
Scribd.com Comes to the Dark Side - timf
http://www.evilreads.com/blog/2010/9/1/scribdcom-comes-to-the-dark-side.html
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Judson
While I can for sure appreciate the Scribd service, charging for 24 hour
access to "archives" is just silly. It reminds me of Rapidshare, which isn't
exactly a brand to live up to.

On the other hand. So does the website that posted the article and requires a
login to read the follow-up.

I like that someone called Scribed out and they fixed the situation.

~~~
jules
What exactly do you like about Scribd? Every experience I had with is has been
negative. Their reader sucks and to download a pdf you have to register. When
somebody posts a link to Scribd I always end up searching for another place on
the internet that has it. I don't see any value Scribd provides.

~~~
Judson
I never said I "liked" the scribd service, only that I could appreciate what
they are doing, not necessarily the monetization.

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michael_dorfman
From the comments section:

 _UPDATE! Evil Wylie contacted Scribd and successfully negotiated a
resolution. Scribd now offers the option for an author to PERMANENTLY OPT ALL
DOCUMENTS OUT of the "archives." This is effective immediately. This doesn't
mean that what they did was right (although their terms and conditions allow
them to basically do whatever), but they do respond to complaints rather
swiftly._

~~~
jackowayed
Smart move by Scribd. Diffuse a lot of the "SCRIBD IS PURE EVIL!!!!!"
complaints, but only a fraction of a percent of documents will get opted out,
so the impact on their revenue is negligible.

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chrisbolt
_scribd responds_

Why am i asked for a login to see their response?

~~~
riffer
And to clarify, it is evelreads that is asking you to login, rather than
scribd

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annajohnson
Scribd should be upfront with both authors and readers about this tactic. It's
very disappointing, and makes me wonder about how various other services are
using content that is uploaded/distributed to them on the basis that users can
access it for free.

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RyanMcGreal
I clicked on the "UPDATE: Scribd Responds!" link, only to get a page with this
message:

>You are attempting to access a resource on this site which is restricted.
Please login below. After re-logging in, you will be automatically directed to
the page you were attempting to access.

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chubs
Thanks for letting me know, i've gone and disabled that setting in scribd.

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jimbobimbo
Seriously: what's the point of Scribd? All they do - show your document along
with ads all over the place and let people download the source PDF after
registration. Why not to just put PDF on your site in the first place?

~~~
Lewisham
I found it a somewhat more palatable alternative to SlideShare because I was a
big fan of the HTML 5 viewer, but I had no idea this was part of their plan.
It's a nasty bait-and-switch which isn't signaled when you upload at all.

Not too happy with that.

