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JK Rowling Attacks Scribd For Pirated Content

33 points by pclark 18y ago

zandorg 18y ago
Irony 2.0... Ken Follett (one of the complainants in the article) wrote a novella for the games Starglider and Starglider 2 in 1986. I asked him permission (in 2003) to put these novellas on my gaming novella site (a collection of gaming-related literature). He said, sorry, I am re-publishing the Starglider 1/2 novellas in a compilation. So I left his novellas out. Every novella on the website is there with permission. Another person who said No was RPG legend (USA, not UK) Steve Jackson (for the Stonekeep book). So if I can keep honest, how come Scribbers can't? Note: I left out the URL for the novella site, because it has my full name in the URL.
- chris11 18y ago
  The difference is that you are choosing the documents to put on your site. Scribd does not choose the documents to put on their site, users upload them. So if you ended up with pirated material on your site, you would be completely responsible. But that is not the case with Scribd. Anyone can submit material to Scribd, so people submit pirated material. I believe that Scribd would qualify as a safe harbor under the DMCA. So all they really need to do is respond to requests to take down pirated material. Veoh was once sued for infringing copyright. The judge ended granting a summary judgement in favor of the defendant on the basis that Veoh was just providing user-submitted content and that Veoh did not even supervise the files that were uploaded. I am reading that as saying that if Veoh actively checked user uploads for pirated material, they might might have lost the court case or at least had their motion for summary judgement dismissed. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#IO_Group_Inc._vs._Veoh_Networks_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac.... That said, Scribd does have a problem with piracy.. One of my first introductions to Scribd was when I was searching for excepts from a book and found the full book on Scribd.
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    Scribd promised to be pro-active when attacked by the SFWA, which I thought at the time was exactly the wrong tack, for precisely this reason: once you've set up to monitor the system, you can't use safe harbor as a defense any more.
  - tommyx 18y ago
    People take far too much comfort in the idea of safe harbor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Direct_Financial_Benefit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_L... It's not a blank check to create a site full of blatant infringement. You have to be very naive to think Scribd really does everything they could to prevent copyrighted content from being uploaded. The kindest assumption would be that they're incompetent, but that's probably not the case. They're just twiddling their thumbs about it because it's the main driver of traffic. Hopefully they've retained some good lawyers.
- fatdog789 18y ago
  There's no irony at all. You're respecting someone else's rights. You're doing the right thing. The anonymous scribbers are not doing the right thing. Don't change who you are just b/c of them.
  - zandorg 18y ago
    The irony was that I'd crossed swords with Ken Follet over the right thing, and now he's crossing swords with Scribd for the wrong thing!
bcl 18y ago
Scribd has been under fire for some time now. Pournelle covered this back in 2007 - http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/open_archives/jep_column-326-a.php http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/open_archives/jep_column-32... If authors want their works to be available they have numerous outlets for doing it right. One of the good ones is the Baen Free Library - http://www.baen.com/library/ http://www.baen.com/library/
johnrob 18y ago
Is copyright violation the new guerrilla marketing technique du jour? A decade ago, hotmail taught us the power of viral marketing. Now it seems like the youtubes of the world are teaching us the power of "controversy marketing": 1) Build a product that pisses off big fish 2) Let them scream at you 3) Leverage the ensuing brand recognition...
- Zev 18y ago
  //edit: Nevermind. Ignore this comment. I've been corrected by folasm87 & it turns out I misread the johnrob's comment and applied what he was saying to the wrong party. Of all the things lacking brand recognition in the global market, Harry Potter is not one of them. I don't think this is the case here.
  - folasm87 18y ago
    In this case I believe he was referring to Scribd.
    - Zev 18y ago
      Thanks for the correction - It doesn't seem obvious that it is the case though (to me).
tsally 18y ago
JK Rowling has a pretty horrible record when it comes to modern thinking about copyright infringement. Harry Potter Encyclopedia Barred From Publication (2008): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94420616 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9442061...
- unalone 18y ago
  She had every right to do that. Those characters are her personal creations, and while she was fine with a free encyclopedia online, she didn't want anybody to profit off of her creations. While I like the mindset that says you should be open with your creations, I respect the one that says your ideas are your own, and Rowling subscribes to that. I don't like this kneejerk attitude against people who want to retain rights to their work.
  - tsally 18y ago
    Let's make an analogy to software. Let's say there is this amazing piece of software that everyone loves, and then the developer decides to stop developing it. Should someone else have the right to expand on it, since so many people stand to benefit? Harry Potter is a cultural icon, and the Encylopdia increased the value of it. The writer of it was a huge fan who wrote the entire thing as a side project. There was no corporate backing until he tried to publish it, it was all done out of a love for the characters. Wow, this comment is -1 as well? What's with the new people on HN today.... go back to Reddit/Digg please. As the request of the below poster, my rational is that my view, while not the same as yours, is reasoned and made clearly.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Harry Potter is first and foremost a book series. Anything more is based on the author's benevolence or interests. Once Harry Potter is published, it's out there and it's done. The series lies in those printed novels. That doesn't change. If Rowling wants to let people add more, she can, but it is certainly not a requirement. Similarly, I absolutely have the right to suspend a software project of mine and leave it hanging, if that's what I want. Perhaps I don't want something associated with my name being sullied by other people's work. Maybe I want it to be associated with me and only me. The fan was terrific, but he tried to make money. Rowling told him she was against that and he did it anyway. So it wasn't like she lied to him. By the way: I downvote people as soon as they ask about why they're being downvoted, unless they're giving a good rationale for why they shouldn't be downvoted. Maybe that's why the negativism?
jasonbentley 18y ago
The whole story about Rowling and her lawyers "going after," "attacking," or "suing" Scribd is a British tabloid fabrication. http://blog.scribd.com/2009/03/30/what-ever-happened-to-fact-checking/ http://blog.scribd.com/2009/03/30/what-ever-happened-to-fact...
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- markm 18y ago
  "Also – our CEO is named Trip Adler, not Trip Adkins." big lols.
grinich 18y ago
Hackers & Painters is also on scribd... http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-Painters http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-Pain...
- ensignavenger 18y ago
  Cool- I've always wanted to read that :) Isn't all of the contents from Hackers and Painters available on PG's website anyway?
  - sharkbrainguy 18y ago
    no

