
Pirated Courses on Udemy - petercooper
https://medium.com/@robconery/how-udemy-is-profiting-from-piracy-5638b929ffca#.pv6r512t8
======
citricsquid
This happens fairly frequently to Jeffrey Way of Laracasts and there's a lot
of money involved in stealing his material:

    
    
        Hey @udemy - For the third time this year, my content 
        is being stolen and sold on your site. Don't use Udemy, 
        folks.
    
        [1] So @udemy, 373 users signed up for that 
        stolen series at $19 - or a total of $7,087.
    

...

    
    
        Update on the Udemy selling my stolen content 
        issue: they finally responded, and will not 
        reimburse me, unless there is a court ruling.
    

Udemy do not care.

[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649933605305774081](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649933605305774081)

[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649936961105432576](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649936961105432576)

[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649937073407979520](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649937073407979520)

[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/651215238470090754](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/651215238470090754)

[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/651215565713870849](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/651215565713870849)

~~~
ps4fanboy
I couldnt tell from the tweets but did Udemy keep the money or did they refund
the users once the content was taken down? If refunds are issued to users, it
seems unreasonable for the author to claim that Udemy should be paying them
100% of any money transacted. Is Rob and Jeffrey suggesting that Udemy should
pay $2 for every $1 involved in fraud?

EDIT: People are making a lot of claims that Udemy are profiting from this but
no one has linked to anything to indicate that when content is removed if the
people who paid for it who can no longer access the content are issued refunds
or not.

Does anyone have any information to suggest that Udemy isnt refunding users?

~~~
rnovak
Thats not the way copyright works. If you think it is, please, let RIAA know
you've stolen some records and let's see how much they charge you.

Last time I checked, users are sued for thousands of dollars per infringing
instance, held up in court.

Why shouldn't that hold for a COMPANY doing it? Seems a little unreasonable to
me.

Edit: and for people down-voting, please explain why?

~~~
cortesoft
Well, it is how the DMCA works. If the videos are uploaded by someone else
(not by Udemy), then all they have to do is remove the video promptly if sent
a DMCA request. If they did that, they would not be liable for damages.

~~~
rnovak
IANAL, but DMCA applies to penalties, not to the issue of whether or not
they're infringing copyright.

Though, I will note that Udemy does have a designated agent in regards to DMCA
Safe Harbor, so the OP may want to check that they submitted complains the
correct place:

> Via E-mail: copyright@udemy.com[1]

[1][https://www.udemy.com/terms/copyright/](https://www.udemy.com/terms/copyright/)

~~~
cortesoft
The guy I was replying to was saying they should have huge damages, which they
won't as long as they remove it promptly.

~~~
manigandham
It's the same guy...

------
Animats
You can go after Udemy. They're not just a hosting service. They _claim
ownership of the content_. "Each of _our_ 35,000+ courses is taught by an
expert instructor". Many courses are paid. If Udemy charges for access to the
course, they lose the DMCA safe harbor. Then they're liable for full copyright
damages.

This may even be criminal copyright infringment under 18 U.S. Code § 2319
(Criminal infringement of a copyright) if the total retail value exceeds
$2500.

Get a lawyer. This looks winnable.

~~~
braum
Make sure you file copyright for each video before making it available on your
own website. Having a copyright in place before any theft allows you to go
after (by threat or course) statutory damages for each theft of your work. I
learned this a few years ago from our own IP lawyer when someone was reusing
some of our material. We now file the $35(or whatever it is) fee before
posting the material online.

~~~
Coding_Cat
File for copyright? how do you mean: Copyright is implicit, unlike patents,
upon creation of a work.

~~~
bbq
>Registration is still required in the US for some benefits, such as awards of
statutory damages. [1]

>You must register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office before you
are legally permitted to bring a lawsuit to enforce it. [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_registration#Require...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_registration#Requirement_of_registration)
[2] [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/copyright-
registratio...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/copyright-registration-
notice-enforcement-faq-29067.html)

~~~
such_a_casual
Can you just register your copyright after the infringement?

~~~
braum
Yes but statutory damages will not be available and according to our lawyer.
The statutory damages is what gets people to comply because it is the one that
can multiply exponentially as it applies to EACH violation (download, sale,
ect...). If you use the implicit copyright you can only go after actual
damages which will be harder to prove. I'm not suggesting you file a copyright
for everything, just stuff you want to absolutely protect. In the context of
this discussion it is education videos.

