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*Dallas area test-prep company settles in copyright-infringement lawsuit *</p>
<p>09:00 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 29, 2008
By STACI HUPP / The Dallas Morning News</p>
<p>A Dallas-area test-prep company accused of using unauthorized copies of college entrance exams to give students an advantage avoided a federal lawsuit Tuesday by agreeing to a $1 million settlement. </p>
<p>Karen Dillard's College Prep will pay $600,000 to the College Board, a New York nonprofit organization that administers the SAT and PSAT. Another $400,000 will cover free tutoring for poor high school students...</p>
<p>The case marked one of the biggest alleged test-security breaches in College Board history. College Board officials said the case shows they take violations seriously.
<p>Interesting. I wonder if the school principal gave a copy of the test to his brother before it was administered to the students. Also, the employee that turned over company records to the College Board is probably no longer employed at Karen Dillard's.</p>
<p>College Board is non-profit? Are you fricking kidding me? Not only do they overcharge all their tests, they hang on to their copyright claim like it's a gold stick. Yeah, it literally is. Disappointing outcome, only to see one million into college board's already-fat pocket.</p>
<p>So the College Board made this poor company pay one MILLION dollars for getting a copy of the PSAT AFTER it was administered to students across the nation? What?!</p>
<p>Although I don't actually attend Karen Dillard's, an enormous amount of my peers do... plus I went to the high school of the principal who allegedly gave that live copy of the PSAT.</p>
<p>To be honest, I really don't think this ordeal was all that damaging to KD (haha that's what everyone calls it here). With such a huge amount of ambitious upper middle class parents, KD offers a service that will stay in high demand. Those who have the money to do well in the system will continue to do so.</p>
<p>The funny thing is... Karen Dillard herself spoke at our NHS induction at Jasper, representing honesty and integrity. Oh, the irony.</p>
<p>1 million dollars is def not a lot for Karen Dillard. I used to attend kd, and they have a ton of students. And they make a ton of money off every student. Plano and cities near are very competitive, so they get many many students. </p>
<p>I just can't believe they were using illegal materials.</p>
<p>How is collegeboard NON profit?........ I dont' get it. How can they claim NON profit, when they make so much money? Do they give back a certain percentage of their total income back into researching new problems, et, etc? ....this stumps me.</p>
<p>Remember that it was a copyright infringement case. KD apparently used materials for which they had not paid (or paid for recently). Who knows if KD was at fault or not....they just had to get the cloud away from them so as not to lose summer enrollment.</p>
<p>I'm just glad my son's scores won't be cancelled.</p>
<p>(There is also a thread on this topic on the Parents' Forum.)</p>
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A problem that asks you to do f(g(h(x))) may be tedious, but it's hardly a creative work that merits copyright.
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<p>Why is something that is hardly creative worth ... copying and stealing? If it were that easy to reproduce SAT questions that are relevant and accurate, why did KD not use her millions of income to develop her own sets of material instead of ignoring basic copyright laws and allowing or forcing her employees to infringe on someone else's intellectual properties. </p>
<p>The fact that something is easy to steal does not make it less of a crime. The settlement indicates that KD understands that ... now. </p>
<p>Let's hope that someone makes **sure **that the $400,000 worth of services dedicated to low-income students gets handled properly.</p>
<p>xiggi, yes they probably need to go on campus at some of the schools. Saying, "Hey low income kids, feel free to come out to this strip center in Colleyville" (to which there is no public transportation) probably won't be very helpful.</p>
<p>I keep stressing that it was a copyright infringement suit because the publicity surrounding the CB's threat to cancel scores made it sound like KD had somehow given the kids answer sheets or had otherwise somehow facilitated cheating.</p>
<p>Missypie...KDCP came pretty close to your definition of cheating, according to the College Board's allegations. The "PVA" test (which, if your student took classes at KDCP since 2006 summer, check their binder because you've got it in your possession right now...DT2...we looked) was a "live" test, meaning that the College Board had not allowed it to be distributed. To create a test takes monumental effort -- and though some of you might think equations aren't a demonstration of "creativity," go ahead and spend a few hours trying to write Critical Reading questions and see how diifficult it is. It's hard, and requires a lot of time and money, and therefore SHOULD be protected by copyright.</p>
<p>Because of the huge amount of time and money it takes for College Board to create these tests, they don't always release their tests, but instead reuse some of the problems in later years. Somehow, someway, KDCP allegedly got a copy of this "live" test and distributed it to all of its students (along with answers!). If the College Board had reused these problems later on, KDCP students would have had a HUGE HUGE advantage on this test, and that's just not fair. So, according to CB's allegations (which, if they weren't true, would have opened CB up to a huge slander lawsuit), what KDCP has done is tantamount to giving thousands of students a live test with answers.</p>
<p>That, along with the live PSAT that KDCP allegedly obtained well before students were done testing, is the reason why CB threatened to cancel scores. I doubt CB would threaten such a thing lightly. In my opinion, they had good cause -- and excellent evidence -- to back up their allegations.</p>