Famed Harry Potter author JK Rowling is taking on Scribd, the free document sharing service that has been likened to a “YouTube for documents”. Rowling and her publisher have discovered that a number of her books were being illegally shared on the site, after being pirated and uploaded by Scribd members. According to The Times, Rowling’s publishers (along with those representing author Ken Follett) were “battling last night to get free copies of their novels removed” from the site.
At this point it’s unclear just how much ‘battling’ is really going on – Rowling’s lawyer has said that Scribd is “quite helpful and they act immediately, but they won’t police it themselves.” Rowling and her representatives are concerned that Scribd is not proactively searching its database for pirated content, instead waiting for authors to submit complaints before pulling content down. Scribd says that it has an automated system that can prevent content that has previously been marked as pirated from being uploaded again, but given that it apparently isn’t even catching Harry Potter novels (which are likely among the most pirated books ever), I have a hard time believing the system is working very well.
Rowling isn’t the first author to attack Scribd for piracy issues, but her international acclaim makes her voice much louder than most. Her attack is a blemish on the site’s reputation, and perhaps even worse, it will likely have aftershocks – now that Scribd’s piracy issues are receiving widespread attention, more authors and publishers who weren’t even aware of the site may begin to discover that their content is being illegally hosted as well.
That said, not all authors and publishers are anti-Scribd. The site has recently been making headway with other authors and publishers who are legally hosting their content on the site as a means to increase exposure. And such piracy complaints are not unique to Scribd – other sites that host user-generated content (most notably YouTube) have had to deal with the same issues.
Update:
Scribd says that the is no battle going on between Rowling and the site, and that the Times piece is “inaccurate and misleading”, going on to say that Scribd is not being threatened with legal action. From the Scribd blog, which is entitled ‘What Ever Happened To Fact Checking?’
Yesterday, The Times of London published an article claiming that various authors, including J.K. Rowling, were “fighting” Scribd over copyrighted material on our site. Unfortunately, the Times’ article was misleading and included significant factual errors that must be corrected.
1. To make it absolutely clear, J.K. Rowling and the other authors mentioned are not suing Scribd and have never filed a lawsuit against us.
2. Scribd takes the concerns of copyright holders very seriously. It’s why we created our industry-leading copyright management system, which goes above and beyond requirements set forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Our system compares every work uploaded to Scribd against the tens of thousands of documents in our copyright reference database, and if someone tries to upload one of those copyrighted works, our technology prevents them from doing so. Every time a document is flagged for copyright, the file is entered into our system, and that work can’t be re-uploaded. As our reference database grows over time, our technology will become even smarter and faster.
3. Scribd is a document sharing site where people come to publish their grandmother’s 80-year-old pierogi recipe, to find Barack Obama’s latest economic plan, to read The New York Times’ official Madoff filing, to receive feedback on their new screenplay, and to reach a community of over 55 million readers. Books are a small reason readers visit Scribd but growing thanks to our recent partnerships with leading publishing houses, including Simon & Schuster and Random House. (See: Scribd Publisher press release.) These publishers and many authors are voluntarily giving us exclusive excerpts and full books because they see Scribd as a valuable way to get their works in front of tens of millions of readers. For a thoughtful and informed analysis of Scribd, here’s an Ars Technica post that presents a totally opposite take as The Times piece.
Also – our CEO is named Trip Adler, not Trip Adkins.
Haha, that photo matches the headline so perfectly.
I was thinking the same thing. I laughed audibly when this article popped up in my feedreader.
Thanks to Rowling for publicizing the gay cause. For her effort in educating kids about homosexuality.
whatever happened to the court cases that claimed plagarism on her ?
or was that like a facebook thing
Lolz. That picture is really in the same situation as the post talks about..
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
No-one in their right mind is going to read a complete Harry Potter novel online. I suspect almost anyone who would want to own a Potter novel probably has one or two by now, but even in the case of lesser known authors, online distribution helps to boost exposure and sales because people still love paper.
The world has changed and it’s sad that the writers in the 0.01% of writers who can actually afford to live entirely from the proceeds of their books are the ones to protest about this.
