Jammie Thomas lawyers file suit against Scribd

A legal complaint seeking class action status filed in Houston on Friday accuses social-publishing site Scribd of egregious copyright infringement.

Joe Sibley (left) and law partner Kiwi Camara.

(Credit: Camara & Sibley law firm)

Scribd managers have "built a technology that's broken barriers to copyright infringement on a global scale and in the process have also built one of the largest readerships in the world," the attorneys representing the class wrote in the complaint. "The company shamelessly profits from the stolen copyrighted works of innumerable authors."

While this may sound like a generic copyright case, there's one interesting side note. The attorneys that filed the lawsuit are at the head of Camara & Sibley, the Houston-based firm defending Jammie Thomas-Rasset against copyright claims made by the music industry.

Joe Sibley and Kiwi Camara have made names for themselves largely by representing Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman accused by the music industry of copyright violations. In June, a jury found her liable for willful copyright infringement and ordered her to pay $1.9 million in damages. Thomas-Rasset has asked for a new trial.

In an interview for a story published in July, Sibley said he and Camara could see themselves working for copyright owners, if they believed in the issue. He told me that they weren't locked into any legal dogma and would take cases based on their merits. It's not unusual for lawyers to argue both sides of copyright issues.

In their complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the lawyers wrote that plaintiff Elaine Scott, a book author, found on Scribd in July an unauthorized copy of one of her titles, "Stocks and Bonds: Profits and Losses, A Quick Look at Financial Markets." They claim that the book had been downloaded more than 100 times from Scribd, which her attorneys called the "YouTube for documents."

Neither Scott nor Scribd representatives were immediately available for comment.

The class purports to represent "every author who owns a valid registered copyright in a work infringed by Scribd." Camara & Sibley said the number of infringing material on Scribd was known only to that company but predicted that the size of the class could be huge.

They did note that Scribd has said it would remove infringing documents when notified by a copyright owner, as is required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. San Francisco-based Scribd also has created an automated filtering system designed to prevent the publishing on its system of unauthorized works, once identified, from being uploaded again.

Camara & Sibley say very clearly what they think of Scribd's business model.

"Under the aegis of self-promoting misinterpretations of federal statutes," the lawyers wrote in their complaint, "the West Coast technology industry has produced a number of start-up firms premised on the notion that commercial copyright infringement is not illegal, unless and until the injured party discovers and complains of the infringing activity, and (the) infringer fails to respond to such complaints."

Camara & Sibley added to the complaint, "Apparently (the West Coast start-ups) believe any business may misappropriate and then publish intellectual property, as long as it ceases to use a stolen work when an author complains...Many millions of dollars have been invested in this business plan."

[Random_Walk]

Scribd profits?

[matt_lombard]

Yes, Scribd profits. Notice the Google ads on the site. Traffic is driven by taking a lot of great material that Scribd didn't create and giving it away. <br /><br />I have had my publisher repeatedly go after these people to remove current copyrighted materials. Much of what is there is blatantly illegal.<br /><br />While I think the lawyers involved are slime because of their seeming conflict of interest on this issue, I do hope Scribd burns and goes the way of Pirate Bay and Napster.<br /><br />This sense of entitlement has to go. Combating corporate greed and arrogance is one thing, but I'm just an independent writer, and when vigilantes like Scribd take my stuff and give it away as if it were theirs to give away, it makes me angry.

[Sausagebiscuit]

I hate free promotion.<br /><br />Time for a new business model, mr independant. Maybe it's time to connect with your fans, and give them a reason to buy. It's no longer enough to just put your product out there and complain when no one buys. Free is becoming the new business model.<br /><br />How can you compete with free? Ask the water bottle people. Ask those artists who give music away (Smashing Pumpkins is the latest example) and charge a premium for "special editions" or such as well as take donations.<br /><br />Scribd didn't 'take' anything. If you really want to **** off your fans, go after the uploaders and sue them, not the company. And if you think shutting them, and the Pirate Bay down will have any effect what so ever (other than further alienating your fans) you really are stuck in the past. Napster got shutdown, and guess what... file sharing exploded. The Pirate Bay isn't going anywhere (other than perhaps it's domain name) and with several countries such as Spain saying downloading copyrighted material for personal use is not illegal, good luck changing anything.<br /><br />Wake up, this is 2009. You no longer control the distribution of your product. The best thing to do now is keep the fans you still have left, and give them a reason to buy your product.

[ikramerica--2008]

Probably coming from someone who hasn't created anything worthwhile, but who downloads anything he's interested in for free no matter if it's legal.<br /><br />I think it's people like you, Sausage, who need to wake up to the reality that content creation is peril. If people can't even make enough to live on due to pirating of their work, they will produce less of it, and some will produce none of it. There's a reason why the USA has been such a large producer of creative ideas and content to the world over the last 100 years, and it's because we PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE ARTIST/INNOVATOR. Simple as that. Europe does as well.

