
JK Rowling Attacks Scribd For Pirated Content  - pclark
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/harry-potter-author-jk-rowling-attacks-scribd-for-pirated-content/
======
jasonbentley
The whole story about Rowling and her lawyers "going after," "attacking," or
"suing" Scribd is a British tabloid fabrication.
[http://blog.scribd.com/2009/03/30/what-ever-happened-to-
fact...](http://blog.scribd.com/2009/03/30/what-ever-happened-to-fact-
checking/)

~~~
markm
"Also – our CEO is named Trip Adler, not Trip Adkins." big lols.

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johnrob
Is copyright violation the new guerrilla marketing technique du jour? A decade
ago, hotmail taught us the power of viral marketing. Now it seems like the
youtubes of the world are teaching us the power of "controversy marketing":

1) Build a product that pisses off big fish

2) Let them scream at you

3) Leverage the ensuing brand recognition...

~~~
Zev
//edit: Nevermind. Ignore this comment. I've been corrected by folasm87 & it
turns out I misread the johnrob's comment and applied what he was saying to
the wrong party.

Of all the things lacking brand recognition in the global market, _Harry
Potter_ is not one of them. I don't think this is the case here.

~~~
folasm87
In this case I believe he was referring to Scribd.

~~~
Zev
Thanks for the correction - It doesn't seem obvious that it is the case though
(to me).

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grinich
Hackers & Painters is also on scribd...

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-
Pain...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-Painters)

~~~
ensignavenger
Cool- I've always wanted to read that :) Isn't all of the contents from
Hackers and Painters available on PG's website anyway?

~~~
sharkbrainguy
no

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bcl
Scribd has been under fire for some time now. Pournelle covered this back in
2007 -
[http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/open_archives/jep_column-32...](http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/open_archives/jep_column-326-a.php)

If authors want their works to be available they have numerous outlets for
doing it right. One of the good ones is the Baen Free Library -
<http://www.baen.com/library/>

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zandorg
Irony 2.0...

Ken Follett (one of the complainants in the article) wrote a novella for the
games Starglider and Starglider 2 in 1986. I asked him permission (in 2003) to
put these novellas on my gaming novella site (a collection of gaming-related
literature).

He said, sorry, I am re-publishing the Starglider 1/2 novellas in a
compilation. So I left his novellas out.

Every novella on the website is there with permission.

Another person who said No was RPG legend (USA, not UK) Steve Jackson (for the
Stonekeep book).

So if I can keep honest, how come Scribbers can't?

Note: I left out the URL for the novella site, because it has my full name in
the URL.

~~~
chris11
The difference is that you are choosing the documents to put on your site.
Scribd does not choose the documents to put on their site, users upload them.

So if you ended up with pirated material on your site, you would be completely
responsible. But that is not the case with Scribd. Anyone can submit material
to Scribd, so people submit pirated material.

I believe that Scribd would qualify as a safe harbor under the DMCA. So all
they really need to do is respond to requests to take down pirated material.
Veoh was once sued for infringing copyright. The judge ended granting a
summary judgement in favor of the defendant on the basis that Veoh was just
providing user-submitted content and that Veoh did not even supervise the
files that were uploaded. I am reading that as saying that if Veoh actively
checked user uploads for pirated material, they might might have lost the
court case or at least had their motion for summary judgement dismissed.

Link:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#IO_Group_Inc._vs._Veoh_Networks_Inc).

That said, Scribd does have a problem with piracy.. One of my first
introductions to Scribd was when I was searching for excepts from a book and
found the full book on Scribd.

~~~
tommyx
People take far too much comfort in the idea of safe harbor.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Direct_Financial_Benefit)

It's not a blank check to create a site full of blatant infringement. You have
to be very naive to think Scribd really does everything they could to prevent
copyrighted content from being uploaded. The kindest assumption would be that
they're incompetent, but that's probably not the case. They're just twiddling
their thumbs about it because it's the main driver of traffic. Hopefully
they've retained some good lawyers.

------
tsally
JK Rowling has a pretty horrible record when it comes to modern thinking about
copyright infringement.

Harry Potter Encyclopedia Barred From Publication (2008):
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9442061...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94420616)

~~~
unalone
She had every right to do that. Those characters are her personal creations,
and while she was fine with a free encyclopedia online, she didn't want
anybody to profit off of her creations.

While I like the mindset that says you should be open with your creations, I
respect the one that says your ideas are your own, and Rowling subscribes to
that. I don't like this kneejerk attitude against people who want to retain
rights to their work.

~~~
decode
"While I like the mindset that says you should be open with your creations, I
respect the one that says your ideas are your own"

I think one of the strengths of the American IP system is that, while you can
call your ideas your own if you want to, you don't have the right to control
their reproduction or distribution. To quote the 1976 Copyright Act:

"In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship
extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept,
principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described,
explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."

The only way you are allowed control over the distribution of an idea is
through a patent, which is only granted under certain circumstances and for a
fairly limited time. This concept that ideas are not subject to individual
ownership, but rather common ownership, has myriad benefits, among them the
right to critique ideas and a bias toward spreading good ideas as much as
possible.

Of course, in the particular case of characters and story in a book it's
harder to say what is idea and what is expression of that idea. To quote
wikipedia, "Courts disagree on how much of the story and characters of a
copyrighted novel or film should be considered copyrightable expression."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Ide...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Idea.2Fexpression)

~~~
unalone
So that means Rowling has no control over her fantasy universe, even when it's
just reflecting what she wrote?

I think that people should have some rights in terms of expanding on what she
wrote, for instance. But that encyclopedia was just reiterating what had been
written in the seven novels. It wasn't adding anything new.

(As for character control: Rowling spent years building her universe before
writing a single word. I think it would be pretty awful if she didn't get some
sort of recompense for the people who use those years of planning and make a
quick buck off of it. But I'll admit that I don't know whether or not
copyright law protects something as conceptual as a character design.)

~~~
decode
"So that means Rowling has no control over her fantasy universe, even when
it's just reflecting what she wrote?"

That is right, and it's by design, as long as you're talking about the
concepts and ideas of her universe and not their specific expressions. But
again, as I said, it's not clear where the line between idea and expression
lies with particular parts of a work of fiction.

The free exchange of ideas is essential to the working of a free society. I
can't imagine that much good would come of making the distribution of all
ideas subject to the will of the people that came up with them.

~~~
fatdog789
That's wrong. Fictional facts are considered expressions, not ideas (See the
James Bond and Seinfield cases).

JK can control any fictional facts from her work, like Hogwarts, or the
characters. She can't control the underlying ideas, such as a wizard school,
or an orphan boy hero.

~~~
decode
"Fictional facts are considered expressions, not ideas"

My understanding is that fictional facts must stand the tests of originality
and specificity. Neither unoriginal ideas, nor vague characters/settings have
copyright protection. I believe that exactly when a character or setting
becomes original and specific enough for protection has been interpreted in
different ways by different courts.

