Lawsuit filed over SAT leak...

This is interesting... and I haven't seen it anywhere else. A former math teacher in New York in the SAT-prep business is being sued by the College Entrance Examination Board for copyright infringement (the complaint is here) for distributing an "undisclosed" test. This test was reused recently and a number of the defendant's customers noticed the exam was exactly the same as one the students had practiced with.

I wonder why they didn't add a trade secrets claim to this complaint... it seems proper and would make the plea for restraining order and temporary and permanent injunctions see more of the essence. The teacher is refusing to cooperate with the ETS/CEEB demands that he return the exam in question.

Text of Copyright Infringement Complaint from Newsday

5. Although (without discovery) plaintiff cannot know on how many other occasions Mr. Andres has done the same thing: it has become clear in the past few days that, at some time over the past year, Mr. Andres unlawfully obtained a copy of the confidential SAT form used in the nondisclosed June 2003 SAT administration. Mr. Andres then made further copies of that form, and provided those copies to several of his tutoring customers to use as practice tests. When those students took the most recent SAT administration on Saturday March 27, 2004, they were shocked to see that the test form was the same one that Mr. Andres had provided them as a practice test Some of the students realized it would be unfair for them to enjoy this advantage over fellow test-takers, and blew the whistle about what had happened.

6. When Mr. Andres heard about this, he did not contact The College Board to explain what had happened. (An official at one of the affected high schools asked Mr. Andres if he planned to do so, but he rejected the suggestion.) Nor did he offer any apology, Or volunteer to cooperate in minimizing the damage done by his wrongful conduct. Instead, Mr. Andres began a campaign to destroy the most concrete evidence of his copyright infringement in particular, immediately after learning what happened at the March 27 exam, Mr. Andres sought, to persuade his customers - with an offer of hundreds of dollars of cash - to return to him the unlawful copies he had earlier provided to them. By this means, Mr. Andres persuaded several of his students to return their copies. In a blatant act of spoliation, Mr. Andres then destroyed the copies.

Posted by joebeone at Abril 10, 2004 12:56 PM | TrackBack