Actually, it's mostly just other people's content copied to the site without their permission. For instance, the #3 and #4 items on Scribd right now are taken straight from craigslist's best of section. A lot of the other items are from email forwards, but that's a use that I think Scribd is actually good for.
With that said, it seems like the whole point of scribd is to be digg fodder in the first place. It's difficult to build a community around text, because any user who gets that serious will probably outgrow Scribd and start their own blog. Youtube succeeded in creating a community because there's no way for most users to go off and create their own video sites. When YouTube first launched, if you wanted to post video online, using YouTube was pretty much your only option. People have plenty of options for text, most of which are more featureful for publishers than Scribd.
Without a real community, Scribd is basically just a glorified email forward hosting site for digg users. If you look at the issues all the Myspace-based companies are having, you'll probably agree that Scribd could have a difficult future. If digg decides to let users upload content directly using digg itself, Scribd is dead.
With that said, it seems like the whole point of scribd is to be digg fodder in the first place. It's difficult to build a community around text, because any user who gets that serious will probably outgrow Scribd and start their own blog. Youtube succeeded in creating a community because there's no way for most users to go off and create their own video sites. When YouTube first launched, if you wanted to post video online, using YouTube was pretty much your only option. People have plenty of options for text, most of which are more featureful for publishers than Scribd.
Without a real community, Scribd is basically just a glorified email forward hosting site for digg users. If you look at the issues all the Myspace-based companies are having, you'll probably agree that Scribd could have a difficult future. If digg decides to let users upload content directly using digg itself, Scribd is dead.