Piracy course sellers say that this industry is like MLM.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “remix project” (ID: remixjihua), author | Liu Xin, editor | Shi Can. Original title: “Online education pirated online classes are 9 yuan 9. When will the vicious circle end? 》
Infringement and piracy make people unwilling to create, or it has nothing to do with their will. It is the enterprise that cannot support it.
“Of course it’s illegal. It’s not right to look at pirated copies and sell pirated copies.”
Nine Pounds is a law student and has participated in online online courses selling pirated copies. When asked whether it is illegal to sell pirated online courses, he answered honestly.
A few thousand yuan courses are only sold for 9 yuan, and hundreds of T files can be updated for a few hundred yuan for a lifetime. When online education is booming, low-cost sales of various knowledge-paid courses are also growing brutally. In this gray industry, there are individual small workshop models, as well as the overall operation of institutions. They are active in all corners of the Internet, and they have built a gray empire of Internet-wide resources that is opposite to the genuine ones.
“I have everything you want”, “Paid courses for knowledge sharing at a low price”, “Ten of thousands of popular courses to learn as you wish”… The copywriting of the courses sold is active in the WeChat circle of friends. These paid courses cover philosophy, business, history, law and other industries, including Himalayan, Get, Tencent Classroom, Wanmen University and other major knowledge payment platforms, which just confirms the phrase “I have everything you want.” slogan.
Sharing at low prices and crowdfunding lessons are common models in this sales chain. With the center of online education, we will enter sales into various fields such as e-commerce and social networking. “Xianyu, qq, Weibo, retweet, post, Zhihu… As long as it is an Internet community, people will sell it in (places) with traffic,” said Jiu Pound. Is spelling illegal? Why does this industry last? How does this infringe on copyright? Remix project (ID: remixjihua) tries to find the answer behind it.
Knowing that it cannot be done
“But in reality, there are some things, knowing it is wrong, I will still do it.” Regarding the views on buying and selling pirated courses, Nine Pound replied, “Intellectual property is hard to say.”
Nine pounds was sold after the postgraduate entrance examination. After selling for a month, the free fish was titled for 7 days and earned 1,700.
He has met a seller who made 30,000 yuan a month, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a huge profit. Nine pounds mainly sells various examination materials, such as postgraduate entrance examination and public examination, second construction of law examination and so on. According to his observations, there are two business models on the market. The first one is simply selling all kinds of test materials. This general group is relatively strong. Some are responsible for selling books, and others are providing update services on behalf of others.It lowered Wang Rui’s desire to go to major platforms to search for these courses. “It’s the same as buying books and clothes. In fact, I don’t necessarily like this course so much, but I really want to have it or (let it) be there.” She has also bought a genuine course, and she has heard more than a dozen courses. I went to read during the festival.
“Thinking about so many platforms, I am not a loyal user that I have obtained, nor am I a loyal user who is looking at ideals. They are all doing lessons. I see that the quality is good. I bought all of them with so much money. , I can’t listen to it after buying it, the cost of screening is very high.”
“Knowledge culture is difficult to quantify. It is difficult to say whether the lesson is worth or not, and I dare not easily spend this kind of money.” Wang Rui is not confident that she can finish listening. Like many young people, Wang Rui wants to spend money on the knife. “If the course has inspired me a lot, and I haven’t even listened to it, but a certain point inspires me so much, I am willing to pay for it. “She found herself a room for rationalization, “I don’t approve of this course that much.”
Genuine Industry VS Piracy Industry
“Please pay attention to verify the identity of the other party and beware of fraud.”
When adding the WeChat account of the teaching store, this word is displayed in the dialog boxes of many stores. And correspondingly, there is another commonality. They all have a note after the nickname: only Alipay is accepted.
This is a “flexible” move made by pirate merchants under strong regulatory pressure. There are many similar “profiles” ranging from diversion, speech, products, transactions to after-sales.
Xianyu platform releases a special network ecological governance action every week. In the last week, Xianyu has frozen 18,000 fraudulent users, accepted 183,000 reports, and processed 66,000 effective reports. The Xianyu community information release specifications stipulate that counterfeit goods, goods or information that improperly use the rights of others, such as counterfeit registered trademarks, piracy, infringement of others’ trademark rights, copyrights, patent rights, and other goods or information, are prohibited from being published.
“In 2018, there were a lot of free fish, but later it seemed to be reported and sold less.” Lele said. The supervision of the platform can maintain the copyright ecology to a certain extent and change the chaos in the industry.
The reason why the nine-pound Xianyu account was blocked was to drain traffic outside the platform during the chat. WeChat, Weixin, VX, etc., will be recognized by the platform. Correspondingly, their drainage skills are constantly escalating, similar to direct WeChat, help friends to link, not in this transaction and other drainage models, but they can also bypass the corresponding supervision.
