copyright

In recent weeks it seems not a day goes by without me getting a notification of a stolen article that has been uploaded into Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/). To be fair to them, every time I’ve written to ask them to remove the content they have done, but I’m failing to see the business model here. From what I can see the whole site is just made up of stolen PowerPoint, PDF, Word and HTML files. There seems to be little if any original content present at all.

As far as my own slides and html files are concerned, the users uploading them seem to make a habit of uploading anything they can get their hands on. I’ve also seen copies of Oracle books in PDF format, which look like they have been scanned in manually, and even the whole Oracle documentation in PDF format uploaded.

I just don’t see the incentive for the users of this site. What is the point of uploading documents that are already freely available on the net. Surely just a link in your favorites list is all you need. In the case of plagiarists, they are trying to pass work off as their own, but that is not what Scribd users seem to do. They just upload the content as-is. Why? I just don’t get it.

Anyway, if you publish any content and you are bored one day, have a search through Scribd (using your domain name, blog URL or real name) and you will probably find something of yours that has been stolen. If you do, follow the Copyright link at the bottom of the page and it will tell you how to send a DCMA takedown notice. They usually respond pretty quickly. I guess if everyone did this the site would be empty and they would probably move on to some other form of organised crime.

Cheers

Tim…

Regarding my previous post (here), it seems Guenadi N Jilevski has now removed the articles that are direct copies of mine. Thankyou for the quick action.

There is still at least one article remaining that contains large chunks of text scraped from my site. I guess the fact he has included his own screen grabs and some minor alterations to the text lead him to believe it is original content. Sigh.

I’m also glad to see he has removed the blog post where he attempts to defend his stance. I’ve taken copies of all the important posts for my records, but I’m hoping this marks an end to this little affair.

Cheers

Tim…

Update: I found a new batch of stolen stuff I’m attempting to get removed. The list from the previous post has been extended accordingly.

Thanks to Don Burleson for pointing me at this article by Timur Akhmadeev that lists a whole bunch of articles that have been stolen by Guenadi N Jilevski.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Just looking at the stuff he’s stolen from me, there are three types ripoff:

1) Complete Copies.

http://gjilevski.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/edition-based-redefinition-in-...

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/EditionBasedRedefinition_11gR2.php

http://gjilevski.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/dbms_parallel_execute/

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/dbms_parallel_execute_11gR2.php

http://gjilevski.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/acfs-in-oracle-database-11g-re...

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/ACFS_11gR2.php

2) Articles where the bulk of the copy is stolen word for word, with a couple of sections added and different screen grabs, which at first glance would make it seem original. Make no mistake, this is still stolen.

http://gjilevski.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/oracle-database-11g-release-2-...

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/DataGuardSetupUsingGridControl_11gR2.php