Scribd Puts User Docs Behind A Paywall Without Them Realizing It
from the totally-not-cool dept
Last year, I wrote about some issues I had with the way Scribd tried to avoid liability by suggesting that public domain documents couldn't be hosted on the site or that fair use was not allowed. To the company's credit, it responded quickly and fixed the situation, but soon after that I switched to (mostly) using Docstoc to host documents. Doctstoc has its own problems as well, but for the most part has worked well for me. Still, in my experience Scribd is still quite popular among folks -- especially for uploading and hosting legal documents. Apparently, the company recently made some quiet changes and it's seriously pissed off law professor Eric Goldman, who has relied on the site for quite some time.The key problem? Without clear notification, it took "older" (and older is left undefined) documents and put them behind a paywall. As Goldman notes, the whole reason he used Scribd was to make the documents available, and it was quite a shock to suddenly find them behind a paywall:
Scribd's paywall stunt instantly put Scribd on my shitlist because it vitiates the reason I chose to use Scribd in the first place. I don't know that they ever promised me perpetual free access to the documents I post, but their value proposition always has been open access to the documents--freely shared with everyone and indexed in the search engines. The paywall destroys that value proposition. They've taken the documents that I wanted to freely share with the public (many of them public documents like court rulings and filings) and made them inaccessible. If my readers can't freely get the documents I wanted to share with them, then what's the point of using Scribd in the first place???Goldman is looking at other options, including Docstoc and Rapidshare. Another one worth checking out could be Slideshare, or even potentially Google Docs. However, all this has me thinking again about the wisdom of relying on third parties for such things (even though I do it myself). I do like the ability to display PDF documents, such as legal filings, embedded within a post, but I'm wondering if there are any simple solutions for setting up that sort of thing on your own server. Anyone know of any?
I also feel like Scribd used me. With their implicit promise of open access, they got me to share a lot of high-interest documents and generate lots of link love, then they flipped the default (from free to paywall) as part of a cash grab. I could check out of Scribd, but then I would break a lot of links and it would take a lot of time. So now I feel trapped. It's a terrible feeling.
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Filed Under: eric goldman, paywall, user notification
Companies: scribd
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Scribd - Seems Obvious
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Eric Schmidt is on Colbert tomorrow night.
Either you PAY for the privilege for it to be private or you make it freely available under what they call "ad-supported" but, it's actually paid for with tax dollars.
It's what's called the Tax-funded "CIA-interwebs-gotta-get-em-terrerests-by-selling-snooping/tracking-technology" business model.
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A suggestion.
I don't know of any simple solution myself, but I suspect that the folks at Super User likely would, if you ask them.
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A lot of room in that space
Document hosting or nearly any sort of web application could function the same way. With the cost of cloud storage dropping daily, it seems like someone should be able to make this model work for tons of useful things, like embeddable PDF hosting.
I'm currently accepting venture capital to get right on this.
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Re: A lot of room in that space
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Know of any?
There's also SWFTools, which includes PDF2SWF, and is completely open source. However, this generates a distinct .swf file for each PDF, so I don't know if it's the right solution.
If you don't want Flash and your site is uses PHP, you might be able to hack something together using Samuraj Data's online coverter and embedding the HTML in an iframe.
There's also CynergyPDF, but it's only for Joomla-powered websites.
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Re: Know of any?
FlexPaper does look nice. I'll explore and see.
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Re: Re: Know of any?
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You put your documents in the cloud for free then they have no value and you can't really get upset if the people you gave them to choose to do things with them that you don't like.
You don't get stuff for free - and if you're dumb enough to think that you do then you deserve everything you get. Apparently our "law professor" shouldn't really be trusted to make adult decisions.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re:
http://www.infowars.com/collecting-rainwater-now-illegal-in-many-states-as-big-government-claims -ownership-over-our-water/
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Just like how 9/11 was an inside job,
Obama is a secret muslim that wasn't born in Hawaii
The US dollar is going away for a new North American "Amero"
etc...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Or, you could just go to the sources linked in the article, like this report from Channel 5 News.
Now, Inforwars' reaction is a bit histrionic, but it's based on truth. (Unlike a lot of other stuff on there.)
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Off-topic a bit, but...
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Re: Off-topic a bit, but...
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FTP meets my needs.
Steps to replicate:
1.) Buy used computer on craigslist.
2.) Install TFTP server.
3.) Connect to interwebs via wired cable (So the Google Car and their legal team that's driving by can't steal your info!)
4.) Sign up for GoToMyPC and give all your students the login and ability to remotely read the documents.
5.) Proceed to Cheezburger.
6.) PROFIT.
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Re: FTP meets my needs.