Not only e-commerce platforms, Tieba, Douban, Zhihu and other major social platforms have their presence, and their purpose is very clear-to attract traffic.
“The free one is the most expensive.” Nine pounds explained, “Some courses are very cheap, even free. They are just tricking you into adding WeChat and posting in Moments every day. All kinds of advertisements, selling books, sellingThere are agents. “
In order to avoid supervision, they have this line of “jargon”. Nine pounds of words are relatively simple, using key words to write pinyin. “Kao research, full set, stable update” and “fa test, latest”. For the high-end, nine pounds said that selling fruits and chess can also be extended to selling lessons. The first line is the product information, and the bottom is the information.
Not only is it a simple slogan, but they also have anti-blocking measures for articles-“watering” the content. The first half sells classes, and the second half is filled with content that has nothing to do with the courses, so as to bypass the screening of the system.
Not all courses can be sold, and courses on some platforms are the default “minefield” in the industry. “The investigation is strict, I’m going to take it off the shelves, and I can’t fight anymore.” This is a message provided by a seller. In the rights protection actions of genuine platforms, some sellers have indeed received letters from lawyers from genuine platforms.
These pressure methods will intermittently give sellers a deterrent effect. But to prevent the copyright owner from being held accountable, the products sold have also been improved. Wang Rui shared her Baidu cloud file like a Russian doll. “In order to prevent being blocked, there will be a lot of files.”
At the source of the product, the CCtalk platform is equipped with an anti-theft function to protect the webmaster’s live and recorded courses through data encryption, API authentication, and main media encryption. Kan Ideal is an original audio and video content platform that has produced popular programs such as Liu Yu, Zhan Qingyun, Xu Zidong, Yang Zhao, and Ge Zhaoguang. It will also determine whether the user has access rights, each access has a time limit, and users who frequently switch devices will also have relevant warnings to determine whether the account is a violation.
CCtalk’s anti-theft function
“Technically speaking, as long as users can play courses normally, pirates will have a way to crack the anti-theft measures. It is just a matter of cost. It is impossible to completely prevent theft from a technical point of view.” The person in charge of the ideal said.
In the user agreements of all major knowledge payment platforms, there is something like “All works on the platform allow purchasers to watch online, learn, cache and download, and cannot be sold or disseminated. Without permission, it is strictly forbidden for anyone to change, distribute, copy, and forward without permission Information materials.” copyright notice.
However, regarding the deterrent effect of these agreements, Chen Lian, CEO of Human Rights Knights, said that the effect is worrying. He made a vivid analogy, “We all know that breaking the law is wrong, but there will still be people breaking the law. If there is no police, no public security bureau, noIf there is a camera, this society may be messed up. This is a truth. “
In the transaction process, these merchants appear to be very cautious. If you just ask and don’t buy, you won’t be able to see the WeChat Moments the next day. They use uniform heads and similar speech skills to exist in places that cannot be illuminated by the detection lights.
The after-sales service in this industry is uneven. Try not to trade directly from e-commerce platforms as much as possible. One of their common features is that e-commerce platforms can return goods and write negative reviews, while social media such as WeChat is relatively safer. Lele described the lessons she bought with the value for money, while Zhao Lou said that after-sales course updates stopped halfway through, and it sometimes happened that the seller was not found in the middle.
Interestingly, in the promotion of selling classes, the merchant will write a disclaimer. “The above materials are all from the Internet. All resources retain the original author’s information and are only used for learning. Please completely delete the above content from your computer within 24 hours. If you like it, please purchase genuine learning to get better If there is any infringement, please contact to delete it.” And only the merchant knows how useful this disclaimer is.
From search engine blocking, deletion, and banning of accounts to litigation claims and criminal cases, this is the hierarchical protection system established in the intellectual copyright ecosystem so far.
“The infringer basically fired a shot to change a place, and then pushed the gourd down and raised the scoop.” Seeing ideals is a headache for infringement. “Send a letter from the lawyer to treat the symptoms but not the root cause. Request to be removed or after the report is successful , The infringer may temporarily delete or the platform helps to block an account, but it cannot directly trace the final individual or company subject.
“If the copyright owner claims that the copyright has been infringed, you can just remove it from the shelves and not do this lesson.” Said a seller of lessons. “It’s very simple.”
“This is a good thing, this is an absolute good thing.” Chen Lian said that at least the infringer will stop the infringement, which is a substantial stop for the copyright owner. Of course, for such infringers, if they continue to infringe, as the national intellectual property protection becomes stricter, sooner or later they will pay a greater price for violations.
Will the future of online education copyright be good?
