Piracy is a tough code to crack for Edtech firms

BENGALURU: Abhay Sharma is grappling with what is becoming a burgeoning menace for educational technology companies – piracy.

“I have over 20 courses up on Udemy and many reached out asking if I could share free coupons. When I asked why I should do that, the reply was, ‘these courses are already available for free… we are just asking so we do not have to download’,” said Sharma, who teaches courses at several platforms.

Edtech companies, including Coursera and Udacity, are caught in a situation where developers and other professionals are sharing paid content from these sites among their peer networks and groups where colleagues or friends avail courses for free.