33 points by pclark 18y ago

Irony 2.0... Ken Follett (one of the complainants in the article) wrote a novella for the games Starglider and Starglider 2 in 1986. I asked him permission (in 2003) to put these novellas on my gaming novella site (a collection of gaming-related literature). He said, sorry, I am re-publishing the Starglider 1/2 novellas in a compilation. So I left his novellas out. Every novella on the website is there with permission. Another person who said No was RPG legend (USA, not UK) Steve Jackson (for the Stonekeep book). So if I can keep honest, how come Scribbers can't? Note: I left out the URL for the novella site, because it has my full name in the URL.

chris11 18y ago
The difference is that you are choosing the documents to put on your site. Scribd does not choose the documents to put on their site, users upload them. So if you ended up with pirated material on your site, you would be completely responsible. But that is not the case with Scribd. Anyone can submit material to Scribd, so people submit pirated material. I believe that Scribd would qualify as a safe harbor under the DMCA. So all they really need to do is respond to requests to take down pirated material. Veoh was once sued for infringing copyright. The judge ended granting a summary judgement in favor of the defendant on the basis that Veoh was just providing user-submitted content and that Veoh did not even supervise the files that were uploaded. I am reading that as saying that if Veoh actively checked user uploads for pirated material, they might might have lost the court case or at least had their motion for summary judgement dismissed. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#IO_Group_Inc._vs._Veoh_Networks_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac.... That said, Scribd does have a problem with piracy.. One of my first introductions to Scribd was when I was searching for excepts from a book and found the full book on Scribd.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  Scribd promised to be pro-active when attacked by the SFWA, which I thought at the time was exactly the wrong tack, for precisely this reason: once you've set up to monitor the system, you can't use safe harbor as a defense any more.
- tommyx 18y ago
  People take far too much comfort in the idea of safe harbor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Direct_Financial_Benefit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_L... It's not a blank check to create a site full of blatant infringement. You have to be very naive to think Scribd really does everything they could to prevent copyrighted content from being uploaded. The kindest assumption would be that they're incompetent, but that's probably not the case. They're just twiddling their thumbs about it because it's the main driver of traffic. Hopefully they've retained some good lawyers.
fatdog789 18y ago
There's no irony at all. You're respecting someone else's rights. You're doing the right thing. The anonymous scribbers are not doing the right thing. Don't change who you are just b/c of them.
- zandorg 18y ago
  The irony was that I'd crossed swords with Ken Follet over the right thing, and now he's crossing swords with Scribd for the wrong thing!

