Maintaining the integrity of our community | Hacker News Reader

Maintaining the integrity of our community

blog.udemy.com

63 pointslolptdr54 comments

> Many of you have asked about what happened to the money received from Troy’s course. There was none. As the fraudulent instructor had created coupon codes to allow students free access to the course, no money was exchanged in this process.

This puts a lot of context to the whole thing. However, I find it hard to believe that this happened for every plagiarized course.

There's still the issue of the people receiving the content freely when they should have payed (even though it's not their fault).

Exactly. Imagine I ripped a MPAA film DVD and distributed via free coupon codes to users of this service. Think any lawyers would have an issue or would they go 'oh, no money changed hands' and give it a pass?

Also, they used the boilerplate 'taking it seriously' twice, including the second sentence. Can corporate PR people please stop with this silliness? It seems like it is in every press release ever.

The MPAA would most likely go after supplier not the store, the MPAA would have to prove the store knew the products where duplicated/reproduced.

um that's essentially the argument any software copier er "pirate" (i have a real problem with that term) uses. to call the forced redistribution of someones software or content "theft" is also intellectually dishonest, as the original has not be altered, nor have any physical goods been taken. there may be a case made for debasement of value of the original item, with which counterfeits would also be included...

but yes, i think this particular issue strikes me as passionate personal illogical over-reaction due to being the victim, which is why victims don't often get to mete out punishments: they are biased. i read the original thread yesterday, and while i sympathize with the victim/claimant, I find this letter from the CEO to sufficiently address concerns of deliberate malfeasance.

now, i have no problem with the suggestion that perhaps he could lay bare the financial details of those roughly 150 takedowns they deal with annually.

Udemy isn't producing the pirated content themselves. Their only responsibility is to quickly respond to valid DMCA complaints in those cases. I think they handled Hunt's case appropriately. While there is certainly some lost revenue in terms of opportunity cost, there isn't really any more you can expect them to do.

The problem is at least one other person claimed their course was up for a considerable amount of time, and took in substantial revenue (thousands of dollars). In those cases, Udemy should remove the material and transfer the money to the content holder once they prove that they own it and that it was infringing.

Here is another angle to consider. How many of the viewers of Troy's 'free' plagiarized courses saw them and were impressed enough to convert to paying customers? Difficult to measure but Udemy will have a pretty good idea.

For Udemy to say that no money changed hands is a bit myopic, but perhaps this is unintentional. Money likely did change hands, but it was abstracted from the original transaction and only Udemy knows that figure.

So what's your recommendation here? What's your utopian vision for how Udemy should have handled this?

I don't really have any utopian visions because by definition they are impossible to achieve.

We have to be realistic and I think Udemy will get away with this and my comment above was basically me calling bullshit on their public statements. They didn't seem sincere to me, that's all.

I agree with you Tom.

Udemy is not Youtube. Udemy could easily verify each of their instructors. However it is not in their best interest to do so.

At this moment Udemy wants users. If it gets those users because people copy course content & display it on their site, then this is good for them. It makes it look like Udemy is the go to place for courseware.

Lets not forget there is a lot of potential money at stake. What did Adobe pay for Lynda.com?

My mention of Youtube was not accidental. Youtube created a strategy for getting big fast. Was it the dog videos that made youtube big? Or was it that you can see almost any piece of copy written stuff in one place. You either see it for a short time before it is taken down. Or you see it for a while because the original copyright holder no longer cares.

Sounds like the $ that changed hands is minuscule.

Why would a "fraudulent instructor" not charge for the lessons he's 'stolen' from someone? Otherwise what's the point?

It doesn't make sense, which means it's probably not true.

Why are there vast numbers of technical blogs which simply copy content? Why are there vast numbers of people who post rubbish answers on technical help forums which are simply copy and pasted from, for example, Microsoft's knowledge base? It's because these people want to raise their profile, e.g. so they perhaps put it on a CV, in a job application etc. In the English-speaking world (and unfortunately for the stereotype), they overwhelmingly belong to a particular demographic.

> Why are there vast numbers of technical blogs which simply copy content? > It's because these people want to raise their profile

Sure, but aren't we talking about a website where course creators directly sell their materials to students?

What's the point of copying someone else's teaching materials for your own use on that website, if you're not going to sell them there?

On the other hand, the idea that the 'stolen' courses were not actually sold makes Udemy's negligence look less serious, which is exactly why they would spread that idea.

This is just a guess. Maybe she sold the coupons via some other more untraceable means?

copyright is hard. If you just blindly accept DMCA takedown notices you become an avenue for trolls, overzealous lawyers and predatory companies. However, if you do nothing, people will pirate shit and sell it on your platform. "I steal music, but I don't resell it" is a shitty argument I saw someone make earlier.

I steal content all the time. It is wrong, but I do it anyway. If I create content that can be copied in a frictionless way, I know it will be stolen, I will expect it and I will be pissed.

What do the people who are criticizing udemy want them to do? Bias towards dropping all speculative content? That would make it very hard to onboard new users, lead to abuse, and lead to dead-links and ephemeral content.