“Many courses are not copyrighted, and lawyers’ litigation fees are also high. In addition, there are many people who sell courses, and the platform cannot find them.” Yimaike’s store described the cost of rights protection in this industry. ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Not only the economic cost, but also the time and effort invested can not be estimated. “It takes half a year to connect and find a law firm, and it may pay 10,000 to 20,000 yuan.” Chen Lian said.
The high cost of rights protection makes the road of rights protection of copyright owners full of thorns, and the lag of platform supervision also provides opportunities for pirates. Nine pounds said that the push of the product is related to the algorithm. The algorithm exposes the product, and then the platform finds that the product violates the regulations, and there is a time lag in removing the product from the shelves. The copyright protection work of various major platforms is also uneven.
CorrespondingYes, there are very few merchants selling courses under strong supervision, while on unsupervised platforms, shops selling pirated courses are growing brutally. This industry chain is not limited to the form of e-commerce sales, personal accounts, video accounts, self-media, non-ICP recordal websites, related small programs, and many APPs, and places with traffic are the soil for the survival of this industry.
According to the “Content Industry Copyright Report for the First Half of 2020” released by the Rights Defender, platforms such as Xianyu, Baidu Tieba, Zhuanzhuan, Taobao are still platforms with more than 10,000 paid content infringements, with more than 10,000 infringement clues.
Image source: Content Industry Copyright Report for the first half of 2020
But the copyright governance rate is also very different. As far as e-commerce platforms are concerned, Pinduoduo has the lowest governance rate of its kind, at only 88.8%.
Image source: Content Industry Copyright Report for the first half of 2020
Weak legal awareness is a common problem in this industry. Regardless of buyers and sellers or copyright owners, weak copyright awareness is a major pain point. Buyers will not consider too much when buying pirated courses. Sellers will also rationalize that they are just data porters. Even some copyright owners don’t care much about their copyright assets. “Some copyright owners are not aware of this problem. I personally think that education needs to be carried out by multiple parties.” Chen Lian said.
In addition to copyright awareness, education anxiety, a by-product of the industrialization of education, has also intensified buyers’ desire to buy. “I think the payment fee contains one thing, which is to give you an expectation, and give you an expectation that buying it will become better. Excluding the knowledge part, this is a game between merchants and consumers. “Wang Rui said.
This is an over-loss situation.
“Whether it’s books, courses, comics or novels, content companies are all about survival, paying taxes and providing high-quality services to the market.It is a basis for providing services, to pay five social insurances and one housing fund for their employees, to solve employment and so on. Selling pirated lessons or selling pirated content is actually hurting these foundations in essence. “
Chen Lian said that there are many phenomena that cause a company to die because of pirated content, and it is also possible for an industry to die. Because infringement and piracy make people unwilling to create, or it has nothing to do with willingness, it is the enterprise that can’t support it.
In this vicious circle, the result of the continuous cycle is likely to be that there are no jobs, no taxes paid by the state, the market can’t enjoy the best services, and the entire piracy industry has nothing to do. Stolen.
Yuedaodao publicly stated in an interview that “piracy courses are a ‘tumor’ for consumers, copyright companies and the social innovation environment.”
Fortunately, people are also constantly paying attention to copyright. In Zhihu, there are also many questions about whether spelling is illegal. “There is a degree of precision here.” Chen Lian compared buying members on iQiyi. “Although members are only allowed to be used by the buyer alone, there is no problem watching them with family members at night, but if you consciously go to the account It’s definitely illegal to sell and put it in a bar. Similarly, buying and selling under the name of the class is a violation of the law. Of course, the class itself is also a violation of the user agreement. It’s just that no one has found out before. This problem is nothing but an infringement.”
In this regard, Kan Ideal also expressed the same point of view. There is no essential difference between spelling and pirated recording, because it is difficult to tell whether the so-called spelling on the Internet is a cover for selling.
At present, most payment knowledge platforms can only defend their rights through the path of “notification platform-realization of deletion”. Looking at the ideal expresses their expectations for the future of copyright, “I hope everyone supports a lot of things that you like and recognize, even if The current economic conditions are limited, and try not to participate in piracy and intellectual property infringement actions. At the same time, it is also hoped that after the commercial value of content providers is gradually highlighted, they will have more voice and require platforms to use them more effectively. The rules of real-name authentication can prevent infringement, and can also punish more effectively the repeated infringement.”
Chen Lian believes that in the past copyright service practices, there has been a sustainable copyright asset protection system. In fact, this has practical effects on increasing the cost of copyright infringement, improving the flooding situation, and then stopping loss, maintaining value, and increasing the value of copyright assets.
In his opinion, the domestic copyright awareness is getting better and better. It must be better than in the past. The 90s are better than the 80s, and the 80s are better than the 70s.
“Will the future be good?”
“Of course.” Chen Lian was very sure.
Remarks: Nine pounds, Lele, Zhao Lou, and Wang Rui are all pseudonyms