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In the case of a person clicking the check box when uploading, that person is responsible. Scribd most certainly stores their IP address, which can be traced back to identify the infringer.

In the case of "auto-importing" feature, things are much less clear. In that case, I can see your point.

I know I sort of disagreed with you before (way back when this first came up) but Im coming more and more to this way of thinking.

They're potentially screwing me as a user - if I innocently click on a scraping link and import a PDF with no understanding who is then responsible?

You probably should get really angry, cuz you seem to have a insider's view into Scribd's back end. If not, then you're just bloviating and making strawman arguments that don't really stand up.

Hmm. Here, extracted from the comment above, is the basis of my point of view

    I submitted here to HN a link to a PDF which is
    copyrighted.  That has been uploaded to scribd
    without acknowledgement. When I contacted scribd
    to ask them to take it down they said it was the
    responsibility of the copyright owner to make a
    formal request for takedown.

    Who ticked the box? I certainly didn't. Who checked
    that the person ticking the box had any right to do
    so? Scribd certainly didn't.

From those facts I concluded:

    Scribd make no effort to ensure that copyright is
    not breached. There is no traceability.  Their
    "efforts" are ineffective and insufficient.

There was a breach of copyright, and certainly I wasn't contacted. I'm assuming the author wasn't contacted - scribd certainly don't appear to be proactive in contacting the author of everything uploaded.

Someone has uploaded copyrighted material to scribd, and it's still there. Hence I conclude:

    If someone uploads material to scribd in breach of
    copyright, there are no sanctions, there is no
    culpability.

Now, would you care to point out the strawman argument? I would be delighted to learn that a service I have hitherto thought of as the scum of the Earth are, in fact, noble and just.

No, really, I would, and I'm just being selfish. Currently I get very angry thinking about their existence, and if I learned that I was wrong I'd be happier.

Please.

If you can't, then I suggest that when you say:

   ... you seem to have a insider's view into Scribd's
   back end. If not, then you're just bloviating and
   making strawman arguments that don't really stand up.

then your logic is faulty.