Udemy Took Down My Coding Course with No Advanced Warning For an ID Check

Pluralsight author here. Udemy have had lots of piracy issues in the past - for example, paid courses from authors on sites like Pluralsight have been illegally copied and sold.

Just a few weeks ago Pluralsight circulated an email on Udemy telling us, Pluralsight authors, that the two companies have met as Udemy has acknowledged the piracy problem and pledged to take down any flagged courses much faster in the future.

I don't know if there is a relation to that action and this takedown until an ID check, but there might be. Also, if you think about why they took it down immediately until you verify your ID: if someone flags this video and it is indeed a copyright infrigment, Udemy could be sued for not acting immediately.

I do empathise that takedowns without notice are painful when you're not the author - however as an outsider I am glad that Udemy on the other hand is starting to take piracy of courses more seriously.

I'm sure that piracy is the reason like you suggest...as per the email they sent me that referenced that sort of thing....

But the email they sent me said that they are merely conducting a "spot check", and for another thing - if they actually were responding to a flag, them "acting immediately" could be "immediately sending me and email and giving me 24-48 hours to respond" You know?

Like I said, I don't mind verifying my ID (even though I think I did that when I first signed up). I mind the way they did it. They could have given me warning first.

Glad to hear it sounds like the course is back up. I too feel that while Udemy has every right and reason to protect authors, but it shouldn't take down your course without warning or the ability to first prove it is your content within a short but reasonable time period.

Have you reached out to Udemy and asked why they took it down without first giving you the chance to prove the content is yours? What did they say?

Reading comments here it seems people are saying, "so what its only 24-48 hours". But when you pay for marketing and have clients paying for the course your credibility is at stake if that course becomes unavailable. And it is different in this case then saying the Udemy platform became unavailable for 12 hours because of some technical issue which people would be more forgiving of. So while you can point to Udemy as the issue here, it isn't fair to you or really even to their platform. Udemy should be more cautious to their own platform as this can negatively affect their ability to attract quality authors for fear their content will be taken down without warning, not to mention it will affect students who may get a bad taste in their mouth because they paid for a course on Udemy that then isn't available.

One last point, to the few people who said its only 24-48 hours, something you may not think about/know. Most students if they don't start a course within the first 24-48 hours of signing up, won't complete it, and many (if not most) will then request a refund. So you have to be laser focused on getting people into the process and getting them moving, that is why so much marketing spend is focused on getting people to work the course once they sign up. We do a lot of this type of marketing for individuals and training companies, most on custom platforms but the marketing and process is identical to Udemy et al, and this is a critical issue.

Would you believe anyone who asks you to email a copy of your id really knows how to delete your ID from their systems or would care enough to follow through?

Is it this course - https://www.udemy.com/php-programming-for-affiliate-marketer...? I can access it just fine.

Maybe it was spot checked because affiliate marketing is often so closely associated with spammers and scammers.

No, that's not the course.

Ah, sorry for jumping to conclusions then.

Do you show your face in your courses or just have regular video with text and audio? I do think they should have notified you in advance without taking the course down or even send you the notification without disabling the course.

It's a course on Ruby on Rails...so the whole thing is screen casts of my desktop as I walk through each lesson. I don't show my face...

I just found your course via an ad on ArsTechnica. Small world we live in. How long before you bring it up? I've been looking for a course.

I should also mention, the course is not new, it's been up for a year (maybe slightly longer) and it's not the only course I have on Udemy.

Could you please comment on sales, is it worth it? Would/do you live solely by your courses?

UPDATE: The course is now back up for current students and pending a quick review to make it 100% live again.

I applaud your focus on your customers.

Udemy has been going downhill for a while now. I have about 2 months in payouts from them. Still waiting.

I think they hold all payments for 2 months as a matter of course...

Yea, I know. Been on the platform for 2 years. This is AFTER that wait period.

Yikes!

Unless the only time your students can access your course would have been the next 24-48hrs (which I highly doubt), you/they are not being screwed over.

You are not entitled to anything on their platform, and this seems like an honest attempt to combat piracy (which actually protects content creators such as yourself).

The students paid for instant 24 hour access....they aren't getting it. If I bought a course and suddenly I couldn't access it for 2 days, I'd be pissed. And I guess the people asking for refunds now are doing it for an entirely different reason?

Yes, I am entitled to something with their platform, they make a lot of money from my content. A contract is formed, terms and conditions are agreed upon. Mail order law must be upheld. They have every right to combat privacy, but do it responsibly.

Why delete the course at all? A simple email saying "Hey, send us your id so we can verify you" would have been fine and done the trick completely. Give me 24-48 hours to comply before you delete the entire course and screw up a year's worth of work and marketing effort.

That would be an honest attempt to combat piracy. What they did was reckless.

You haven't lost anything if you haven't pirated your content (since they said they'd "put it back", as quoted from your original post).

It's an inconvenience, I'll give you that.

Of course I've lost something...I've lost 2 going on 3 or 4 days of income from all the people who would have signed up but couldn't, I've lost all the money from the people who are demanding refunds, and I've lost respect from my students who think this is all my fault (and who it will be harder to sell future courses to). I've lost marketing dollars for ad spends that have sent traffic to the site the last 2 days pointing to a course that isn't there (granted I caught this one early but it's still tangible). The course website gets decent Google organic search traffic...but the course site has been gone for 2 days now...how do you think Google will react? I'd be amazed if they didn't penalize the site in the rankings after this.

What are you talking about?

I'm getting messages from students asking where the course is...this is a nightmare!