The implications of violating copyright

[Erin]

A lot of you may have heard of various GMAT or GRE 'brain dump' site, i.e., websites that attempt to collect real, live test questions. And you may recall that we've had a few members of our forum here who have been contacted by GRE or GMAC (the company that owns the GMAT) for possible copyright infringement because of posts they have made in this forum.

A site that was selling access to its version of real GMAT questions has been being sued by GMAC for some time now. It looks like GMAC has prevailed and has taken over ScoreTop.com.

But that's not all. Apparently GMAC has seized the computer and hard drive of the site and is looking through the records to find out who was a member of the site.

Read the official press release: Courts Give Graduate Management Admission Council Domain Name Ownership, Hard Drive in Copyright Infringement Suit

Interesting quotes:

June 20, 2008
(McLean, VA) – The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has issued a default judgment awarding the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) damages in the amount of $2.3 million, attorneys’ fees, court costs, and other relief in a copyright infringement case brought by GMAC against Lei Shi and other operators of the U.S.-based web site known as Scoretop.com.

And the part that could affect you, if you were a member of the site:

As part of its efforts to collect on the judgment, GMAC has seized various assets owned or controlled by Shi, including a computer hard drive that contains substantial information about the individuals who participated in Scoretop’s unlawful activities either as employees or agents of Shi or as “members” of the Scoretop site. GMAC has also seized the Scoretop domain name, which it now owns and controls. GMAC will review contents of the hard drive and other materials to determine if individuals have violated its testing policies through their participation in Scoretop. Violators may have their GMAT scores canceled, and business schools will be notified of those cancellations.

[Gmater-1]

Good info

[Tseprep]

So let's try to avoid similar problems with ETS