~~~
jholman
> can multiply _exponentially_ as it applies to EACH violation

You meant "linearly", right?

~~~
braum
probably

------
mapgrep
Lol you people are really amazing. No sense of irony? Really?

Hey guess what, Silicon Valley has been doing this for nearly 20 years to
other people. Funny how the HN crowd gets riled up when it happens to
programmers.

Movies cost tens of millions to make and employ hundreds if not thousands. Tv
shows are maybe an order of magnitude smaller, records maybe one more. Any of
those media products blow these aggrieved programmers out of the water, impact
wise.

But the founders of YouTube -- who played this little copyright game like a
fiddle -- are heroes in the Valley. So are the founders of Napster, one of
whom helped get Facebook going.

I guess "move fast and break things" is a great motto until it's your stuff
getting broken.

~~~
TeMPOraL
While it doesn't change the point of your comment, I saw a different ironic
thing: how can people even think they can sell videos on-line and capture most
of the viewers?

It's like The First and Only Iron Law of the Internet: if you post it, it will
be copied and it will be distributed free. I understand that movie studios or
record labels may be doing stuff the way they were always doing stuff, but an
individual, especially a tech-minded one, expecting to earn money on selling
videos in XXI century? Seriously? I mean, you can have any business model you
like, but the real world is not obliged to comply.

So that's practical point - you don't get to set up a permanent passive income
for yourself just because you publish a series of videos. Some people like to
believe that (I've been personally convincing one such person recently to stop
thinking along these lines and instead treat educational videos as a loss
leader, and use those to sell webinars and/or personal tutoring instead). But
I have also a general point to make:

In general, for some reason people imagine that just because they make
something and start to sell it, they get to have full control over its life
cycle. They don't, they _never_ did. If you make a new widget, it'll get
cloned by your competition. If you try to prevent it with $RANDOM_LEGAL_QUIRK,
the Chinese will clone it anyway and good luck chasing them down. It's how it
was since the dawn of time. And it's good, that's how stuff is supposed to
work - this way new things join the shared wealth of humanity.

You're not entitled to capture _all_ value from what you make. You get to only
capture some. Expecting more is just plain, textbook greed.

And as a society, we should be nice enough to ensure you're capturing _enough_
value for yourself.

~~~
jacquesm
> how can people even think they can sell videos on-line and capture most of
> the viewers?

It doesn't have to be most, it just has to be enough.

You'd be surprised at how many people _are_ willing to simply pay for what
they consume.

So what if it will be copied, as long as the fraction that is willing to pay
is large enough it might be a very profitable venture.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes, exactly. But those who understand it don't usually complain about getting
their videos copied - they seek ways to monetize it in some way. After all,
they have proof the market is there; maybe not as wealthy and as willing to
pay as they expected.

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think they're upset so much about the copying as they are that the
copiers are re-selling the copies.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This is a somewhat new plot development here; I agree I've never before seen
someone blatantly selling content like that, charging _per piece of content_.
It used to be that people sold copyrighted content per megabyte, or you paid
for faster transfer - and mostly it was sold as data, not as a particular type
of work (i.e. you pay to download "a file", not "a course").

~~~
sombremesa
I feel that you are talking about pirates capturing a different section of the
market. Well, in this case, the pirates are going after the exact same market
(people willing to pay for legitimate content), and they are selling the
original product.

It's a bit like if I work in the Rolex factory and just decide to set up Rolex
outlets everywhere with the watches I've stolen from there.

------
nickjj
Udemy really is one of the worst platforms imaginable for instructors.

They will even brand your videos without your consent by adding Udemy logo
watermarks to every video.

If you guys want to hear another horror story about Udemy, take a skim
through:

[http://blog.nickjanetakis.com/post/133482093993/less-
than-24...](http://blog.nickjanetakis.com/post/133482093993/less-
than-24-hours-on-udemy-as-an-instructor-and)

(note: the above post is a few days old)

Someone really needs to step up and create a more reasonable course hosting
platform.

~~~
gtirloni
There is edx, coursera, etc.

