I think there is a valid argument that Scribd are simply hiding behind a legal loophole there.
I like the fact I can scrape things into Scribd from the web because it is a nice interface etc. And I think it's perfectly justified to ad-support that service. At that point they are an enabler, providing a service to view content similar to Adobe or Foxit browser plugins (i.e. a web version of such a plugin)
Where I think, personally, they crossed the line is in the fact that they scrape and store the document - what reason would they have, really, for doing that! And then they give you an API so sites can just set up the scrape for them automagically at the click of a URL - no need to ever go near the original source.
That's not just toying with copyright laws (however right or wrong they are) that just feels (to me) plain rude to anyone publishing a PDF of their content on the web :)
When I realised that I personally refuse to use/support Scribd.
Comments
I think there is a valid argument that Scribd are simply hiding behind a legal loophole there.
I like the fact I can scrape things into Scribd from the web because it is a nice interface etc. And I think it's perfectly justified to ad-support that service. At that point they are an enabler, providing a service to view content similar to Adobe or Foxit browser plugins (i.e. a web version of such a plugin)
Where I think, personally, they crossed the line is in the fact that they scrape and store the document - what reason would they have, really, for doing that! And then they give you an API so sites can just set up the scrape for them automagically at the click of a URL - no need to ever go near the original source.
That's not just toying with copyright laws (however right or wrong they are) that just feels (to me) plain rude to anyone publishing a PDF of their content on the web :)
When I realised that I personally refuse to use/support Scribd.