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.

Filed Under: adam smith, dmca, takedown, wealth of nations
Companies: scribd