Dear Robbie,

Thanks for posting that! When I share my slides, I generally try to do so only as PDF files to make it harder for anyone to reuse them without permission, but I hadn’t realised how much of an issue this is. It seems that I’ve nonetheless let one PowerPoint into the wild (“Using molecular replacement to exploit multiple crystal forms”). Searching for its title in Google, I’ve found copies on not only slideplayer.com but also on documents.tips (aka DocSlide), slideserve.com and studylib.net.

Best wishes,

Randy

-----
Randy J. Read
Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge
Cambridge Institute for Medical Research Tel: +44 1223 336500
Wellcome Trust/MRC Building Fax: +44 1223 336827
Hills Road E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Cambridge CB2 0XY, U.K. www-structmed.cimr.cam.ac.uk

> On 30 Oct 2017, at 08:46, Robbie Joosten <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear CCP4BBers,
>
> Yesterday I ran into one of my talks at Slideplayer.com, a slide aggregator that makes money from advertising. You can watch presentations for free (surrounded by ads), but to download them you have advertise for Slideplayer by posting on social media.
> The presentations are seemingly uploaded by users, but as their names give no real hits on Google, I assume these are proxies to abuse the protection that the DMCA provides to aggregators where users can post stuff. This probably why they are officially based in Virginia (but their communication is partly in Russian). The presentations are just spidered from public websites.
> There are many talks from CCP4bb members on Slideplayer.com and I don’t like it. There are already enough commercial enterprises that make money from our scientific works, but at least we get credit for it. That is not the case here.
> The good news is that if you send a copyright infringement notice they do remove the presentations (while hiding behind the DMCA of course). Because of US copyright laws, you have to actively protect your copyright. Below is a template notice that worked for me.
>
> All the best,
> Robbie
>
>
> Template:
> //
> Dear Slideplayer developers,
>
> This writing is to inform you that I reserve and own all rights to the presentation titled "$TITLE". It has come to my attention that you have made unauthorised use of this copyrighted work (http://slideplayer.com/slide/$ID) by duplicating and sharing it on Slideplayer.
> As you have not sought or requested authorisation to distribute this work, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist any and all acts of unlawful copyright infringement with respect to my work immediately. Failure to comply with this notice will leave me no other option than to seek compensation for your copyright infringement through legal action.
>
> Sincerely,
> $SIGNATURE