Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pirated Courses on Udemy

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 254 posts

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#241

Post by sukulaku »

robconery wrote: post #176
sukulaku wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing the kind of thorough examination of these issues your post deserves would be biting off way more than I could chew right now, so I'll just make some random remarks instead. People pirating entertainment isn't exactly "the free market" in action, but it's close. The common denominator is people doing what they want to, when no one intervenes in their activities. So if there's nothing to deter people from pirat…

Thanks for the thoughts. As with many others I'll offer to you that my entire post is not about piracy. I've lived with piracy of my stuff for the last 7 years. Part of doing business. The point of my post was a business profiting from pirates. The people who make the choice to forego bittorrent and just post the pirated stuff for a profit. THAT... is my point.

> The people who make the choice to forego bittorrent and just post the pirated stuff for a profit. THAT... is my point.

Yeah, that's a scuzzy thing to do.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#242

Post by pfranz »

imaginenore wrote: post #213
zamalek wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I wouldn't be scared to contact a lawyer. The professionals I've contacted (tax people, finance managers, lawyers) have always been upfront if it's not worth their time and about how much things might cost. They'll also usually give you free advice.

Also, lawyers have different payment structures (a percentage instead of hourly) and won't always charge for a consultation. Maybe writing a nasty letter on lawyer letterhead is enough--they might do it for free or bill you 1/4 hour. See if your workplace has free legal council as a benefit.

F*ck you. Pay me. is a really good video I see posted on here periodically: https://vimeo.com/22053820 Lawyers are there to make you money--not take your money.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#243

Post by brbsix »

sapokedak wrote: post #236
brbsix wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a shill for Udemy? It may not even matter if they knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods. See OCILLA (the "safe harbor" provision of the DMCA). Similarly, see the fate of Grooveshark [1]. Providers seeking protection from OCILLA must: 1) not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, 2) not be aware of the presence of infringing material or know any facts or circu…

No I'm not a shill for Udemy. What about you? Can you please tell me why you said that Udemy knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods?

I've never said Udemy knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods. Also I apologize for questioning your intentions, I realize you are likely just an instructor who has experience with their platform.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#244

Post by sapokedak »

dang wrote: post #239
sapokedak wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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/newswelcome.html

>>>>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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#245

Post by [deleted] »

brbsix wrote: post #181
sapokedak wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you a shill for Udemy? It may not even matter if they knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods. See OCILLA (the "safe harbor" provision of the DMCA). Similarly, see the fate of Grooveshark [1]. Providers seeking protection from OCILLA must: 1) not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, 2) not be aware of the presence of infringing material or know any facts or circu…

[deleted]

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#246

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

erdojo wrote: post #220
jakejake wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has happened before, and the content creators face the same struggle. The most egregious example that I know of is Benn Jordan, aka The Flashbulb, who claims that ITunes, Google, etc. have made over 6 figures from selling music that someone uploaded without his permission:

https://torrentfreak.com/artist-cant-get-pirated-music-off-i...

It really sucked for Benn, who openly releases his own music on torrents and is active on What.cd, because he notes in his blog that he threw down 50 grand to hire an orchestra for the album that got stolen (Arboreal).

Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, musicians do not earn the same sympathy as programmers for the same issue, at least not here on Hacker News.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#247

Post by sapokedak »

brbsix wrote: post #243
sapokedak wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm not a shill for Udemy. What about you? Can you please tell me why you said that Udemy knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods?

I've never said Udemy knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods. Also I apologize for questioning your intentions, I realize you are likely just an instructor who has experience with their platform.

Sorry. I didn't know how to open the thread when I replied so I didn't realize that you weren't the person I was originally speaking to. So to you I say, "You don't need to talk to me since I wasn't talking to you. But no, I'm no shill. I am a small, independent content provider and I find it disturbing that people make wild accusations and others believe what they read on Twitter with no need for any kind of proof."

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#248

Post by sapokedak »

brbsix wrote: post #243
sapokedak wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm not a shill for Udemy. What about you? Can you please tell me why you said that Udemy knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods?

I've never said Udemy knowingly acted as a marketplace for stolen goods. Also I apologize for questioning your intentions, I realize you are likely just an instructor who has experience with their platform.

Apology accepted. Thanks.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#249

Post by sapokedak »

robconery wrote: post #18
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…

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…

Are you the owner of the copyright of the course that was stolen? If you are and if you've filed to have the course taken down and Udemy has refused, then you have a dispute and you need to sue them. You knew that breaking copyright law was something that would be settled in court yesterday when you said, "I sincerely hope Udemy is flooded with pirated content. Lawsuit fodder.

"Let the games begin."

You wanted to sue them yesterday. Ha ha. Fun game. Let's bury Udemy under stolen goods so we can sue Udemy, and screw its employees and the its content providers.

But now you seem to be admitting that you can't sue them. If they haven't broken copyright law, then you can't sue them.

So which is it? Have they stolen your content and shall you sue them? Or is someone else flooding them with pirated content for some nefarious reasons of his own?

Are they breaking copyright law so you can sue them? Or are they breaking no law so you have to settle for pissing in their orchids and stirring up trouble?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#250

Post by dang »

sapokedak wrote: post #244
dang wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/newswelcome.html

>>>>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…

> 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.

Post reply on HN