Expelled from Medical School for Piracy

[EasternMer]

So I just read this article:

http://www.wired.com/2010/01/medical-student-piratey/

I apologize if there is already a thread about this but I didn't see any.

Anyways, how crazy is this? My reaction
1) Thank you former self for purchasing all the material (partially because I'm too lazy to scour for free stuff)
2) If the guy had a Cease & Desist and refused to acknowledge it....just why?!?!
3) I would kick myself every single day of my life if this had happened to me

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[SkipJunior]

This is another reminder that dishonesty and cheating never pays. One will get caught, it's just a matter of time. Mr. Chou had been committing piracy crimes for over 2 years before he was caught. Initially he may have thought he was going to get away with it. He was wrong, as are many like him in similar situations.

This news reminds me of Victoria Nguyen:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...stion-stealing-iPad-dying-cancer-patient.html

Both Mr. Chou and Ms. Nguyen were 3rd year medical students when they were caught for stealing (in different ways). Both had to show up at court and pay a fine and both were expelled from their respective medical schools.

 

[3.14isUnreal]

I hear the student is a frontrunner for the Darwin award.

 

[MrLogan13]

Man, that was really dumb. What was he thinking?

 

[Raryn]

So I just read this article:

http://www.wired.com/2010/01/medical-student-piratey/

I apologize if there is already a thread about this but I didn't see any.

Anyways, how crazy is this? My reaction
1) Thank you former self for purchasing all the material (partially because I'm too lazy to scour for free stuff)
2) If the guy had a Cease & Desist and refused to acknowledge it....just why?!?!
3) I would kick myself every single day of my life if this had happened to me

He didn't get expelled for piracy as much as he got expelled for selling materials he pirated from his school and pocketing the gains. I guarantee you he wouldn't have been booted if he was just pirating things for personal use. The only people who get in real trouble from this sort of thing are the ones who monetize their illicit activities.

Also, this article is four years old. I remember reading it when I was an M1-M2...

 

[shulk]

I thought maybe he was expelled for downloading a movie or something. This is way worse, so no surprises here.

 

[Mad Jack]

Got what he deserved. Reselling someone else's IP should get you jail time, not just a fine. This is beyond simple file sharing or piracy for personal use.

 

[Cawolf]

I was expecting to read about something happening off the coast of Somalia.

 

[SkipJunior]

What baffles me in both cases (Mr. Chou's case and Ms. Nguyen's case) is that both medical students were willing to risk their career and their future just so they could earn some easy money/materialistic item on the side. In Mr. Chou's case, it was about $100,000 earned over his first 2 years in medical school. In Ms. Nguyen's case, it was a simple IPad.

The allure of short term illicit gains was so tempting for them that they ignored the long term rational view. They both lost a lot more than they ever gained through their criminal activities. They will both never become physicians in their life and I'm sure they will regret their actions for the rest of their life.

 

[Psai]

People do things for the primary effect, they don't think much about the side effects. People are not rational, they expect that if the chance of something is less than 50% then it won't happen to them. When it does happen they're shocked as if you had previously told them that there was no chance of it happening

 

[sliceofbread136]

This title and post are kind of misleading... He didn't just download the new Drake song he made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this

 

[Goro]

And my first reaction was to go "Arrgh there, Jim-boy, arggh, arrghh!"

I was expecting to read about something happening off the coast of Somalia.

 

[IlDestriero]

I know someone that is now living abroad because they ignored a cease and desist order trying to dump some merchandise, that was not even necessarily illegal, and were sued successfully by a large global corporation.
He was retired anyway, and was a citizen and property owner abroad, but I would have fought to the bitter end. By not appearing he was unable to mount what could have been a successful defense.

 

[NYCdude]

lol What a scumbag. Glad he got caught.

 

[Doug Underhill]

Making $100k off an extensive piracy empire is a little bit different from downloading Examkrackers MCAT books so you can pass the exam. This guy has more in common with the Silk Road ringleaders.

 

[hoihaie]

if y'all need money, just do this:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-man-sells-snow-ship-snow-from-yard/23986825/

 

[milski]

I know someone that is now living abroad because they ignored a cease and desist order trying to dump some merchandise, that was not even necessarily illegal, and were sued successfully by a large global corporation.
He was retired anyway, and was a citizen and property owner abroad, but I would have fought to the bitter end. By not appearing he was unable to mount what could have been a successful defense.

Not showing up in court can result in really bad default judgments for rather trivial matters. You have to show and argue your case.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Seattle-family-may-lose-house-over-barking-dog-291344661.html

 

[Law2Doc]

Making $100k off an extensive piracy empire is a little bit different from downloading Examkrackers MCAT books so you can pass the exam...

A lot of you guys are making this distinction, but both are actually federal offenses. One is not worth the effort to prosecute in most cases but if they did you wouldn't have much of a defense, and I wouldn't be so sure your school wouldnt feel obliged to treat that as an unprofessional act. At any rate a federal conviction could pose hurdles in licensing.

 

[YoungProdigy]

Serious question: No medical students pirate material online? I don't think I can live like that... Yes, I'm a terrible person.

 

[WingedOx]

Serious question: No medical students pirate material online? I don't think I can live like that... Yes, I'm a terrible person.

