Kaplan sues USMLEpro for USMLE test material piracy
I sincerely hope this drives the point home to people involved in posting those e-book links and free Kaplan DVD download links, rapid-share links to copyrighted books and materials on Facebook, Orkut, Myspace and even Yahoo-Google Groups and various forums. On Yahoo groups, you are bound to come across people based out of the United Sates trying to sell you Kaplan Notes and DVD Materials for cheap. It even amazes me to see openly run USMLE material download blogs throwing all caution to the winds!
USMLEpro has been selling Kaplan materials for quite some time now, I thought they had some sorta agreement with Kaplan - but apparently not. I looked up the Whois information for USMLEpro.com and was amused that the Admin called himself "The Kaplinator" :-D. Well, if Kaplan has its way, they might just prove to be the Terminators of the Kaplinators by charging $150,000/- in damages for every material sold ! Read The News here
Kaplan Course Notes are a part of their taught course material, not textbooks in the sense that they can be sold or auctioned as a separate business, unless sold separately so - like you see some on Amazon.com. I know someone who's Ebay account got banned after he tried auctioning Kaplan Step 1 notes, he was unaware that it was not allowed.
Of course the Kaplan guys cannot go catching and suing everyone - but then you don't want to be that unfortunate one, plus they do not do it themselves, rather use a web-savvy organization called the SIIA ( Software & Information Industry Association )
Any legal proceedings on yourself is the last thing you want if you are interested in a residency - coz' all legal proceedings go on your crime record accessible to any employer or residency program interested in hiring. Every residency program will do a background check on all its residents before beginning residency, and any stain on your record might just ruin your physician career in the US, or any where for that matter.
I might have begun to sound like a boisterous school teacher, eh? LOL . But do spread the word and help your friends protect themselves :-)
And no - Kaplan did not ask and/or pay me to put this up ;-)
 Digg This |
|
 Share on Facebook |
|
 del.icio.us
|
Is ur mindset flexible enough to ?
posted by Digitaldoc, MD at 11:50 AM
Comments on "Kaplan sues USMLEpro for USMLE test material piracy"
-
superdoc said ... (November 30, 2007 12:52 PM) :
-
Digitaldoc, MD said ... (November 30, 2007 3:59 PM) :
-
Digitaldoc, MD said ... (November 30, 2007 4:01 PM) :
-
Anonymous said ... (July 21, 2008 11:33 AM) :
-
Anonymous said ... (July 21, 2008 11:35 AM) :
-
Digitaldoc, MD said ... (July 21, 2008 11:46 AM) :
Post Your Comment !hey thanks for this info, but I don't think this is really applicable for those who post the rapid share and other links for downloading Kap booksn and other stuff, these people on forums are really small fry and so many that Kaplan just can't afford to run after them, its the big professionsals like the "Kaplinator" who are in danger of getting persecuted
That's will be true until it happens ;-) Hmmm....so would you say it's ok for people to keep posting the links to pirated stuff ?
:-)
I don't have official report on this news, came through friends hearing other friends - that Kaplan busted a DVD copying circle in India some years back charging the IMGs some 6 to 7 lakhs per DVD copied.
Anyways, I guess its good to be careful :-)
Does the copyright infringement also pertain to resale of original books purchased via a program. I mean can an ex student sell their material if they are not copying it any way?
Is it illegal to purchase the item? Would someone who bought an item be treated as someone who sold it?
I guess it may not be - and kaplan would let the students know bout the policies on resale - but we all know many people do so....discretion is an art ;-)