~~~
GFischer
But I think those are only for university-level courses.

------
greenyoda
Filling out Udemy's "Report Abuse" form to report a "Copyright or Trademark
Violation" probably doesn't create any legal obligation on their part to take
any action. The author (copyright holder) should have filed an official DMCA
takedown request, directed at Udemy's designated DMCA contact, whose e-mail
and postal addresses can be found here:

[https://www.udemy.com/terms/copyright/](https://www.udemy.com/terms/copyright/)

~~~
nerfhammer
Udemy must "not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the
infringing activity" in order for DCMA to be applicable. Since they're
charging for the courses it's probably ordinary copyright infringement on
their part. You should send them a Cease and Desist and then sue them.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
How long before instructors file a class action?

What will it cost Udemy if instructors start to register copyright and Udemy
become liable for statutory damages?

------
soyiuz
I feel like the OP highlights a problem common to the new breed of
"marketplace" platforms like Uber, Airbnb, and Udemy. All of these substitute
open, public, regulated markets (taxis, hotels, universities) with closed,
private, unregulated markets. Once a near-monopoly is reached, the rules of
the marketplace can be changed to benefit the marketplace owner (instead of
the service provider).

~~~
brbsix
^This. I cringe every time I hear someone say X is democratizing Y or that X
is the "sharing economy". These are unregulated (near) monopoly markets.

Craigslist was democratizing. "Freebie" mailing lists and swap meets are the
"sharing economy". Services like AirBnB are doing everything they possibly can
to disconnect people (and keep them disconnected). You aren't even permitted
to screen your own clients, they are so concerned you'll cut them out prior to
billing. At least when posting a flyer in your community or listing on CL,
there is no false pretext about screening or due diligence being performed.

~~~
alex_hirner
So if platforms like udemy, app store, uber, etc. eventually gained
monopolistic position (which makes business sense) and then adversely taking
advantage from it in the long run, what is an alternative model? Transferring
them to a blockain'esque infrastructure of public good? I'm seriously
interested in a techno-organizational evolution of the platform model.

~~~
brbsix
I don't know. I've put a lot of thought into it, but this is a Herculean task
(like David versus Goliath). Hopefully there are better minds out there who
can come up with something. Blockchains and distributed platforms like
Etherium look really promising. So does OpenBazaar [1]. There was also an
article on the topic recently posted to HN [2]. It has a great quote, "Uber’s
big bet is global monopoly or bust.".

[1]: [https://openbazaar.org/](https://openbazaar.org/)

[2]: [https://medium.com/dark-mountain/how-platform-coops-can-
beat...](https://medium.com/dark-mountain/how-platform-coops-can-beat-death-
stars-like-uber-to-create-a-real-sharing-economy-5a9752258d3c#.j56jlgwah)

------
wturner
I don't want to derail this with a personal story but this might be useful.

I wrote a JavaScript course that I was contracted by someone on Elance to do
for very little ( relative to the amount of time I put into it ), he then sold
it to another company, that company then put it on Udemy. For a small amount
of time it was at the top of the list of beginner JavaScript courses and had
over 10,000 students enrolled. I'm grateful my name wasn't on it as it was my
first shot at a full on multi hour long course and there were some problems
with it...

but.....

Lesson: If you create courses and sell them to people have stipulations
regarding resale.

:/

My story wasn't theft so it's not the same, but I figure it might have some
utility to someone on hacker news.

~~~
losvedir
> _Lesson: If you create courses and sell them to people have stipulations
> regarding resale._

What? No! That shouldn't be the lesson at all! The lesson should be to charge
a reasonable amount for your work, and let the purchaser do whatever they want
with it.

At least in the U.S., the First-sale doctrine[0] is very important, enabling
things like libraries and re-selling things you purchase. That is, you _can
't_ make a stipulation like that.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
sale_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine)

~~~
carussell
First-sale isn't relevant to this scenario. First-sale applies only to a
specific copy. This is either a transfer of ownership or licensing agreement
issue.