Seemed like everyone had the Pre-Test/Lang study guides in PDF form passed around when I was in med school... we weren't selling them or anything stupid like that though. Plus, MyTunesRedux was still a thing when I was in med school. It was glorious!

/ironically enough, the author of a couple of those books is one of my attendings today.

 

[Law2Doc]

Serious question: No medical students pirate material online? I don't think I can live like that... Yes, I'm a terrible person.

I'm not saying nobody does, I'm saying people actually run bigger theoretical risks than most realize. It's not usually worth a publishers while to string up a single user, so it almost never happens. but once in a while they do choose a more blatant pirate and string him up as an example, and you as a med student would have a lot more to lose than the tween downloading Katy Perry.

 

[JBrand]

Well, the road less traveled can have it's alluring features sometimes, but as soon as he got caught, I'm sure he'd regret every bit of what he did. Now he has to live with the life long consequences.

 

[FFH]

Since the start of this application season, I actually made a pledge to myself to stop participating in any piracy activity. Not only because the internet police is getting really good at catching you but also for a clear moral conscience. It was hard at first, but it gets easier and I definitely appreciate more what I am able to get through legal means which sure. In the past I'd just download tons of stuff and not even go through all of them.

 

[Make Or Break]

I have a subscription with spotify. I don't even need to download music anymore.

 

[JW2020]

I was expecting to read about something happening off the coast of Somalia.

Dammit! Literally clicked on this thread to make the same joke. Touche

 

[Theeseesit]

Making $100k off an extensive piracy empire is a little bit different from downloading Examkrackers MCAT books so you can pass the exam. This guy has more in common with the Silk Road ringleaders.

Why silk road? because he's asian? that's racist.

 

[hoihaie]

Why silk road? because he's asian? that's racist.

I think he meant the online blackmarket

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)

 

[SpaceBuff12]

Why silk road? because he's asian? that's racist.

 

[darkjedi]

I mean I sometimes play a little fast and loose with copyright laws, but come on, piracy with the intent to profit is just complete idiocy. I'm also surprised that anyone was dumb enough to pay that much money for pirated materials.

 

[Law2Doc]

I mean I sometimes play a little fast and loose with copyright laws, but come on, piracy with the intent to profit is just complete idiocy. I'm also surprised that anyone was dumb enough to pay that much money for pirated materials.

As mentioned, piracy without intent to profit is still somewhat risky. If you make $ you certainly put yourself on the enforcer's radar in a way that casual users wouldn't. But as between the guy who gets kicked out of med school for earning $100k or the guy who gets kicked out because he's the unlucky sod they decided to make an example of for downloading himself a copy some new version of the Goljan lectures, who's really the "dumb" one? It's a bad idea to break the law but is the guy who breaks a federal law to save $1000 really less dumb than the guy who breaks a Federal law to make $100k? You are comparing bank robbery to petty larceny -- if the ultimate punishment (getting kicked out if med school) is similar, I'm not so sure a risk benefit analysis would necessarily agree with you as to who is the dumber one.

My point is you guys are making judgement calls that conveniently suggest that the crimes you yourself partake in are "not that bad" as compared to some others. Comparable to the guy busted for doing coke who says, "hey, at least I'm not a dealer." But let's not kid -- pirating for yourself is still a federal crime. Low odds of getting nabbed don't really vindicate illegal activity. If you choose to take that risk, fine, but let's not pretend on here that it's societally permitted behavior.

 

[Psai]

As mentioned, piracy without intent to profit is still somewhat risky. If you make $ you certainly put yourself on the enforcer's radar in a way that casual users wouldn't. But as between the guy who gets kicked out of med school for earning $100k or the guy who gets kicked out because he's the unlucky sod they decided to make an example of for downloading himself a copy some new version of the Goljan lectures, who's really the "dumb" one? It's a bad idea to break the law but is the guy who breaks a federal law to save $1000 really less dumb than the guy who breaks a Federal law to make $100k? You are comparing bank robbery to petty larceny -- if the ultimate punishment (getting kicked out if med school) is similar, I'm not so sure a risk benefit analysis would necessarily agree with you as to who is the dumber one.

If everyone who ever pirated something was expelled, our schools would be empty. Theres only so much money to pay for things and tuition is hefty enough

 

[Law2Doc]

If everyone who ever pirated something was expelled, our schools would be empty. Theres only so much money to pay for things and tuition is hefty enough

They only have to pick one guy/gal and make an example, and pirating will drop way off. This has happened before in other settings and will happen again. There are teens out there still paying tens of thousand of dollars to music industry players because they were unlucky enough to be randomly targeted. I'm not debating the costs or how widespread this is. And the guy selling the book has nothing to do with your high tuition -- to a big extent the price of his book is high because he knows some people out there like you are going to rip him off. Saying "tuition is hefty enough" is not a real defense to ripping someone else off -- by that same logic you should be allowed to shoplift at the local bookstore. And "everyone is doing it" has never been a defense to criminal activity. Please.

I'm just saying there are laws out there and if you are on the wrong side you run risks. You need to know what you are risking to do any sort of cost benefit analysis. Is saving that $100 on a book really worth the low risk of getting nabbed? If your med school would consider such an arrest an example of unprofessional behavior and throw you out, maybe not.

 

[Psai]

I'm not defending criminal activity. I'm stating facts