[tektaktyks]

i say both sides have a point but i feel bad for the writers ,because musicians make their money performing on stage while the writers can only hope for good retail sales.i also think that the world is gonna change and we will see artists surviving on loyal fan base and the rest of those lazy ass "artist" getting a real job.

[sanenazok]

@Sausage: I am actually curious - is there a single author that has achieved measurable success by doing what you say? I mean a household name, not someone playing techno in Minneapolis bars. The technology to "reach out" to fans has been around for a decade or more. Where are the people who tried these free methods? Yes, I know NiN released a "pay what you like" album but that's because they wanted to stick it to Universal. You should do it!

[Random_Walk]

"Yes, Scribd profits."<br /><br />So where can I find all that free server space and bandwidth they supposedly enjoy? <br /><br />Ah, I see... you're a bit blinded by your anger at them.

[Random_Walk]

"...need to wake up to the reality that content creation is peril"<br /><br />Funny, but http://www.baen.com/library/ is still open for business last I checked. Read it a bit... you may just surprise yourself. ;)

[Sausagebiscuit]

sanenazok: You already mentioned NIN. You also have Radiohead. And Smashing Pumpkins.<br />Pretty much any artist that doesn't support suing his/her(their) fans (50 Cent is public about this).<br /><br />I'm sure I could dig up more names, but there is a start of "large" groups who do this. They might not play the music you enjoy, but they are big players regardless.<br /><br />http://techdirt.com/articles/20090917/0431356225.shtml<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=505674<br /><br />Quoted from above techdirt.com story on upcoming Smashing Pumpkins album:<br />"Sounds cool to me. Give away the music for free, connect with those fans, and then give them a reason to actually purchase something physical and scarce that's much cooler than just the music. Great to see another "big name" figuring all this out as well. And, before people say that the band can afford to do this because it's already huge and well known, most of the artists we discuss doing this sort of thing are small artists, who do it to establish themselves to get attention. Claiming that this only works for one type of artist is an increasingly naive statement. Smart musicians of all sizes are recognizing all of the opportunities that using the music as a free promotion presents."

[PixP]

Are you paying the people who you got the idea, inspiration and knowledge from to write your book, or how about the people that got the information from the people that you got your knowledge, ideas, and inspiration from? How about the people of the people of the people that you got your ideas, knowledge, and inspiration from? I think they are owed money too.

[sanenazok]

@Biscuit: Musicians make money from touring and appearances. The recording companies, who foot the bill to make them popular initially, make the money off of recordings. Established acts, but only established ones, can afford to "stick it to the man" after they have a set fan base. Nobody would have heard of any of these acts without those first contracts. Now the bands are giving stuff away they wouldn't be making a lot of money from in any event. Find an example of someone who became recognizable using free distribution FROM THE START.

[sanenazok]

@Walk:<br /><br />http://www.baen.com/library/ is different from a collection of fan fiction, how? A bunch of unedited sci fi stories. Fun for some but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

[baconstang]

Ethical lawyers? I doubt it, but at least they're on the right side of the argument this time.

[SlimGem]

Camara &#38; Sibley are the same clowns representing Psystar in the Apple lawsuit.

[kool_skatkat]

Isn't interesting... Psystar cares less about copyright... what a contradiction.

[paulej]

Psystar is different. I don't think they violated the copyright laws in any way. As I understand it, they've only violated the software license agreement. And it will be very interesting to see that play out in the courts, as it is very hard for me to see how somebody could sell a piece of software and then tell you what you can and cannot do with it. And, I'm not talking about copying or distributing it, but how you use that licensed software. If the software license had a clause that said you could not use the physical disc as a coaster, it would have the same value as saying you can't run it on non-Apple hardware. It's not copyright at issue here, just some "agreement" that is never signed by the user.

[Captain Bebops]

However I've read stuff on Scribd that is VERY niche and there is not much of any market for. Maybe it should be a YouTube of writing just with the supposed same constraints that YouTube imposes when one posts a video regarding copyrights.

[dowell100]

Thank you, Camara &#38; Sibley. I hope you'll also fight the rip and rape Google is trying to perpetrate against copyright holders in the Google Books program.<br /><br />Fortunately, it looks like the Department of Justice is going to stop the Google intellectual property robbery, but maybe Scribd should be next.

[cube3]

no more Free-eh stolen lunch for the server service bankers... time to HIRE or license that content that is the ONLY reason people click on your sites anyway.

[mudphud]

While I find the newspapers wanting money because links to their stories pop up in google absurd, this is clearly different. It took me only a few seconds to find clearly copyrighted works in their entirety, still available for sale on amazon. One book was only $6 for an electronic version, so it isn't like the content is unavailable or overpriced. These people are just plain old thieves.