------
jwarren
I saw and reported some plagiarised content at Sitepoint. After what I assume
was a fact-checking and research period, they got in touch and told me they
were taking down the plagiarised material and banning that submitter. Not only
that, but they put in place a peer review system for submitted content. That's
how you handle this sort of thing, you take ownership of the problem.

------
xan92
HAHA! I got myself into a wrong course and Udemy haven't refunded me till now.
They say you can try it before you buy, But they don't give the money back
once they have it. Nobody even answers your queries seemed very shady. Not
surprised to see this now.

~~~
brbsix
Wow that is scummy. Can't you do a chargeback?

------
yarou
The sad thing is that in this day and age, independent content creators don't
have their copyrights respected, while megacorporations patent troll and abuse
our broken intellectual property system.

The only solution that comes to mind is for independent content creators to
vigorously litigate and ensure that their DMCA claims are taken seriously.

------
makecheck
Perhaps they need to start periodically saying things like "just a reminder,
this video is from <University of XYZ> and is copyright by us" and
periodically scribble that on a whiteboard too. It may make the class sound a
bit silly at times but we live in a world where plenty of people are just fine
with making blatant copies of things.

I am against DRM. I don't think it helps anyone to hide content behind buggy
technologies, especially when they cause problems that have nothing to do with
protection such as security holes. I think you just have to modify the content
itself; make it "hard" to cleanse every last mention of the true copyright
owner, and stop worrying if some loser actually wants to spend the time and
effort it would take to strip all of those mentions out.

------
Cheyana
Wow. Ironic...

[https://www.udemy.com/copyright-law-for-online-
entrepreneurs...](https://www.udemy.com/copyright-law-for-online-
entrepreneurs/?utm_campaign=cision&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter)

------
ps4fanboy
Using DCMA is a good first step when trying to deal with these issues, posting
an angry blog and defaming a company as being made explicitly to sell stolen
content on twitter shouldn't be your first action.

[https://support.udemy.com/customer/en/portal/articles/150577...](https://support.udemy.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1505776-how-
do-i-report-a-udemy-course-infringing-my-copyright-?t=597588)

------
sergiotapia
Udemy is one of those sites that surprise me. No offense, but it looks and
feels like a shitty wordpress themed site, with a crappy backend system tied
to it. I've never bought anything from it just because of this intangible
'ick' factor. It seems my gut feeling was right on the money.

------
snorrah
Udemy always seemed questionable with some of their course titles. Lots of
'How to make money easily doing X' and other extremely clickbait-y names.

Now it's actually proven they don't give a shit what's happening on their
'platform' and have a frankly absurd response to copyright claims. Given how
quickly Youtube will block a video given a content claim, it seems any sort of
legal action against Udemy will bring their house of cards down extremely
quickly.

------
kkt262
Besides piracy, udemy itself is just a terrible platform. Unless you agree to
sell your course for $10, you'll pretty much never get promoted there
organically. They want YOU to do all the work of promoting it to your list,
etc. What's worse is that they close off their system as well, making it
impossible for you to collect email addresses or send marketing messages.

It's a much better idea to use your own platform.

------
cdnsteve
Maybe an approach could be to actually reach out to authors that are creating
accounts and to verify identities more than just an email account rather than
focus on contents of that said account. I would also imagine that certain
geographic regions have higher reports of said activities. So extra checks
should be added for them in the approval process. In the end if they don't
shape up they are only hurting themsleves in the long run.

------
jsilence
I just deleted my account at udemy:

"Dear Udemy Company,

I read about your questionable practice of not fighting against pirated
content on your platform and not rightfully reimbursing the original creators.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10638795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10638795)
I am not willing to support your stance on this topic and will delete my
account within minutes.

Good bye!"

------
giarc
>and Udemy not only let them do this, they’re encouraging others to do the
same.

Is there proof of this? Author went from providing examples and evidence, to
pure speculation. Kind of lost me there.

------
blazespin
Doesn't Udemy lose safe haven when they start taking a cut?

~~~
brbsix
Yes. It sure bit Grooveshark in the ass [1] though in their case it was
revealed that they were aware of the presence of infringing material in
addition to receiving a financial benefit directly attributable to the
infringing activity. These people are crazy for not implementing any sort of
review process.

