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Author Drops Copyright Case Against Scribd Filter

Posted by timothy on from the damned-if-you-don't dept.

natehoy writes "Apparently, monitoring for copyright violations is not in itself a copyright violation, lawyers for Elaine Scott decided. As a result, they have dropped the lawsuit against Scribd, who was being simultaneously sued for allowing copies of Scott's work to be published, and retaining an unlicensed copy of the work in their filtering software to try and prevent future copyright violations."

11 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Seriously? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is getting really frickin ridiculous.

    They are being sued for not blocking copyrighted data, and then sued for holding a copy in their filter so that they can block further copies? WTF?

    What do you even say to that kind of idiot?

    --
    Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    1. Re:Seriously? by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What do you even say to that kind of idiot?

      "Case dismissed."

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:Seriously? by nebaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know if it is getting ridiculous as much as the law itself is just confusing and unclear. It requires court arbitration to figure out the simplest of questions. "Is ripping CDs for a backup 'fair use'?", etc. Unfortunately, law is worse than code in terms of legacy support. Think of this as the ultimate code bloat legacy application. All you want to do is gut the whole thing and start over, but management will not entertain that motion at all.

      --
      Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
    3. Re:Seriously? by XanC · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The law SERIOUSLY needs to be gutted. I think the common law system is fatally flawed in this way. There's no way for a reasonably informed and intelligent citizen to be able to scratch the surface of the thousands of laws, decisions, precedents which could be brought to bear on him at any moment. How can that possibly be fair?

    4. Re:Seriously? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >What do you even say to that kind of idiot?

      "I'm sorry, from now on I'll use a hash instead"?

    5. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What do the respective lawyers say to their clients?

      Thanks. We'll invoice you.

    6. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That's the point...

    7. Re:Seriously? by selven · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just yesterday I saw a copy of the full criminal code, in all its fine print 700 page glory. I don't know how anyone can possibly say with a straight face that "ignorance is not an excuse".

  2. New Strategy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's a new strategy for pirates.

    "I'm not pirating software! I'm watching out for copyright infringement, and I need a copy in of the pirated product in order to do just that!"

  3. Re:A real shame. That was a brilliant business mod by blair1q · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except that your #1 is not the facts of the case.

    The site was using an unauthorized copy of the work to check for other unauthorized copies.

    Stealing a car to look for stolen cars doesn't make you a cop.

  4. Re:What about Child Porn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Could I propose an extension to Godwin's Law? Or maybe a modernization of it? "As any legal or political discussion progresses, the probability that someone will bring up child porn approaches one", complete with the "and the person who brought it up loses the argument" clause? Seriously, is that all anyone thinks about anymore?