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Re: FTP meets my needs.
1.) Post doc
2.) students go to the address and DL it
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Here's the answer... You can thank me later.
I have a breakthrough idea for you. You're really going to like this one. Have you considered producing them on DVDs and mailing them to your customers?
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Re: Karl
http://flexpaper.devaldi.com
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Re: Re: Karl
The issue is that it's supposedly GPL, even though it's not. If you look at the FSF's Categories of free and nonfree software page, it would actually be what used to be called "semifree software," and is now just called "proprietary software."
Still, that's an issue for the FSF to deal with, not us.
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Re: Re: Re: Karl
http://flowplayer.org/download/index.html
The GPLv3 allows this and the FSF actually does too;
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#HeardOtherLicense
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Karl
(Emphasis mine.)
But I guess you're right about the requirement that the logo stay in place. You learn something new every day, I guess.
We're probably just picking nits at this point. FlexPaper seems like a good program, so even if it was proprietary, it would be worth using IMHO.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Karl
"This is the appropriate option if you are creating a commercial website and you are not prepared to distribute and share the source code of your application under the GPL."
http://flexpaper.devaldi.com/license.htm
You can use it for commercial use but you must then release it under the GPL-V3. If you want a different license that allows you to use it for commercial use and keep what you made a secret then you must buy that different license.
Same thing if you want a license that allows you to bundle it with proprietary software.
"This is the appropriate license to use if you intend to bundle or ship FlexPaper as part of a product."
It's released under the GPl-V3, you can do whatever yo want with that provided you maintain the license because the license requires that you do so. If you want a different license, if you want a license that allows you to do something without maintaining the Gpl-V3 license, then you must pay.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Karl
1. You are using it on a commercial site;
2. You modify the program; and
3. You do not release these modifications under the GPL.
Correct?
It seems someone like Mike wouldn't have to pay for a commercial license, then?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Karl
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It sounds like we have a winner, then. Hop to it, Masnick!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Karl
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embed
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"Can Authors and Publishers distribute their works under the settlement for free, under a Creative Commons license or otherwise?
Yes. Rightsholders are free to set any price for their work including the ability to distribute their work free of charge. If you are interested in distributing your work for free, including under a Creative Commons license, then you should claim your Book on the Claim Form and, on the �Manage Your Books� page, fill in the box asking you to specify your sale price for the book at �zero.� In the future, the Claim Form will also provide an option for you to offer your Book under a Creative Commons license, and you should check the Claim Form periodically for that option to appear. The Registry will inform Google of your request, and Google will include information on its web site so that end users are aware of the licensing terms chosen by you. Rightsholders are also free to authorize Google directly to distribute their book through a Creative Commons license."
http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/help/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=118704#q43f
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I wonder: is there a reason why Google Docs isn't an option here? I realize that the service has its limitations, but I have had great luck with sharing documents on that service.
I wonder if they index documents open to the entire web?
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not really paywall
any document works, really...
including any pdf that says only "scribd sucks" :D
try it, scribd just opened the flood gates for a whoop-ass of document spam :p
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Embedding Google Docs in WordPress
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OBJECT tag?
Does anything prevent you from storing the files on your own server and using an OBJECT tag in your posts?
This page has instructions for using the OBJECT tag to embed a PDF.
The link on that page to the explanation of PDF Open Parameters is stale, but here is a PDF that explains PDF Open Parameters.
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Re: OBJECT tag?
The fact that users must have the Acrobat plugin installed. Naturally, this causes browser incompatibility issues. See the "Compatibility" section of the PDFObject guide.
Incidentally, PDFObject seems like it would be useful if you want to go this route, as it gets around most browser limitations using JavaScript.
But I should note that I have Acrobat installed, and I can't view the PDF in my browser (Chrome), even using PDFObject.
There's also one other, possibly major, drawback: No search engine will index anything in an OBJECT tag. Of course, that applies to Flash as well. If that's a worry, you'd have to convert the PDF into HTML before displaying it.
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Re: Re: OBJECT tag?
Plus, it loads very slow and would annoy users if you embed 10 pdf files on a single page.
Flash is more reasonable as I can just use the Flashblock extension for Firefox to block all flash on the page and, if I'm interested in seeing the PDF file, I can just click on the flash icon for that object and unblock it without reloading the page, and I can then see it loading in the Flash object on the page.
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woops
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Now that he has put emotion before reason, perhaps he will realize that reversing the two and dealing directly with the site will yield the results he wants.
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Re:
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Google viewer: https://docs.google.com/viewer
Zoho viewer: http://viewer.zoho.com/home.do
It might be worthwhile to include a direct dl link to the document if possible as a backup.
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Scribd Alternative
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idea
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