[1]: [http://artlawjournal.com/grooveshark-protected-dmca-safe-
har...](http://artlawjournal.com/grooveshark-protected-dmca-safe-harbor/)

------
codezero
When I was at Quora, people posting Udemy courses were a major source of spam
content. The system clearly has very broken incentive systems.

------
vermooten
Oh the delicious irony!
[https://mobile.twitter.com/udemy/status/670328744754573312](https://mobile.twitter.com/udemy/status/670328744754573312)

------
manigandham
Udemy is just a ecommerce/merchant service that just happens to be tailored
for hosting video series. This is no different than users stealing content and
then uploading to youtube or selling it through a paypal/gumroad/stripe link.
In every case the companies would be making a profit either through ads or
transactions.

The fault is with the user who uploaded the content and the most effective and
realistic option for companies that host user provided content is the DMCA
process. No matter how good the filtering process (and I do think Udemy needs
to improve vastly here) it's never going to catch everything and this
situation is all explained and handled by the DMCA.

The real issue is how they're handling the takedown requests. If they are
prompt and accurate with the takedowns and refunding customers then there
should be no issue. How they get their own money back from the fraud user is
their problem as well. If Udemy is not handling takedowns or refunding
customers, then there definitely is a problem and that should be met with
actual legal action, not just social/twitter justice.

Edit - why the instant downvotes? haven't seen much other than emotional rants
about how Udemy is profiteering but no evidence that the proper DMCA process
was followed but denied.

------
alain94040
This post would benefit from providing more context. Did the author make those
videos on behalf of a company? Did he post them somewhere online? Was there
ever any kind of license (creative commons for instance) attached to them?

My expectation is that at a minimum, Udemy would investigate the claim once
it's reported to them. But you need to provide sufficient proof that you are
the content owner. Just because your face is in the video is not enough, but
it's a great start.

------
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judk
Is udemy just a scam site that trades ofd consumer confusion in with Udacity?

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wieckse
What is a good Udemy alternative?

~~~
sotojuan
Anything realy. Udemy has a terrible signal to noise ratio, and they do scummy
stuff like what's going on here. Read a respected book, try Udacity or
Coursera, or ask the community what course is good.

~~~
wyclif
I don't know why kids these days are so down on programming ebooks. I have a
ton of them in a Dropbox folder, and they're my main source of learning new
programming languages. Sure, they date fast, can't be updated fast, and aren't
interactive. They're old school now that we're in the era of MOOCs.

But you can still learn a lot if you know what to look for, know how to skim,
and know which books are good.

Alternatively: maybe I'm just old.

~~~
maus42
>ebooks

...or old-style internet tutorials formatted as static mostly-HTML webpages.

Or what about printed books. After reading that kind of internet tutorial I
got K&R and some less memorable C++ book from the local library.

~~~
tracker1
I find that physical books work way better for me.. I have a mostly
photographic memory and the feel of book, and position of the content adds
additional context I just don't have reading an e-format for too much at once.
It all tends to just blur together pretty quickly.

Quick blog posts, and tutorials aren't too bad.. short specifications are fine
too.. but longer content just doesn't work in an electronic interface for me.

------
erikb
The number of people who really want to live off of other people's work is
much smaller than we often think. More often than not harm is done by people
that are either incompetent or desperate.

Should that stop us from getting a lawyer? Certainly not. Can we still believe
in humans usually trying to do good? Yes.

------
aracena
We create content in spanish www.oja.la here in udemy
[https://www.udemy.com/u/pixelpro/](https://www.udemy.com/u/pixelpro/)

it has been almost a year since I notified them

------
aurizon
where is udemy? is there a small claims court there? File for 100% of the
money.

------
Halienja
Not the first time I am hearing this. Udemy has no standards whatsoever!

------
joeyspn
After reading the blog post and the comments here, I'm wondering what are the
affected parties waiting for? they should organise a class action lawsuit and
sue Udemy's ass...

------
PiotrOwsiak
To all who try to discuss the details of DCMA, copyright, etc. the bottom line
is this part from the first comment "Udemy do not care.". THIS is the real
issue.

