SlideShare is selling your old slides - here's how to stop it
By @edent
· slides · 2 comments · 200 words · read ~357 times.
Remember SlideShare? It's where we used to upload PowerPoints back in the day. It was easier than emailing them around. I think. No one really remembers. I think they got bought by LinkedIn? Anyway, they're now owned by Scribd.
If someone visits one of your old slideshows and wants to download it, Scribd will charge them US$10 per month for membership! What a rip off! 
Of course, Scribd don't actually say how much you'll be charged after your "free trial". Because, I assume, they're a disreputable company who don't want to empower their customers into making an informed choice. But, with a bit of searching, you can find the current subscription rates.
Anyway, Scribd will pay you exactly $0.00 whenever one of their paying customers downloads your creative efforts. What a rip off!
But! If you log in (you do remember your password from a decade ago, right?) and go to settings, you'll find this handy option:
Check the box and hit save. Now people don't need to be paying members of SlideShare to download your thought-leader-high-impact-blue-chip-galaxy-brain slides.
Thanks to a post by Terence Eden I'm once again reminded that companies are taking advantage of our eagerness to share content, via the web, in the early 2000's. SlideShare, where I have 6 old presentations apparently, has started to monetize when people download them. But we don't get a share of that obviously. Followed Terence's lead and marked that 'users can download without a subscription'. I also took the opportunity to update my password.
Thanks for this useful tip. Done.