I recently signed up for Scribd, a site with print and audio content. It’s been around for a while, a few years at least. You join with a monthly paid subscription after a free trial, which I started today. As I searched through the content it seems that a lot of is PDFs that are scans of copyrighted material that have been uploaded for sharing by other members. This reminds me a little of the old Napster, except this is a centralized repository rather than peer-to-peer, but it’s still file sharing of copyrighted material. Some of the scan quality is very good and some kind of shitty.
(There is some other legit content that looks like it’s available only by using their app as a reader, rather than downloading. That may be content provided under license form the copyright holder for royalties, like the Spotify model, I don’t know.)
I am not a lawyer but my understanding is that it’s legal for the same reason YouTube is legal, even though it also has tons of copyrighted content available. As I understand the law governing such things, these companies have to remove copyrighted content when informed by the copyright holder of the violation, but they’re not expected to police the material themselves looking for copyright violations. So they remove one instance of copyrighted material when properly notified, but another copy may soon appear.
Maybe it isn’t legal. Plenty of illegal content on sites that have been around for multiple years. Archive.org, for example, is awash with pirated material. (I used to use Scribd when it was a free site, and that was more than 10 years ago.)
It certainly can be used for legal material, even if in practice it mostly isn’t. And they probably have something in their terms of service that tells their users not to break the law. It’s not their fault (or so their lawyers would argue) if their users choose to use the site in exactly the way they tell them not to.
Archive.org takes heavy advantage of the archival exemptions instituted by the Library of Congress. That’s not to say they don’t legally violate copyright in many places, but the fact they present it as an archive and don’t make money off of it seems to head off a lot of DMCA requests. They also seem to form deals with publishers–for example, that’s why they let you “check out” ebooks for only an hour.
I would argue a commercial website like Scribd is on shakier ground there. But, sure, as long as they respond to DMCA requests and no one argues they are in any way trying to circumvent them, it will probably be okay.
But do note that the latter is why YouTube had to create its copyright system. It was argued that YouTube was making it too easy to circumvent takedowns, and that even people actually involved in the company would upload material not under copyright. They basically had to settle by creating these systems. And the same is true of many other systems.
After all, it’s not like the creators of Napster were directly facilitating illegal downloads. But it was argued they were directly enticing them. See also sites like MegaUpload and such. There’s a tightrope you have to walk that isn’t as simple as “take stuff down only when asked.”
It’s why MuseScore.com had to change how it worked: too much material under copyright. It’s now owned by a site that does lyrics, and they had to come to a deal with the copyright owners. Their deal is basically “only public domain stuff will be available to download, but all music can be displayed.” (I personally think this decision is odd and not the best, like for people who want to release their music for free.)
I noticed that a document I wrote ended up on there. Sucks to be anyone who paid for it, since it’s available free plenty of other places on the Internet.
This reminds me of those Grape Concentrate Bricks sold during Prohibition that were “intended” to make nice sweet imitation alcohol-free wine.
One such box had these instructions in red below the recipe:
“Then add one small teaspoon full of U.S.P. benzoate of soda to prevent fermentation.
You must also avoid the use of any kind of yeast, raisins, etc., otherwise fermentation sets in.”
The real “big-ass piracy” sites are simply not located in the US— problem solved!!? They, in turn, do not regard themselves as piracy sites, but at the same time make no attempt nor see any need to conform to US copyright law or cut a deal with publishing corporations.
I have no special insight into the Internet Archive behind the scenes, except that they did digitize boxes of documents we sent them and do genuinely seem to operate as an archive/digital library. Decades of experience makes me assume by default that claims by publishers, whether or not they theoretically have legal merit, are in fact aimed against libraries in general, as @jjakucyk states.
In fact, I cannot conceive of a way for them to operate legally other than as an archive/library, because by definition a majority of their content is always going to consist of copyrighted material (not necessarily all “pirated” material—a lot of it is there with explicit permission, implicit permission, fair use permission, etc.)
They do? Libraries are a totally different model. They don’t copy books and give them away. Once you buy a book you can do anything you want except make copies. You can loan it or rent it. That’s how Netflix built an entire business on renting DVDs without licensing costs. Because there is still only one copy of the media. Making unlimited downloads of digital content available is a different kettle of fish.
Keep in mind, though, that libraries have/had a bunch of photocopiers all over the stacks, and not as mere decor. Often with attached notices reminding users not to exceed fair use etc.
You’ve explained why libraries are legal. But just because they are legal, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the book publishing industry is happy about it.
I remember a long time ago, reading an interview with a popular author. One of his fans told the author how much she loves his books, and how she is on the waiting list at the library for his newest book, and she just can’t wait to read it. The author grumbled to the interviewer, “I’m glad she likes my stuff, but does she realize that I’m not going to make even one penny from her reading it?”
That hasn’t stopped publishers from trying to restrict sales to libraries, or trying to erode first-sale doctrine. E-books are the current “war” being waged. They cost libraries a lot more to buy from the publisher, and they’re usually still time-limited and thus self-destructing, requiring another purchase if they want to be able to lend out that e-book again. I’m not sure what the status is on libraries lending out streaming media like music or movies, but I suspect that’s even more contentious, if it’s even being done at all.
All that said, it’s not as if libraries are entirely blameless. There’s a concept called copyfraud where organizations, usually historical society libraries, impose copyright-like restrictions on works in their collection that are otherwise in the public domain. They do this through the use of watermarking or licensing agreements, because they may have the only copy of that work. What goes around comes around.
Sites like Scribd can be legal because it’s legal to have a website where people submit material, even if some of that material will be copyrighted, as long as they abide by the DMCA Safe Harbor requirements, which are that they promptly remove or block access to copyrighted material when they are provided with a DMCA violation notice from the rights holders.
I don’t know if Scribd actually complies with the DMCA; could be they just haven’t gotten sued by someone with sufficiently big pockets to take them out of business yet. But in principle they could be just fine.
Are you suggesting that because it acts as an archive/library, the Internet Archive is totally legal? If so, I’d like to know what features distinguish an archive/library from a piracy site.
I’m glad to hear that you went to the effort of sending them documents that they digitized with your permission, but that wasn’t my experience. I made a website for my family in the 1990s on Geocities, and it ended up on Internet Archive. On the one hand, I am personally glad they did it, because otherwise it might have been lost - and in fact that’s what an archive is for, right? But on the other hand, they did it without my permission, and although I don’t mind, I can easily imagine others who would mind.
Under US law, the thing that (arguably) makes it a “piracy site” is failing to take content down when a DMCA notice is made.
My understanding is that the Internet Archive does take some content down, but also that they are engaged in legal/PR battles over what constitutes fair use, and that they’re clearly different in some respect than sites that are designed and intended to violate copyright wholesale.