As someone in that other 99.99%, I’m keen for people to “pirate” my book and future books (even though my publisher is, naturally, dead against it) because it can only help sales, and even had a bright moment over the weekend as I saw it had made it on to Pirate Bay for the first time
You are right…online will only enhance offline…Books will always have a much stronger market offline than on. People like the smell, touch and feel of books. They like the fact you don’t have to turn them off when you take off or land on an airplane. That you can get them wet and they won’t short circuit.. that you don’t need to recharge them. That books don’t get stolen anything computer does… that your eyes don’t hurt as much reading a book as they do a computer screen because of how it presents information..
News on the otherhand is different because online you get info faster and the stories are shorter.. I am curious as anyone done any studies on how long a person tends to read an article online before they lose interest because fo the length? Should long blog posts be split into 2 pages which would make it more likely to be read?
Really? I call the WALL on that one.
NOT TRUE.
I met her once, had a nice chat waiting for a moment at an airport. GOOD WOMAN.
HOW ABOUT HER PUBLISHER, PUBLICIST AND OTHER MARGIN PROFITEERS try to SCREW the internet down and FAIL – there’s your headline!
VIRAL communication
VIRAL information
VIRAL freedom
VIRAL liberty
VIRAL sharing
VIRAL hackerspaces, wecorps, opensourcejobs
VIRAL rights for HUMAN BEINGS
VIRAL “governance requires the consent of the governed”
LIBERTY now, freedom, peace and opportunity for our kids. ALL OUR KIDS, around the WORLD.
Ms Rowling, you won’t remember me – but stand UP, your voice COUNTS – no more corporate supercitizens and castles built on market manipulation, homeless and jobless despair and the GRAVES OF STARVING CHILDREN behind poor-country prison walls.
John Hubertz
USA
Activist – Peace, Human Rights, Corporate Criminal Liability
PATRIOT
April 15th – all of us, no work, no buy, no sell
A Sabbath for FREEDOM
Actually I have had the mis-fortune to meet her twice. Once at a charity dinner, the other time at the Bafta’s
Regardless of the fact that she managed to write books that engaged the minds of 12yr olds so well, and that neither evening was about her she was a dour, sour faced, needy and whining bitch. IMHO.
said the guy who didn’t have the balls to leave his real name/website.
privacy has become a major threat online. Google should come up with better solutions in order to eradicate it from root
Most of the content on Scribd is Gutenberg.org or other free out of copyright documents so that just shows how web unsavvy Ms. Rowling. There is also a lot of user generated content.
I don’t think Ms. Rowling has ever heard of the DMCA
“I’m keen for people to “pirate” my book and future books … because it can only help sales…”
As Kindles and Sony Readers and iPhone Stanza’s become more and more commonplace, I suspect that attitude will change.
Authors may, like musicians, find a few people who buy the books or CDs in order to “support” the artists, but, unlike musicians, the vast majority of authors aren’t going to be selling concert tickets to make up the difference in lost revenue.
Be careful what you wish for…
NOT HER THEM
Supercitizen corporation media hacks.
I met her – she was a sprite, a true mahatma – a mother’s heart and soul, and she speaks for the children, not to steal her books from the poorest and least able to defend themselves – free young readers in libraries.
PRIVACY is not the threat – corporate war on freedom IS
They RENAMED the WTC Freedom Tower – now it will be the World Trade Tower
Freedom is now a threat-word per the homeland security trainers that teach OUR cops!
OMG
You people are obviously overreacting.
She is not aiming to take down the site. Nobody said she’s trying to destroy Scribd. She just doesn’t want her intellectual property violated.
They should be working to combat piracy so that things like this don’t happen.
Scribd has plenty of legitimate uses, which is great. But at the same time, it can be used for various illegal activities.
It doesn’t matter whether anyone is using them or not, the fact that the books are made available in the first place is wrong.
It doesn’t matter how much money you make from your work, if it’s made available against your permission, it’s still wrong.
