Social publishing website Scribd has been hit with a lawsuit which claims that i

t profits by encouraging internet users to illegally share copyrighted books onl

ine.
The complaint, brought by American author Elaine Scott, alleges that the site "s
hamelessly profits from the stolen copyrighted works of innumerable authors" - c
laims that the San Francisco startup says are "without merit".
The case emerged after Scott discovered that a copy of her financial advice book
, Stocks and Bonds, Profits and Losses, had been illegally uploaded to the site.
In a 22-page complaint filed with a court in Houston, Texas, her lawyers allege
that the site is building a multimillion dollar business out of supporting copy
right infringement.
"They have built a technology that's broken barriers to copyright infringement o
n a global scale and in the process have built one of the largest readerships in
the world," it says.
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The San Francisco startup, which has received almost $13m in funding from invest
ors, enables users to upload documents of any kind - including books, presentati
ons and academic papers.
This has led the site to become known as the "YouTube for documents" and, just l
ike the video sharing website, Scribd has experienced trouble with users who upl
oad copyrighted files to the site without authorisation.
Last week, for example, copies of the new novel by Dan