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Pirated Courses on Udemy

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Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#211

Post by gamekathu »

wyclif wrote: post #90
sotojuan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. Alternative…

24, and I learn mostly from blogs and ebooks. I find it quicker to learn and implement from blogs than wade through a video lesson!

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#213

Post by imaginenore »

zamalek wrote: post #147
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…

> Get a lawyer. This looks winnable. Remember: this should be your first step. If you want to resolve it amicably let your lawyer communicate that for you.

A decent lawyer is what, $100 an hour?

How much are you planning to win to justify that?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#214

Post by rnovak »

manigandham wrote: post #194
tracker1 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about the money (youtube/google has plenty of money and still doesnt catch everything) but about the logistics of it all. Why does facilitating transactions give them more liability? You can use paypal or stripe links to take money, are they now liable for penalties for things people sell using them?

Just as an FYI since you keep bringing it up, I'm fairly sure that payment processors are absolutely liable for illegal items purchased through their gateways.

If you'd like an example, Banks won't even OPEN an account in states that have legalized recreational marijuana, simply because it's still illegal federally, and they're avoiding liability.

I just thought I'd share, since I have firsthand experience in that particular industry (online payment processing).

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#215

Post by igravious »

noomerikal wrote: post #203
X-Istence wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Isn't YT "[receiving] a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity [video views]"? Just wondering how they actually get around that?

YT (or at least, YT's lawyers) would say no. A financial benefit _directly_ attributable to the infringing activity would be charging for (access to) the content itself, that is to say, unless you pay you don't get to view the content in the first place.

I would say that it is clear that _if_ YT is breaking even or making a profit via ad impressions providing the service that they provide then it is _indirectly_ benefiting. No, they are not directly monetizing the (alleged copyright infringing) content but they traffic is driven to their site and eyeballs continue to be view pages because of said (alleged copyright infringing) content which in turn is monetized via ad impressions.

Which is why I have no problem with people running an ad blocker.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#216

Post by pbhjpbhj »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #193
cm2187 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought writing a little (c) was all that was required to protect content with a copyright.

You don't even need to put a (c) or mark it with "copyright 2015". You can do that to express that you are the copyright holder but you don't need to do it. Your work, assuming it falls within copyrights, is automatically given a copyright. OP was saying that there is a provision in the law that allows you to claim 3x the allowable damages if you take the time to register with the copyright office and pay the filing…

Note too that this is for USA law. USA was one of the last countries to ratify the Berne Convention, nearly 100 years after it was formed. It is Berne that brought in automatic copyright without registration.I still occasionally come across people in the UK who think they must register for copyright because of registration still being a thing in USA.

Udemy being active in many jurisdictions I imagine parallel cases or forum shopping might be worthwhile. Particularly an international firm might be able to direct the case to somewhere that values personal rights above those of corporations which might enable you to hit Udemy hard enough that they'll care to do something to prevent it happening in the future.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#217

Post by jholman »

braum wrote: post #97
such_a_casual wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you just register your copyright after the infringement?

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 t…

> can multiply exponentially as it applies to EACH violation

You meant "linearly", right?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#219

Post by erdojo »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #46
djur wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking to see if another company's watermark is on it would be a good start.

OK so now they ban all videos with water marks of companies what does that solve, people will just start cropping videos.

Not really a hard problem to solve.

Better content moderation is one step.

Another? Add a part of the EULA that states:

"You hereby claim that you are either the original content creator or have written permission from the original content creator to sell this course. You agree that if you are judged by us to violate another creator's copyright, you will be liable for double any revenues generated by the sale of the course, payable directly to the copyright holder. You will also be permanently banned."

Or something to this effect. Make it part of the EULA that copyright violation won't be tolerated.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#220

Post by erdojo »

jakejake wrote: post #186
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…

I think the attitude is that it's an act of civil disobedience when it's perceived to be stealing from a big corporation or business entity. When it's a little guy, then HN jumps to their defense. Well, unless the little guy is a musician, in which case, fuck them and their art which should be free. They need to figure out how to make money some other way.

Imagine if iTunes (or Spotify etc.) allowed people to upload songs without a musician's permission and SELL them via iTunes.
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