YES. FUCK. THEM
Like LITERALLY, FUCK STUDY SOUP. Fuck Sieva, FUCK study soup.
Let me tell you a story. It was a while ago and I don't really remember much, but I'll try to hash it out:
So I was a diligent student in my first and second years. I took amazing notes on lectures and even recorded audio of the professors (with their consent) so that I could review the audio and make changes to the notes as needed. A lot of the courses I took were hard at the time, like PSY3, what's it called AIDS course, and a few others. I didn't really want to make money, but there was some deal about posting notes and getting paid anyway for it. I made my notes free to everyone that wanted them so they could have a solid backup of the lectures. They were so good that my professor for the AIDs course asked me to stop giving them out because no one came to lecture anymore, which is completely reasonable. Many of the professors recommended that I check out the DSP program, but I never really got around to it since hey, this is working so far and anyone in DSP can use these notes, so woohoo.
So I do study soup for a quarter and a half. Around the second quarter, I noticed that I wasn't getting paid (something like $200? even if your notes are free, they still pay you). I asked him about it and they pushed it off. Big fucking red flag. Yeah, there were people that were apparently making a few thousand (???????), and there were emails sent out like "oh woop de doo look at Sharon over here at UCLA who just made 300 dollars this week!!"
Anyway, there were some big pushes and rumors going around to get rid of the study soup kids (Fridlund? started putting copyright stuff on his notes and apparently was getting really worked up about it. Something something stealing his intellectual property, grounds to sue...Like jesus FUCKING christ I'm not here trying to steal people's shit or get into legal cases with the university, I just want to fucking help my classmates.
Received some emails regarding copyright infringement and some crap like that that was meant to go out as a mass email to put a stop to the study soup people. I promptly wrote up a lengthy email to my professors profusely apologizing for "potentially stealing their material" and how I JUST wanted to help my peers out. I wasn't being paid even though I was supposed to be, and so forth.
Talked to Sieva a lot (I was one of the early helpers with it all so I did a lot of recommendations and shit as to how it could be bettered), especially about legal concerns. His...lawyer? or someone said that it's not an issue and that I shouldn't worry. Who should I trust, the guy that said he'd pay me (and didn't) or risk getting a legal case from the univeristy (or worse)?
It's not just me too, I've had a few friends that also got ripped off by them (as in not paid). They act like really friendly people, but obviously there's some shit going on. Not worth anyone's time.
Tl;dr avoid study soup like the plague. If you want to make money off notes go to DSP or something.