Quote:
Originally Posted by pglaskowsky
But where's the outrage at Scribd for having published thousands of pirated books to begin with?
Scribd's been around nine or ten months now, and until last week, it pretended it didn't have to care that its users were uploading vast quantities of copyrighted documents without permission from their owners.
Oh, you may say Scribd has no obligation to do anything until it gets DMCA notices. Not true. The DMCA requires that service providers such as Scribd take appropriate actions whenever they become aware of pirated content. See my blog (here) for more details.
I suspect Scribd is going to be a lot more careful in the future. Scribd is getting legal counsel from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is probably giving them pretty good advice about its duties under the DMCA and other laws. That's all anyone expects-- that Scribd should obey the law, which includes respecting intellectual property. |
Scribd had no legal liability until they recieved a DMCA takedown notice from a copyright holder or the holder's agent. That is why they took nothing down. The law is quite explicit on this point.
Also, the email sent to Scribd was not even close to being a proper takedown notice. They could have ignored it.
Here is an example of a takedown notice:
http://wendy.seltzer.org/media/NFLAn...2007.02.13.txt
The SFWA email lacked the following stuff:
The xxx copyrights are infringed by the above material being made available for copying, through downloading, at the above location without authorization from the xxx.
3. Statement of authority:
I hereby certify under penalty of perjury that the information in this notice is accurate and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the xxx, the copyright owner of the intellectual property rights. I have a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above have been authorized by the xxx, its agents, or the law.
We hereby give notice of these activities to you and request that you take expeditious action to remove or disable access to the material described above, and thereby prevent the reproduction and distribution of this material via your company's network.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Please advise us regarding what actions you take.
Sincerely,
***********
Internet Investigator
on behalf of:
xxx