------
VivisClone
I really hope the programs that I've purchased aren't pirated, But Then again
I just used the code that made anything 5 dollars. So... eh?

------
gosukiwi
He sounds so mad. Writing something while angry is not wise. Still, I knew
Udemy was bad but not THAT bad.

------
bootload
If Udemy is such a bad service, what are the hurdles to create a better, more
ethical competitor?

 _“It’s not like there’s a database of copyrighted content out there you
know”_

Ahh so a database of copyright might work. cf
[https://twitter.com/robconery/status/670389852974657536](https://twitter.com/robconery/status/670389852974657536)

------
xacaxulu
I wonder how many people who wrote courses that are now being pirated on Udemy
ever torrented music or movies illegally, used someone else's Netflix account,
DRM stripped Kindle books etc. I don't agree with Udemy, but it's always
crappier when it happens to you.

~~~
such_a_casual
Let's play devil's advocate and say that you are right. All of these people
have at some time downloaded a movie or used someone else's Netflix account.
Your argument still wouldn't be valid. Udemy is making presumably 10s of
thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars off of stolen content. This
is the difference between shoplifting a dvd and opening up blockbusters all
across the world with movies you stole. The difference is night and day. Not
just logically or morally, but legally.

------
kzrdude
> But I had never seen a business actually profiting from piracy.

Youtube?

Facebook freebooting, too.

------
gamekathu
disgusting! either way I dont use Udemy because of the cost involved, now I am
_definitely_ not paying for someone else's stolen hard work

------
shawnwildermuth
Scary that we'd get no response on this.

------
pkaye
Growth hacking?

~~~
agumonkey
Hack growth.

------
briandear
This is rich. There is a set of HN readers who are outraged over this while at
the same time waiting for their next movie torrents to seed. Seems like a tiny
bit of hypocrisy happening. The simple truth is that if you own a piece of
content, you should have control of that content. Stealing movies, books or
music is wrong no matter how much you may pontificate against the "evil"
copyright owner. Copyright infringement is a disincentive to content creation.

~~~
LoSboccacc
Could also it be two set of users orthogonally outraging.

Just sain.

------
lemevi
Did he even try to contact Udemy support and get a response? It would seem
like the thing to do before writing a hit piece. I interviewed at Udemy, but
ended up taking a position somewhere else, yet they struck me as good people
trying to make a good product. I don't like piracy and the author has been
wronged, but this blog post is unfair.

~~~
robconery
Yes, I did. As did Troy. No reponse (now as then).

You entirely miss the point of the article - it's not about piracy, it's about
a marketplace for pirated goods. That's what Udemy does. Sorry if I'm not nice
about it.

~~~
Falkon1313
So if a burglar steals a TV, sells it to someone else, and they list it on
eBay, does that make eBay guilty of the burglary? If someone buys it using
Paypal, do you consider Paypal to be the burglar? If the currency mode used
was USD, do you consider the U.S. government to be the guilty burglar?

I suppose if it was explicitly listed as 'Stolen 40" TV!' in the 'Stolen
Goods' category of eBay you could say that they should have known, and if
Paypal had special 'funds to buy stolen things' accounts and one of those was
used to buy it, then you could put some blame to them, etc.

But how far away do you project the blame from the actual criminal? If Udemy
is responsible, then do you absolve the person who pirated and uploaded it of
guilt? Or do you divide and dilute it? How long does the chain need to be
before each participant's share of the guilt is so small as to be negligible
and irrelevant?

Why not instead blame the person who uploaded it to make money while knowing
that they hadn't created it and didn't own the rights?

~~~
robconery
It's a little different than the simple theft of a TV, although yes you raise
a decent point. As I've been saying to people: _just a reasonable effort is
all I ask_.

There is a watermark on the entire video, and you can quite easily tell the
voice changes from the intro to the main body (where I also mention
Pluralsight a few times). A very, very simple review process would catch this.

Every video I submit to Pluralsight goes through a 3-step review (Peer, A/V,
tech) and they catch _any_ possibility of copyright infringement (though yes,
things do get through).

