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Pirated Courses on Udemy

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Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#31

Post by ps4fanboy »

citricsquid wrote: post #28

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…

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?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#32

Post by [deleted] »

FussyZeus wrote: post #21
ps4fanboy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because how would you even do that with any sort of accuracy, do you check the global content registry database? Surely people dont expect to export the burden of protecting your IP to other companies?

If you're in the business of selling content you damn well ought to know who's content your selling. I'm not saying any system would be completely bulletproof, but you should at least look like you're TRYING.

[deleted]

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#33

Post by wattengard »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #14
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its dangerous to suggest that they should be validating each course. Why's that?

Because how would you even do that with any sort of accuracy, do you check the global content registry database? Surely people dont expect to export the burden of protecting your IP to other companies?

Screenshot of one of the projects in Adobe Premiere/video editor used?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#34

Post by 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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#35

Post by revelation »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #5

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 co…

It's unreasonable? How? This isn't YouTube, they're selling video courses. As a customer, you would damn better expect that they have curated the content on their site.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#36

Post by ps4fanboy »

revelation wrote: post #35
ps4fanboy wrote: post #5

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 co…

It's unreasonable? How? This isn't YouTube, they're selling video courses. As a customer, you would damn better expect that they have curated the content on their site.

Udemy has over 30,000 courses, how many videos and other course assets does that represent?

What method are you suggesting they deploy to validate the person selling the course owns all the copyrights they need to sell it?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#37

Post by 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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#38

Post by 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).

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#39

Post by braum »

Animats wrote: post #34

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…

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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#40

Post by biot »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #30
greenyoda wrote: post #2

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/

I'm confused. Why not just send a DMCA notice to their upstream provider?

That's what you'd do if Udemy had no registered DMCA agent. Basically, if you wish to issue a DMCA takedown notice you need to follow the DMCA process.
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