Overly Aggressive Automated Takedowns Hit Scribd
from the though,-they-corrected-it dept
Scribd has come under some totally mistargeted criticism for being a supposed haven of book piracy. The company is clearly protected by DMCA safe harbors, and appears to work extra hard to deal with any infringement found on its platform. Part of that is an automated system that will take down content it believes is infringing. And, as we've seen with automated takedowns on others sites, sometimes it gets a little too aggressive. The folks over at Against Monopoly point out that it took down a copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, a book most of you would agree is very much in the public domain at this point. To Scribd's credit, the company quickly admitted the error (saying it was a technical error) and corrected it. But, still, it shows the dangers of such automated systems. They certainly don't do a good job dealing with fair use cases, and they often have problems with the public domain as well.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: adam smith, dmca, takedown, wealth of nations
Companies: scribd
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
DMCA Being Used to Censor NOM (anti-gay group) critics?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hey!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
OMG! A mistake was made..by software no less! Time to hoof it over to Congress and get copyright law stricken from the books.
I think you're trying to be funny, but that's a cogent argument in my book.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
right
Yes, lets not EVER question the almighty copyright of your lord and masters. To question is to advocate FREE!
Sometimes, laws ARE WRONG. Sometimes, people ABUSE them. And people should ALWAYS question the validity, ESPECIALLY when they are clearly wrong.
You fucking retard.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: right
Please back up powerful statements with at least some thing other than a plea to morality.
I do agree with you that I think copyright laws are wrong in their current incarnation. But I don't think they should be entirely done away with.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Better than ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What effort does YouTube do to ensure material being posted should be? None. Why should their effort to remove anything be any more?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Excuse
Where I live it is legal to shoot someone if they are breaking into your house. However, it is illegal to rig up a shotgun to do it automatically. If you do, and it "accidentally" shoots the wrong person, crying that it just a "technical error" isn't going to get you very far.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]