Udemy is not doing anything this way, and have admitted it publicly (see the
post, I updated it at the bottom). They flatly say that they rely on their
users to tell them if something has a copyright problem.

~~~
JohnV2333
Yeah, it makes sense that users have to tell them theres a copyright problem,
just like a copy-righted YouTube video.

~~~
developer1
No, it doesn't. Udemy would fall apart as a company without illegal content.
Their entire business DEPENDS on pirated content. You really think they would
be making any money with the very very few legitimate courses? The business
knows the majority of courses are pirated, and they don't care. This is how
they make their money.

~~~
sapokedak
That's just a stupid, slanderous comment. Do you have any reason to say such a
thing? Can you please give us links to some of the many pirated courses?

~~~
dang
> _That 's just a stupid, slanderous comment._

This comment breaks the HN guidelines. Please read and follow them when
posting here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

~~~
sapokedak
>>>>Their entire business DEPENDS on pirated content. You really think they
would be making any money with the very very few legitimate courses? The
business knows the majority of courses are pirated, and they don't care. This
is how they make their money.<<<<<

I'm sorry I don't know how to edit my comment which broke the rules. I'm not
sure why it's OK for this poster to claim that Udemy is a thief and it's not
OK for me to claim that the poster has made a stupid comment, but if those are
the rules, then those are the rules.

I'll restate. Because the poster made that comment, which I've quoted above, I
would appreciate it if he would provide links to the many pirated courses that
he says Udemy DEPENDS on.

Please don't mark me down for the caps. I'm just quoting him.

If Udemy depends on pirated courses it shouldn't be too much trouble for him
to supply a link to a couple of the courses.

Here's the problem. Thousands of us have our courses on Udemy and we rely on
our Udemy income to pay our bills. It's not OK for people to sling false
accusations around and try to stir up people to boycott Udemy without having
some reasonable argument to make. They should have some slim evidence that
what they are saying is true. Making false accusations is bad behavior. It may
not break the posting rules on this forum, but it is egregious behavior and it
ought not be tolerated.

~~~
dang
> _I 'm not sure why it's OK for this poster to claim_

It may not be. We (I'm a moderator here) try to be consistent, but it's
impossible for us to see everything, let alone consider it all carefully.

The trouble with your comment was that it went straight to name-calling
("stupid and slanderous"), when it should have provided information. Your
final paragraph above, the one that begins "Here's the problem", is much
better. It's an informative expression of what lies behind your defense of
Udemy and makes a fine contribution to the thread.

HN can be a cryptic place sometimes and I apologize if it felt like we were
picking on you personally. That was not my intention. It's entirely fair for
you to stand up for Udemy based on your experience. But to be a good HN
citizen, please do so informatively and neutrally, even when other commenters
say unfair things.

------
ps4fanboy
While I sympathize with the author its (edit)unreasonable to suggest that they
should be validating each course. However it appears more should be done to
ease the path to getting your content taken down.

You would think the person selling the course would have payment information
that could be used to track that individual down, the correct course of action
is to sue.

If the content isnt worth doing this then the content isnt actually that
valuable to the author.

~~~
robconery
Define "dangerous". Listen mate, if you make money on something and that
something is stolen - _you_ are responsible. Udemy created this marketplace
for stolen things; people steal things and sell them there.

> the correct course of action is to sue

Nope. That's what people do in a dispute to solve the dispute. The correct
course of action is something else entirely as we're talking about copyright
law, not pissing on your neighbors orchids.

~~~
ps4fanboy
> Define "dangerous"

Dangerous was a bad word choice, perhaps "unreasonable".

> Listen mate, if you make money on something and that something is stolen -
> you are responsible

I never claimed they arent responsible and as the DCMA outlines they mitigate
their responsibility for hosting this content by allowing DCMA take downs.
What are you suggesting Udemy do to validate that the content creator owns the
content they are selling. Copyright law and ownership is a very complicated
issue. There isnt a copyright database where they can validate that the
content is owned by that person but also the content in the actual content is
owned by the person who created the content.

What are you suggesting they do?

> The correct course of action is something else entirely

Like?

>
> [https://twitter.com/robconery/status/664960173455224832](https://twitter.com/robconery/status/664960173455224832)

Do you have a licence for this content?