bcl 18y ago

Scribd has been under fire for some time now. Pournelle covered this back in 2007 - http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/open_archives/jep_column-326-a.php http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/open_archives/jep_column-32... If authors want their works to be available they have numerous outlets for doing it right. One of the good ones is the Baen Free Library - http://www.baen.com/library/ http://www.baen.com/library/

johnrob 18y ago

Is copyright violation the new guerrilla marketing technique du jour? A decade ago, hotmail taught us the power of viral marketing. Now it seems like the youtubes of the world are teaching us the power of "controversy marketing": 1) Build a product that pisses off big fish 2) Let them scream at you 3) Leverage the ensuing brand recognition...

Zev 18y ago
//edit: Nevermind. Ignore this comment. I've been corrected by folasm87 & it turns out I misread the johnrob's comment and applied what he was saying to the wrong party. Of all the things lacking brand recognition in the global market, Harry Potter is not one of them. I don't think this is the case here.
- folasm87 18y ago
  In this case I believe he was referring to Scribd.
  - Zev 18y ago
    Thanks for the correction - It doesn't seem obvious that it is the case though (to me).

tsally 18y ago

JK Rowling has a pretty horrible record when it comes to modern thinking about copyright infringement. Harry Potter Encyclopedia Barred From Publication (2008): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94420616 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9442061...

unalone 18y ago
She had every right to do that. Those characters are her personal creations, and while she was fine with a free encyclopedia online, she didn't want anybody to profit off of her creations. While I like the mindset that says you should be open with your creations, I respect the one that says your ideas are your own, and Rowling subscribes to that. I don't like this kneejerk attitude against people who want to retain rights to their work.
- tsally 18y ago
  Let's make an analogy to software. Let's say there is this amazing piece of software that everyone loves, and then the developer decides to stop developing it. Should someone else have the right to expand on it, since so many people stand to benefit? Harry Potter is a cultural icon, and the Encylopdia increased the value of it. The writer of it was a huge fan who wrote the entire thing as a side project. There was no corporate backing until he tried to publish it, it was all done out of a love for the characters. Wow, this comment is -1 as well? What's with the new people on HN today.... go back to Reddit/Digg please. As the request of the below poster, my rational is that my view, while not the same as yours, is reasoned and made clearly.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Harry Potter is first and foremost a book series. Anything more is based on the author's benevolence or interests. Once Harry Potter is published, it's out there and it's done. The series lies in those printed novels. That doesn't change. If Rowling wants to let people add more, she can, but it is certainly not a requirement. Similarly, I absolutely have the right to suspend a software project of mine and leave it hanging, if that's what I want. Perhaps I don't want something associated with my name being sullied by other people's work. Maybe I want it to be associated with me and only me. The fan was terrific, but he tried to make money. Rowling told him she was against that and he did it anyway. So it wasn't like she lied to him. By the way: I downvote people as soon as they ask about why they're being downvoted, unless they're giving a good rationale for why they shouldn't be downvoted. Maybe that's why the negativism?

jasonbentley 18y ago

The whole story about Rowling and her lawyers "going after," "attacking," or "suing" Scribd is a British tabloid fabrication. http://blog.scribd.com/2009/03/30/what-ever-happened-to-fact-checking/ http://blog.scribd.com/2009/03/30/what-ever-happened-to-fact...

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
markm 18y ago
"Also – our CEO is named Trip Adler, not Trip Adkins." big lols.

grinich 18y ago

Hackers & Painters is also on scribd... http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-Painters http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-Pain...

ensignavenger 18y ago
Cool- I've always wanted to read that :) Isn't all of the contents from Hackers and Painters available on PG's website anyway?
- sharkbrainguy 18y ago
  no