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Comment by gamesbrainiac | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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?

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