Do what they are doing now? Trying to take content down that is known to be copied, especially when it is pointed out publcily. Obviously, it is good from a biz standpoint they want to make money, protect their reputation and not have to hire a ton of mechanical turk workers to prowl all social media.

so what do you want? The world could use an awesome answer to copywrite issues, but there is no easy answer, it is hard to automate, and that is just a reality that we will have to live with for a while into the future.

It's easy: a DMCA takedown ought to require proof of infringement: the burden being on the license holder. As it is now, it's takedown first then the poster of the content must prove their rights. Many of my music producer friends have had their own content pulled on Soundcloud, despite them having both created the song and owned the label that released it!

I think there's at least as much progress to be made via platforms developing solution systems, ala CAPTCHA, password reset emails, the verification system used on swappa.com, "salutes" (verification selfie), verification files... Could udemy only accept videos that have a visual/verbal confirmation "leader" attached with the submission? Yes, confirmation via voice is absurd - but it's a relatively minor obstacle in creation/submission, and quickly triaged for missing or egregiously obvious fakes. This is not some incredible idea, but my point is that when it matters to the web, the web can sometimes create accurate widely adaptable solutions, instead of intractable legalese. The question is, when will piracy (capital M) matter on a cultural level, vs. primarily being a concern of groups that are sometimes not even acting in the best interest of the people they represent.

>If you just blindly accept DMCA takedown notices you become an avenue for trolls, overzealous lawyers and predatory companies.

If you do not blindly accept DMCA takedown notices, you do not receive its safe harbor protections.

Yeah, that's a joke.

What would a good article look like where the company claimed to be at fault handles the case well? (1) They give an overview of all the claims that are in public discussion and not just one that they finally handled, (2) then they show being actually sorry for having pissed off people so badly that it became a global discussion, and (3) then they show some points about what they will do to reduce the chance of this happening again.

There seemed to be a pattern of abuse going on at Udemy that was described in the comment thread on the original article link on HN. This post addresses the article that was linked, but does not address the concerns raised in the thread.

I think the wider concerns were addressed with "We'll look at this and get back to you."

Which can be interpreted in any number of ways - some generous, some less so.

Personally I'm not yet convinced. Udemy makes its instructors jump through all kinds of hoops when they upload courses.

And yet plainly the QC process doesn't include any checks for duplication or piracy.

This seems strange, and not entirely believable.

But we'll see what happens next week.

> Over the Thanksgiving holiday, there has been discussion online about POTENTIALLY plagiarized content on Udemy.

Integrity is just gushing.

Yeah, some content MAY have been plagiarized, maybe!

"We're sorry you FEEL THAT WAY about any inconvenience we MAY have caused!"

Anyone still not happy here should provide a detailed explanation on what they would do differently, instead of decrying the company.

How does DMCA work when the site watermarks the posted content with the site's own brand?

> "...welcome any person who has a question, comment or issue to be discussed reach out to support@udemy.com." Well, it would be much better to have a comment thread below the blog post itself so we could learn what everyone has to say?

Empty promises given by a morally bereft company.

These types of companies are the ones we should crucify and condemn.

Why do you think that?

My only quirk with Udemy is their pricing tactics... never buy a course for more da 15€ has become a rule of thumb for me on Udemy already...

What more do you want? They got the DMCA notice, they took the content down.

At bare minimum, not allow the same content to be repeatedly uploaded?

I understand they are somewhat restricted by what they can do because of the DMCA, but afaik it's kosher to, once material is DMCAd, fingerprint it and never publish it again. In the article that seems to have kicked this PR stuff off, it references @jeffrey_way claiming his stuff has been repeatedly uploaded.

https://medium.com/@robconery/how-udemy-is-profiting-from-pi...

viz

https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649933605305774081

DMCA certainly does not restrict the ability of service providers to proactively screen and remove content (see: YouTube's content ID).

Udemy can hire one full time employee to quickly Google the name of all new uploaded courses, and this will catch the vast majority of plagiarism.

My understanding, as provided by counsel, is that proactively looking for material and missing it could expose the company to liability that would not be present if we did not actively look. Fingerprinting and permanent banning of DMCAd material did not. Yes this is a weird set of incentives but I didn't write the law.

This is my least favorite part of the DMCA law (which overall I support). But it is true - if Udemy starts proactively screening, they could easily lose Safe Harbor.

However, they may be in a bit of a pickle. Because the DMCA also doesn't allow for "willful blindness". Meaning if they know it's happening, know where it's happening and simply let it happen, they also lose Safe Harbor.

>At bare minimum, not allow the same content to be repeatedly uploaded?

How would would they prevent that? Fingerprints are trivially modified.

Do you want them to retain and use known-infringing material?

Audio fingerprinting is nothing like trivially modified.

Retaining a fingerprint (and yes this has been litigated) is not the same as retaining the original material.

not allow pirated content in the first place?

IIRC, Viacom v. YouTube revealed that the question of whether or not a given reproduction of a work covered by copyright is authorized is a very difficult thing to determine. [0]

Not even the rightsholder was able to keep track of which of the reproductions of its works posted to YouTube were authorized and which were not.

This particular area of law is a goddamn twisty maze built on top of a minefield.

[0] This is not to say that this was the first time that this was made plain to anyone, but it is one of the more notable ones in recent memory.

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