Hey @RichChesterwood,
Thanks for weighing in. The blog post is intended to summarize the changes and explain our intent with them (a tl;dr, if you will), but we definitely invite you to view the actual terms if you’ve got questions about the specific wording. We hear you that tracking down each change can be a little tricky, so for convenience, the sections it sounds like you have questions about are:
Instructor Terms - Section 5.2 (Receiving Payments), which addresses instructors’ obligations to provide updated tax information
Instructor Terms - Section 3.4 (Anti-Piracy Efforts), which gives details on the rights you grant to Udemy and our anti-piracy vendors to enable us to send takedowns to websites hosting pirated versions of your content, and also covers how to opt out of this effort
Promotions Policy - Section 2.4 (Udemy for Business Program) - "Exclusivity" subsection, which covers the rules around exclusivity for Udemy for Business courses
To answer your specific questions in plain English, though:
On taxes: We’re requiring instructors to provide us with information that will determine tax status (i.e. a W-9 or W-8). This is pretty tricky for some instructors, though it sounds like you’ve got it covered. At the end of the day, we need to ensure that what we report to the IRS and what you report to the IRS lines up, thus the change.
On piracy: This just means that by default, we can take action on reports of piracy, even if it’s one instructor reporting a whole website of pirated content belonging both to them and other instructors. If you don’t want us to have permission to take action, you can opt out by emailing us as per the terms.
On Udemy for Business: To keep growing and driving learner engagement (and instructor earning potential), Udemy for Business needs to be able to highlight the unique value of the collection. We don’t, however, want to limit your ability to run your own individual businesses like your own website or in-person trainings, and we aren’t trying to invalidate any distribution arrangements you’ve already made. An example of what’s not allowed after 7/15 under the new terms would be making a course available both via Udemy for Business and another subscription offering from a different learning platform.
We hope this helps clear up any confusion.
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