What’s the threshold? Can a platform really be expected to police content effectively, especially when that content is uploaded at a higher velocity than any one person can evaluate? It’s one thing to employ spot checkers, but statistically, how much content uploaded to Udemy is pirated?
User reporting followed by company attentiveness to that report seems like a viable option when the other option is to charge considerably more for a service just to employ content evaluators, and potentially not allow content to be publicly available until evaluated by a company representative. There’s probably a business model in an outsourced service that effectively crowdsources this evaluation, but why pay for such a service when it’s likely to be slower and less cost-effective than enabling users to report content that they believe or know shouldn’t be there? That has to be done anyway, because no evaluation service would be 100% accurate!
The author of this article seems direct frustration at Udemy for the DMCA process that Udemy is legally bound to follow. Some things seem obvious to us, but in legal documents, such as a DMCA takedown request, the key elements have to be very clearly marked, explained, and so obvious that a random person off the street can verify that the request is proper. It sucks so bad but this is the process, and the entity most deserving of our anger and action is Congress.
I’m not defending Udemy, here: they clearly need a better process for vetting content before it’s posted. But the author of the linked post is getting an unfriendly introduction to copyright claims in the digital era and that shows problems in the legal process, not Udemy’s.
The DMCA is mandated by law, but there’s no reason they can’t have a better or more effective system in place, too.
And “There’s too many for one person to evaluate,” is no excuse. Hire more people or improve the way content is created and uploaded to the service. It’s unreasonable to expect everybody else in the world to keep on the look out for new services and police all of them for copyright infringement all the time.
Right now Udemy’s home page claims to have 35k “courses”, presumably uploaded over the 5 years they’ve been around. That’s hardly so many that a small team wouldn’t have been able to verify the content and check for blatant copyright infringement as they came in. It seems like a good way to improve overall quality early on, too.
Granted, now it’ll a be a pain to go back and check, but still not an impossible task.
Can a platform really be expected to police content effectively, especially when that content is uploaded at a higher velocity than any one person can evaluate?
I know I’m kinda invoking Betteridge here, but “yes” is a valid answer and might limit the growth of that platform - at the benefit of no violating the rights of others. But it’s a valid view on things.
User reporting followed by company attentiveness to that report seems like a viable option when the other option is to charge considerably more for a service just to employ content evaluators, and potentially not allow content to be publicly available until evaluated by a company representative. There’s probably a business model in an outsourced service that effectively crowdsources this evaluation, but why pay for such a service when it’s likely to be slower and less cost-effective than enabling users to report content that they believe or know shouldn’t be there? That has to be done anyway, because no evaluation service would be 100% accurate!
Or, as quite a few companies I know (e.g. shirt printers) do: rights check each an every submission in-house. This is actually feasible to do, especially with a product as slow to produce as course material!
The author of this article seems direct frustration at Udemy for the DMCA process that Udemy is legally bound to follow. Some things seem obvious to us, but in legal documents, such as a DMCA takedown request, the key elements have to be very clearly marked, explained, and so obvious that a random person off the street can verify that the request is proper. It sucks so bad but this is the process, and the entity most deserving of our anger and action is Congress.
No. He is frustrated that Udemy wants to push him into the DMCA process after giving an easy way to report. Note that he could also just sue Udemy without invoking DMCA.
I’m not defending Udemy, here: they clearly need a better process for vetting content before it’s posted. But the author of the linked post is getting an unfriendly introduction to copyright claims in the digital era and that shows problems in the legal process, not Udemy’s.
But you are also shaming the author for not wanting to fight paperwork for notifying a platform of infringement. I think you are defending them by proxy of the DMCA.
Relevant monologue: https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/670619911618719744
EDIT: Probably should reassure people that this one is easily readable, despite being on Twitter.
Up to a point…
Thanks for sharing.
What’s the threshold? Can a platform really be expected to police content effectively, especially when that content is uploaded at a higher velocity than any one person can evaluate? It’s one thing to employ spot checkers, but statistically, how much content uploaded to Udemy is pirated?
User reporting followed by company attentiveness to that report seems like a viable option when the other option is to charge considerably more for a service just to employ content evaluators, and potentially not allow content to be publicly available until evaluated by a company representative. There’s probably a business model in an outsourced service that effectively crowdsources this evaluation, but why pay for such a service when it’s likely to be slower and less cost-effective than enabling users to report content that they believe or know shouldn’t be there? That has to be done anyway, because no evaluation service would be 100% accurate!
The author of this article seems direct frustration at Udemy for the DMCA process that Udemy is legally bound to follow. Some things seem obvious to us, but in legal documents, such as a DMCA takedown request, the key elements have to be very clearly marked, explained, and so obvious that a random person off the street can verify that the request is proper. It sucks so bad but this is the process, and the entity most deserving of our anger and action is Congress.
I’m not defending Udemy, here: they clearly need a better process for vetting content before it’s posted. But the author of the linked post is getting an unfriendly introduction to copyright claims in the digital era and that shows problems in the legal process, not Udemy’s.
The DMCA is mandated by law, but there’s no reason they can’t have a better or more effective system in place, too.
And “There’s too many for one person to evaluate,” is no excuse. Hire more people or improve the way content is created and uploaded to the service. It’s unreasonable to expect everybody else in the world to keep on the look out for new services and police all of them for copyright infringement all the time.
Right now Udemy’s home page claims to have 35k “courses”, presumably uploaded over the 5 years they’ve been around. That’s hardly so many that a small team wouldn’t have been able to verify the content and check for blatant copyright infringement as they came in. It seems like a good way to improve overall quality early on, too.
Granted, now it’ll a be a pain to go back and check, but still not an impossible task.
I know I’m kinda invoking Betteridge here, but “yes” is a valid answer and might limit the growth of that platform - at the benefit of no violating the rights of others. But it’s a valid view on things.
Or, as quite a few companies I know (e.g. shirt printers) do: rights check each an every submission in-house. This is actually feasible to do, especially with a product as slow to produce as course material!
No. He is frustrated that Udemy wants to push him into the DMCA process after giving an easy way to report. Note that he could also just sue Udemy without invoking DMCA.
But you are also shaming the author for not wanting to fight paperwork for notifying a platform of infringement. I think you are defending them by proxy of the DMCA.
Udemy responded.