Geoff CuddWhen I made a course on Podia, I was excited to share my own experience and knowledge with students while making a bit of profit from sharing my unique expertise.
But all of that was shattered when I found my very course redistributed on shady third-party sites for a fraction of the price!
You read right, my Podia course was stolen. Here’s what I did next and what you can do if you ever find yourself in my shoes.
Check out our other guides if your course has been stolen from:
Eliminate Pirated Copies of Your Course
Our course was stolen! So, we found an anti-piracy expert to reclaim our lost rankings and stop unauthorized copies. Now you can work with him too.
- Avoid lost revenue when others monetize YOUR content
- Stop brand damage when your name is used on shady websites
- Prevent pirated copies from appearing above you in search results
We offer this website completely free to our visitors. To help pay the bills, we’ll often (but not always) set up affiliate relationships with the top providers after selecting our favorites. However, we do our best not to let this impact our choices. There are plenty of high-paying companies we’ve turned down because we didn’t like their product.
An added benefit of our relationships is that we always try to negotiate exclusive discounts for our visitors.
How I Found Out My Course Was Stolen
How did I know that my course was stolen?
I had an inkling that something was up when I had a student purchase my course, finish it in record time (like, impossible time. There’s no way they actually took the course in that short of a time period), and then request a refund.
After this happened, I got together with a buddy of mine who specializes in DMCA takedowns and scoured the internet for sites that had stolen my course. We found a shocking number of them and sent DMCA takedown requests to each.
What To Do If Your Podia Course Was Stolen
So, what can you do if your Podia course has been stolen and distributed on third-party sites?
You’ll need to file a DMCA takedown.
Here’s what to do.
Gather Evidence
You’ll need evidence to prove that you are the original owner of the course as well as evidence that the offending party stole your content.
This will include the original URL for your course as well as every URL where you find your stolen course redistributed without your consent.
We also recommend that you get screenshots of your course creation process through Podia.
Contact the Site Owner First
You’ll want to (and legally need to) contact the owner of the site with a cease and desist first.
This is essentially a very official-looking email showing that you are the owner of the course they are illegally distributing and that they are breaking the law and should remove your content from their site before you escalate things.
You’ll need to include the evidence you gathered in the last step (your original Podia URL, the URL of the offending site, and any screenshots that show you own the course).
Now, technically, they have 72 hours to respond with a counternotice or remove the content. Unfortunately, since the folks doing this are already down with theft, they aren’t known for following the rules.
That’s where the next step comes in.
Follow Up As Necessary
If you don’t hear from the site owner within 72 hours, send over a second cease and desist to let them know you mean business. Or you can do the next step…
Send a DMCA Takedown to the ISP Provider
You’ll need the original URL for your course and the URL of the infringing site where you found the stolen content to file the DMCA takedown.
You’ll also need to include the following information:
- The signature of the copyright owner or owner’s agent, in physical or electronic form.
- Identification of the: (i) copyrighted work(s) infringed; (ii) the infringing activity; and (iii) the location of the infringing activity (typically by providing the URL).
- Contact information of the notice sender, including an email address.
- A statement that the notifier has a good faith belief that the material is not authorized by the intellectual property or copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
- A statement that the information provided is accurate and the notifier is authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the intellectual property or copyright owner.
Once you have all the information gathered, submit your complaint to the ISP of the offending site.
You will also need to file a Google DMCA takedown.
Use a DMCA Takedown Service
Does all of this sound like a lot? Yeah, we know. That’s why we recommend using a DMCA takedown service that will take care of all of it for you, including ongoing monitoring to ensure continual protection of your original online course.
Since we’ve been through this all before and know firsthand how frustrating it is to have to deal with all of this, we started our own DMCA takedown service to help you make sure your online course is safe.
There are also plenty of other online DMCA takedown services you may want to look into.
What To Do If Your Stolen Course is On Podia
So what if you find your stolen course… on Podia?
Fear not, Podia makes it easy to notify their team of any issues you may encounter while using the platform, including if someone has stolen your course and redistributed it on Podia!
Send over an email to [email protected] including the following:
- A detailed description of the issue occurring
- Any troubleshooting steps you've already taken
- A link to the page you're experiencing the issue on
- A screenshot or screen recording of the issue
Podia does request a very detailed description of the problem to best help with getting it taken care of as quickly as possible. This means including “all applicable information, relevant links, and a description of the issue you're seeing.”
How to Protect Your Podia Course
Luckily, Podia has built-in protection for your course that comes standard in-platform.
There are also a few preventative measures you can take yourself to ensure the security of your Podia course.
Built-In Protection On the Platform
Some of the protection measures Podia has built-in are:
- 2-factor authentication
- Compliance with GDPR
- Privacy Board automation available for privacy measures
Preventative Measures to Take Yourself
Here are some extra steps you can take to keep your course safe:
- Use multiple types of media in your course
- Install anti-malware and update OS software
- Create unique course names
- Back up important information elsewhere off the platform
- Watermark the videos and PDFs you use in the course
- Encourage discussion and interaction among students
- Take screenshots of the course creation process
Eliminate Pirated Copies of Your Course
Our course was stolen! So, we found an anti-piracy expert to reclaim our lost rankings and stop unauthorized copies. Now you can work with him too.
- Avoid lost revenue when others monetize YOUR content
- Stop brand damage when your name is used on shady websites
- Prevent pirated copies from appearing above you in search results
Frequently Asked Questions
How to file a DMCA takedown?
To file a DMCA takedown, you need to gather evidence of theft of your online content, send a DMCA takedown notice to the offending site, follow up as needed, and send a request to Google to have the content deindexed from search engines.
Is Podia good for courses?
Yes, Podia is a great site to create online courses where you can share your knowledge while making a profit.
Can you patent an online course?
As soon as you create content for your online course, it is legally protected by copyright, so yes, you can patent an online course.
Do I own my content on Podia?
Yes, you own your content on Podia.
Claire Fountain