These books were JKR’s way out of poverty. She may have money now, but that wasn’t always the case.
There are a few a major differences between stealing a pirated copy of the book and borrowing one from the library: (1) The library has its copy legally, and (2) only one person at a time may use the library’s copy.
I know there have been some (anecdotal) studies that suggest that music file sharing results in more money for the musician. Since musicians today plan on making their money from live performances, that model may work for them.
For a writer, it won’t work the same way as for a musician. The book is the performance. Take it away (or the movie made from the book), and there is nothing left.
If you want writers to take the time to create something you want to read, you have to pay for it.
How about asking the authors for a storyline and pledging an amount in escrow.
If Ms Rowling is reading this, here’s a request:
Please make us a scifi thriller where the vikings of yore fight with the LOTR characters in a convenient plot, where the wizards from the land of Potter actually take sides and help the part that they support (good for good, bad for bad). You don’t even need to portray one as good and another as bad, you can simply make a very complex statement about the state of the times with analogies. How mixed and conflicting principles force a gray, case-by-case solution and resolution of conflict rather than an all out war-to-death on a popular battleground. Introduce some ancient mystics and powers that are not of the wizard land and make a franchise out of this whole thing – and make money from those – the toys, the clothes, the “events”, swag and stuff.
Author2.0, please, mashups are the cool thing.
Scifi mashups can be big in $$ terms – but that needs you to be flexible about IPR. Licensing and shit like that does not work because eventually you are trying to control the consumers’ wallets. Make it free and encourage fair use and encourage mashups – a lesson that even *Microsoft* is beginning to learn – interoperability, funding their sworn enemy – Apache, using JQuery, giving out Express editions and so on.
Make a marketplace for mashups for creative people to create without fear of legal warfare.
You can make your next novel fully free, you made enough money for 2 generations to live royally.
What’s better, begging or giving?
Rowling: “Quick! I hear the library is letting people read my books … for free! Send a hippogriff to rip those people to shreds!”
Lawyer: “Um, Ms. Rowling, that’s a fantasy creature and doesn’t really live in our world.”
Rowling: “Well, send a warlock to blast them with some fire ball!”
Lawyer: “Warlocks don’t exist either! Come now, if you have a problem, I’ll send a team ..”
Rowling: “Do you have wands?”
Lawyer: “No we have …”
Rowling: “Do you use brooms? House elves? Dragons?”
Lawyer: “No, we sue people.”
Rowling: “Does that hurt?”
Lawyer: “More than ogre’s breath.”
Rowling: “Good! Let’s do that!”
Yeah I know she’s not really that dim .. but I found it funny. If you read all the lawsuits she’s sent out over the years it seems she’s a bit … arrogant and vicious … when it comes to anything that could even rhymes with ‘Harry Potter and ….”
Ah well. Her time is nearly done with fame and fortune. Books are all done. Movies are nearly finished and she’s trying to grasp at anything to keep her revenue solid.
Best of luck Rowling.
Idiot.
Sarcasm is fun. You should try it!
I guess I should also state that in this case, obvious pirating material is legit reason to send a letter off to Scribd.
The article doesn’t state that Scribd was sued – just told to take off the copyright material.
I was just having fun. Because it’s fun to have fun!
You should try it!
Also, no .. not an idiot. Just someone who doesn’t have “fanboy/girl” eyes to anything Rowling. Not saying YOU do .. just saying ..
Lighten up. I thought it was funny.
“but given that it apparently isn’t even catching Harry Potter novels (which are likely among the most pirated books ever), I have a hard time believing the system is working very well.”
I second this.
…and Cory Doctorow keeps laughing his way to the bank.
I think Cory is successful because he gets tons of publicity from BoingBoing, not because he gets tons of publicity from giving away his books for free.
Go look at the Amazon sales rankings for similar authors. The ones that don’t give their books away for free are much higher. My guess is that Doctorow is forgoing a number of sales by giving his content away. And that number is going to soar as Kindle and iPhones become common reading devices. I wonder if he’ll still be singing the same tune in 3 or 4 years.
