Pirated Courses on Udemy • Hacker News Board

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#131

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:01 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#132

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:04 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #131

TeMPOraL wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#133

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:10 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132

jacquesm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#134

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:19 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #133

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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").

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#135

Post by rnovak » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:24 AM UTC

ps4fanboy wrote: post #31

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…

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?

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#136

Post by snorrah » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:34 AM UTC

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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#137

Post by toyg » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:36 AM UTC

rnovak wrote: post #135

ps4fanboy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

Downvotes are probably because hardcore copyright-abusing tactics employed by the entertainment industry to save their outdated business models are not particularly popular 'round here. The fact that they exist does not mean one should use them.

I see the point you're making though (copyright violation by a for-profit company is just wrong, both morally and legally), and i upvoted to compensate.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#138

Post by rnovak » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:48 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #137

rnovak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Downvotes are probably because hardcore copyright-abusing tactics employed by the entertainment industry to save their outdated business models are not particularly popular 'round here. The fact that they exist does not mean one should use them. I see the point you're making though (copyright violation by a for-profit company is just wrong, both morally and legally), and i upvoted to compensate.

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.

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#139

Post by JohnV2333 » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:55 AM UTC

robconery wrote: post #110

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…

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 Pluralsi…

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

Re: Pirated Courses on Udemy

#140

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 4:26 AM UTC

rnovak wrote: post #135

ps4fanboy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

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.