View).
• Contact Ballantine Books through their web site to inform them about scribd.com. There is a great list of their books on scribd.com, but I have the suspicion that this may be part of their marketing policy, even though that would be a strange and very risky policy.
• Contacted Michiko Kakutani, who writes book reviews for the New York Times. I briefly explained the scribd.com situation and asked to have a look at the issue.
• Sent an e-mail to John Mutter, editor-in-chief at ShelfAwareness.com.
• Sent an e-mail to Diane Broncaccio, a reporter for the local Greenfield newspaper “The Recorder.”
• Sent an e-mail to the Writer’s Digest editorial offices.
• Sent an e-mail to the editors at Poets & Writers.

Response from Writers Digest:

On November 13, 2009 I received an answer from my favorite most useless magazine, Writers Digest:

“Hi Wilfried,
Thanks for letting us know! You’ll want to take those concerns directly to
those sites to resolve the problem. Refer directly to each site’s terms of
use policy to help make your case.

Best wishes,
Melissa
WD”

The links at the bottom of the e-mail pointed to their Online community and a sign-up for their VIP program ($47 a year).  Sorry, been to their Online forum and found it to be one of the most uncivilized in the business.

The answer also reflects the magazine’s attitude: You, the writer, are only important when you pay them.

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.

Tim Nyberg will serve as lead counsel for the plaintiffs.”

For more information read also the article on arstechnica.com.

Ironically, the people at the Camara & Sibley law firm have posted a copy of the suit on the Scribd.com web site.

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.

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Case #1 – Embedded Networking with CAN and CANopen
Authors: Olaf Pfeiffer, Andrew Ayre, and Christoph Keydel
ISBN 978-0976511625

Embedded Networking with CAN and CANopen on Scribd.com

The image to the left (see also the screen shots in higher resolution) shows a screen shot made on November 6, 2009. The PDF file was uploaded by a user “gustafhaarhoff” on June 9, 2009. The screen shot clearly shows the copyright message.  The PDF file of the book is available as a download for everybody.

Underneath the book information is a link “MORE INFO” leading to a section where other users can copy code to embedd the “document” into their web site.

Needless to say that the user name is a fake. Nobody with that name ever purchased the PDF file through the publisher’s web site. The user cannot be contacted through the Scribd.com web site, unless you, as the victim of the crime, sign up as a user and wait for the perpetrator to “subscribe” to you, i.e. there is no way to contact a user who infringed the copyright, knowingly or not.

Case #2 – A Comprehensible Guide to J1939
Author: Wilfried Voss
ISBN 978-0976511632

A Comprehensible Guide to J1939 on Scribd.com

The image to the left (see also the screen shots in higher resolution) shows a screen shot made on November 6, 2009. The PDF file was uploaded by a user “gustafhaarhoff” on June 9, 2009. The screen shot clearly shows the copyright message.  The PDF file of the book is available as a download for everybody.

Underneath the book information is a link “MORE INFO” leading to a section where other users can copy code to embedd the “document” into their web site.

I contacted the scribd.com legal department, namely some Jason Bentley – Director of Customer Care. Originally I received an automated response with the invitation to add comments and adding comments I did, without being insulting.

Mr. Bentley’s response was: “Thank you for your feedback. Your interpretation of our automated response is bizarre and simply wrong. I am closing this case pending receipt of a legally valid takedown request.”

So, he did close my current request, and I have to apply for a removal yet again, because he didn’t care for my comments.

• Springer-Verlag, New York
• Booklocker.com, Inc.