I’m willing to better there are more copies of her books on PirateBay than on Scribd.
And I think a nut house is missing a loon. Wow.
Oh Noes, they are reading our content (That they wouldn’t have purchased) on the web – Even everyone knows that if you like a book you buy it!
How will this end! It’s the death of publishing!
Facepalm!
Scribd (and docstoc for that matter) also regularly links to search results pages, which Google specifically defines as a no-no (http://www.goog...mp;answer=35769 under “Technical Guidlines”). Why isn’t Google banning or penalizing their site? Hmmm, seems adsense dollars are more important.
OMG! is this for real?
I love Scribd! Someone uploaded the HP book.. Hehe
Instead of fighting with UGC/host-system, why not acknowledge this is how user wants to share/consume the content and do what hulu did for premium video content.
Maybe if she would allow electronic versions of her books to be sold there wouldn’t be such a demand for pirated versions. Not to mention the fact that it’s taken 2 years to release a paperback version of the final book. Book publishers should learn from other media and realize that consumers aren’t willing to wait that long for something to come out in a format they desire (if it ever comes out at all in the case of an ebook).
this debate has been going on for YEARS and will probably continue for more and more YEARS. i think kid rock said it best in a little PSA he did a while back. something to the effect of:
“so, you think the music record companies have enough money where they deserve to be stolen from? well, then if you need a new car, by all means go right ahead and take one. need a new tv? go to best buy and grab one off the shelf [ other big companies with things you wouldn't steal ]”
the reason it’s such a big problem is because everyone and their mother can do it. there’s no learning curve. i would be really upset too if someone came into my business and started stealing things.
There’s something ironic about using a pirated photo to illustrate this story. Does TechCrunch pay photographers?
Surely you’re joking, Bob
It’s called “fair use” and you would immediately notice another example of fair use in this comment. But then, the dead man will come back and sue me, OMG!
(The law allows copyright for far more than the life time of the author, and that lowly status for copyright law was achieved in the 80s, IIRC)
No. It’s not obvious to me. This is a commercial site. They’re not offering any commentary about the picture what-so-ever.
*zing* on getting the CEO’s name wrong… funny
Kyle is right on point – what most of the ethically challenged ignore in the name of it should be free if I want to take it – is that the first people to get hurt are not the fat cats, but the rank and file who work for the companies and when the companies can’t profit – they lay them off. So when you steal it isn’t Jeff Zucker or Rowling who goes hungry but some single mom who was just getting by. Real nice so some spoiled suburban kid doesn’t have to spend his allowance.
Rowling lives in the UK while the DMCA laws are US only. The fact that these kinds of articles are coming up now means that Scribd is just now creeping into the mainstream.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity. This could help Scribd more than harm it if they act quickly to avoid law suits.
What is she moaning about. I found some of our ebooks on Scribd, filed a DMCA (by email) and they were gone inside of 24 hours. Sure I’d prefer not to have to do it, but it was dealt with far far faster than say a DMCA request to Google.
I hope she doesn’t lose too much money to all that piracy.
So many of these books have been printed that is anybody still buying them? Rowlings, you are so rich, why do you care? Besides, it is totally painful to read an entire Harry Potter volume from a computer screen.
She can do it but no one else can?
Supposedly a lot of the ideas and material in her books has been plagiarised from books on Black Magic and Grimoires, its too bad the authors of these aren’t still alive or Rowling might not have any money herself…
Why, oh why, oh why, does J.K.RowlinginMoney complain about Scibd? Has she no shame? just how many trees does it take to print 10 million books? i will tell you, its about 500,000 acres of forest. Not to mention the human cost and animal life that is destroyed due to de-forestation, but thats ok because Ms Rowling can donate half a mil and be able to sleep at night. What Miss Rowling should do is release her books via internet and paypal. Atleast then she would have something to complain about if a pirated version appeared. Lets cut down more trees and destroy the planet for the sake of some childhood fantasies eh? When we are all starving and living in the desert, im sure history will remember Ms Rowling and it wont be for her books.
hehe a lot of controversy on this topic