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Pirated Courses on Udemy

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Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#161

Post by unreal37 »

nitrogen wrote: post #73
andreasvc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can do paid work and stipulate whether the they can later sell it to anyone. If you can learn something from this, it should be that next time you might be able to cut out the middle man.

You can contract just about any terms you like, including retention of copyright and limitations on the license granted. Don't just accept whatever terms someone predatory offers to you. (software consultant, not a lawyer)

Accepting a contract on elance doesn't let you set these kind of terms. It's pure work for hire, or you wouldn't get the job.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#162

Post by X-Istence »

Spivak wrote: post #152
Animats wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17 U.S. Code § 512 - Limitations on liability relating to material online (c) Information Residing on Systems or Networks At Direction of Users.— "(1)In general.—A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a sy…

> That's the killer. This service not only charges, they charge on a per-course basis. That seems relatively easy to weasel your way out of. Just sell 'download tokens' which enable the user to download any course on the site they want. Whatever legal argument YouTube is using to protect themselves from this with their new premium subscription would also have to apply here.

YouTube is simply selling you access to the site without advertisement. They are not otherwise demanding payment for the content on their site.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#163

Post by cbd1984 »

cwyers wrote: post #108
api wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent is referring to the typical attitude that's normally on display here about piracy of music, books, movies, etc. It usually ranges from the dismissive to claims that it actually benefits artists to the occasional bit of "fuck the artists" truth. (That's more or less verbatim from one thread I saw.) You'll also hear a lot of libertarian and/or fluffy pseudo-socialist arguments for abolishing IP law when this…

I think that trying to ding people for being intellectually inconsistent requires showing that the same people are the ones saying the inconsistent things. It's possible that different people are just drawn to commenting in different threads.

It also requires understanding the points people are making.

Everyone agrees that selling pirated content is wrong. Hell, most pirates would agree to that. You can say it's a shitty attitude to have, but it's a consistent one: "Piracy is OK as long as you don't resell what you pirate" is internally consistent, even if you think it's morally wrong.

Similarly, people seem to be consistently against plagiarism, which is apparently at issue here as well. Again, the stance "Piracy is OK but don't pass pirated works off as your own" is internally consistent, even if you think it's morally wrong.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#164

Post by rnovak »

manigandham wrote: post #156
rnovak wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that "copyright abuse" is frowned upon. (and I'm not arguing against you, I just find what they're doing to be completely unreasonable). But this is the exact opposite. This is a company flagrantly copying someones work without permissions. And in ACADEMIA. IIRC, you could be thrown out of school for plagiarism, we shouldn't disregard an academic institution doing this exact thing.

The company isn't stealing the videos, other users are. As long as they take it down promptly and then refund customers, what are they doing wrong? Where's the outrage at youtube then which allows for the same thing? Or paypal or stripe or any ecommerce product which allows for selling something? It's a problem that's explained and handled by the DMCA, the issue is making sure the company actually follows through wit…

while I agree that the author of this piece needs to make sure they're submitting DMCA takedowns to the appropriate place, I still think that a company trying to bill themselves as an academic institution shouldn't be allowed ANY infringement.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#165

Post by jacalata »

mhurron wrote: post #53
catshirt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all work you create is copyrighted. you own the content you produce this is why, I believe, it's actually against copyright law to use an open source project that doesn't include a license.

> use an open source project that doesn't include a license. It's not open source if it doesn't include a license stating that it is.

Open source just means you can read the source. That's why the acronym FLOSS had to be invented.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#167

Post by tracker1 »

manigandham wrote: post #156
rnovak wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that "copyright abuse" is frowned upon. (and I'm not arguing against you, I just find what they're doing to be completely unreasonable). But this is the exact opposite. This is a company flagrantly copying someones work without permissions. And in ACADEMIA. IIRC, you could be thrown out of school for plagiarism, we shouldn't disregard an academic institution doing this exact thing.

The company isn't stealing the videos, other users are. As long as they take it down promptly and then refund customers, what are they doing wrong? Where's the outrage at youtube then which allows for the same thing? Or paypal or stripe or any ecommerce product which allows for selling something? It's a problem that's explained and handled by the DMCA, the issue is making sure the company actually follows through wit…

If they're charging $$ to watch the videos, they can pay someone to review content... in this case, Udemy could very well be liable for penalties beyond DMCA safe harbor.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#168

Post by donarb »

FussyZeus wrote: post #157
api wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent is referring to the typical attitude that's normally on display here about piracy of music, books, movies, etc. It usually ranges from the dismissive to claims that it actually benefits artists to the occasional bit of "fuck the artists" truth. (That's more or less verbatim from one thread I saw.) You'll also hear a lot of libertarian and/or fluffy pseudo-socialist arguments for abolishing IP law when this…

I can't speak for everyone who pirated music, but back in the day when I did, it was because a CD was $15 and I couldn't afford that shit for every single song I wanted. When iTunes first showed up I thought it was a good idea, but the music came with the DRM bullshit. Then later, Amazon MP3 came around: Reasonable prices for ala-carte tracks, no DRM. I haven't stolen a single song since. Piracy by most people is a f…

You can't afford it? Don't buy it! The world doesn't owe you a fucking thing.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#169

Post by tracker1 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #130
mapgrep wrote: post #85

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 pro…

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, es…

It's a little bit of difference between freely copying to a few thousand of your closest, most personal friends on the internet, and setting up a business selling that content that you copied to third parties.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#170

Post by sapokedak »

tbcj wrote: post #113
Falkon1313 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sh…

Between the use of burglary and the disregard of physical vs. intangible property, this is just a preposterous set of hypotheticals. Why is it so bad to hold accountable both the company for hosting the content if they have reason to believe it was stolen and also the person who uploaded it? Criminal statutes punish pawn shops for selling stolen goods, criminal statutes punish people for knowingly purchasing stolen g…

Why do you think they knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods? Where do you get that idea?
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