[sanenazok]

No attorney takes a class action for its merits. It's all about forcing a settlement. The authors who can prove a claim will get a coupon for $50 bucks in shoelaces while the attorneys will pocket $5-10 million from the settlement for fees and expenses. Class actions are going to be the only way for attorneys to retire if med mal reform goes through.

[Elinter]

I have fallen victum just today to copyright infringement by this site. Someone paid for and downloaded a copy of my book and then uploading it to scribd. I've worked years on my book and even though it might never be a best seller, it really makes me made to see it stolen this way. I hope scribd gets what they deserve.

[Random_Walk]

So, out of curiosity, what would you do if one of your books were bought by a library?

[baconstang]

Aren't libraries usually used for content that is not available, or if the content is available, used by folks that cannot afford to purchase. A library doesn't make unlimited copies and distribute them. <br /><br />The mass distribution of content should be at the discretion of the creator.

[Random_Walk]

Not really... my local library contains a metric ton of books that are also currently for sale elsewhere. Same with movies and CD's, come to think of it.<br /><br />Now they do have one limiting factor - only one person at a time can check out a given book, CD, or DVD. Or, ten people can check out ten copies of a given book, etc etc. <br /><br />But then, the concept holds true - it's all free publicity. If I come across a book in the library that I really, really like, I'll likely purchase the book so that I can re-enjoy it at some future date. I also have a habit of buying other books by that same author, especially if the first book I came across was part of a series. Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, too many other SciFi and Fantasy authors to mention... I've spent gallons of cash building up collections based on these authors' works. All of them began with a single book that was checked-out, borrowed, or bought second-hand. Rarely, if ever, do I bother paying full-price for a book written by someone I have not read yet. OTOH, brand new books or compilations as they come out? No problem - Powell's Books gets enough money out of me per annum that I'm almost embarrassed to say anything. <br /><br />Now this is purely anecdotal, sure... but there's no real metric by which to measure success. OTOH, I sincerely doubt that, say, J.K. Rowling (to mention an author I don't read) didn't make her millions of dollars off of controlled advertising.

[Sausagebiscuit]

Hi Elinter.<br /><br />I am just curious as to if you have contacted Scribd and filed a DMCA complaint to have your work removed. It seems like you want to complain about it and "OMG DIE SCRIBD" but have done nothing to protect your works. If you even read the story, you will see that Scribd responds to DMCA requests and employs filtering to help prevent duplicate copies from being reuploaded again.<br /><br />Two things I can suggest. First one is maybe it's time to give your fans a reason to buy your book. Just putting a website up doesn't cut it anymore. You need to offer people a reason to buy. Threat of legal action does not count. If you book is a PDF digital copy, do you offer your more serious fans a chance to get a signed paperback copy for a small fee? Maybe include a signed photograph? Something physical that they can't really obtain without paying for it to show you their support. <br /><br />Second, as the RIAA et al have proven: suing your fans (and dead, or imcapable people) into bankruptcy or hoping for legal action against them doesn't win you more fans.<br /><br />@Random_Walk: excellent point on the Library feature.<br /><br />Free: The new business model.

[bobdue1]

Legitimate points from both sides of the argument. <br /> <br />I recall an argument regarding the radio and taping the songs. Here is a situation where the radio station paid the necessary fees to garner the right to play the song over the air. The listener could then have a recorder connected to the radio and tape the song they wanted to listen to all the time or create a compilation tape for use elsewhere. <br /> <br />In that scenario, according to a Sony rep, has violated copyright and is considered a 'thief' and should be required to pay a fine for the unauthorized distribution of the material. <br /> <br />This is a contentious subject, with both sides claiming they are right and often claiming victory for heir side for one ruling or another. <br /> <br />According to the RIAA, if I buy a CD of music and I subsequently rip it to play the songs on my iPod, not uploading them to a share site or even passing them out to a friend, only for my listening pleasure on my duly licensed and owned MP3 player, I am now in violation of the RIAA copyrights and am subject to fines. I am not making this up, it is a matter of record. <br /> <br />My problem is with the RIAA and the MPAA and the heavy handed storm trooper tactics. Why don't they provide us with a means to purchase only the songs we want to hear or the episodes we want to see, without having to buy an album full of other songs I don't like or care about or an entire season that I don't really want, merely to get to one of the episodes? How about an iTunes kind of business model where you can buy a show or song for a small price (.99 or so) or if you choose, you can then buy the entire album, but you don't have to buy the album first. <br /> <br />Just my take on this whole thing. <br /> <br />P.S. for the record, I do NOT upload copyrighted material to any sharing sites, nor do I download them unless I have paid for them.

[alexiglesia258]

This is a very interesting site. Information about all types of legal matter and the way those matters are handled is present here. You would not like to take a chance in a legal matter to handle yourself if it involves a lot of money or if it is really serious.<br />========================================<br />alex<br />&lt;a href="http://www.legalx.net" rel="dofollow"&gt;Attorney&lt;/a&gt;