Scribd should be upfront with both authors and readers about this tactic. It's very disappointing, and makes me wonder about how various other services are using content that is uploaded/distributed to them on the basis that users can access it for free.
Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
21–30 of 37 posts
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
What complicates things, and makes them worse, is that a large amount of the content is uploaded by people who are not the original authors/publishers, and don't actually have the rights. As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content.
Just last week I found a research paper I published while at Cornell on Scribd -- no attribution at all, no permissions, etc. It's a paper that in normal circulation costs $50 to purchase (and has been purchased a few thousand times -- whether $50 is reasonable or not is a discussion for another thread, of course). I considered letting my editor know about it to see if she wanted me to request it be taken down, but t…
I'd rather more people see the paper anyway so left it alone.
I would ask the uploader to add proper attribution though.
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just last week I found a research paper I published while at Cornell on Scribd -- no attribution at all, no permissions, etc. It's a paper that in normal circulation costs $50 to purchase (and has been purchased a few thousand times -- whether $50 is reasonable or not is a discussion for another thread, of course). I considered letting my editor know about it to see if she wanted me to request it be taken down, but t…
The problem, of course, is that you should've been the one making the decision in the first place.
The article is probably in an academic journal and the author doesn't have rights to decide what to do with it.
(Scribd may be evil, but academic publishing is like a coven of necromancers)
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#24From the comments section: UPDATE! Evil Wylie contacted Scribd and successfully negotiated a resolution. Scribd now offers the option for an author to PERMANENTLY OPT ALL DOCUMENTS OUT of the "archives." This is effective immediately. This doesn't mean that what they did was right (although their terms and conditions allow them to basically do whatever), but they do respond to complaints rather swiftly.
So if you ask them nicely not to be bottomfeeding scammers, they'll be happy to oblige, effective immediately and permanently, for your documents.
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content. So basically it's YouTube, but for documents.
Yeah, but youtube doesn't charge you to watch the videos...
YouTube is still monetised by advertising... still making profit, though I guess its more upfront.
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
What complicates things, and makes them worse, is that a large amount of the content is uploaded by people who are not the original authors/publishers, and don't actually have the rights. As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content.
As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content. So basically it's YouTube, but for documents.
That doesn't give it any ethical high ground though...
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#27While I can for sure appreciate the Scribd service, charging for 24 hour access to "archives" is just silly. It reminds me of Rapidshare, which isn't exactly a brand to live up to. On the other hand. So does the website that posted the article and requires a login to read the follow-up. I like that someone called Scribed out and they fixed the situation.
The charges only applied to downloading the documents, not viewing them in their HTML5 or FlashPaper viewer.
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#28[deleted]
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#29Seriously: what's the point of Scribd? All they do - show your document along with ads all over the place and let people download the source PDF after registration. Why not to just put PDF on your site in the first place?
Re: Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
What complicates things, and makes them worse, is that a large amount of the content is uploaded by people who are not the original authors/publishers, and don't actually have the rights. As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content.
As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content. So basically it's YouTube, but for documents.
Except people post whole books to Scribed, while on YouTube, you can't post a whole ripped DVD in one post.