Copyright Question About a Residency Program.

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
PResident14

PResident14

New Member
7+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2014
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Hey all,

This question is more for current or former residents and/or residency program administrators/directors. Do residency programs get legal exemptions from US copyright laws? As an example, my program does the following:
-provides photocopies of the full text of Medstudy books (which cost about $400 in total) to all
residents in their final year to help with board prep
-a majority of the noon conference sessions simply involve one of the chief residents reading MKSAP
questions directly from their online account, asking the crowd to shout out the answers,
and displaying everything on the overhead projector for the whole crowd to see
-a weekly newsletter published by the chief residents has current MKSAP questions published in it
-the program director frequently emails MKSAP questions and answers to all the residents

You may be wondering: "why do you ask? these perks seem to be of benefit to you." My concern is that my program seems to have lately taken a turn towards "malignant" status in that they have been finding residents to make enemies of (for various reasons) and then work towards firing them (I know a friend of mine not too long ago met such a fate, of course this is unofficial since the program forced that person to stay silent otherwise they would refuse to write a letter recommending that person for another residency program). If my program is in fact breaking serious US federal copyright laws this could jeopardize the entire program and everyone in it if one of these disgruntled "enemies" of my residency program were to talk to the feds and ACGME (i.e. lots of innocent people could get hurt). Should I raise these concerns to my residency program to protect myself and my fellow residents? Thanks in all seriousness.
Members don't see this ad.
 
The short answer to your question is "no", programs aren't exempt from copyright. Using the questions as a teaching tool (when paid for by the person using them) probably falls under fair use. But copying the Medstudy books isn't kosher.

A bigger question though is, how much do you want to f*** yourself by bringing this up to your program, which clearly knows about the issue and either actively or passively condones it? Going to the "feds" will be pointless, they won't care.

Head down, do your work, graduate and GTFO. The end.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users
PResident14 said:
Hey all,

This question is more for current or former residents and/or residency program administrators/directors. Do residency programs get legal exemptions from US copyright laws? As an example, my program does the following:
-provides photocopies of the full text of Medstudy books (which cost about $400 in total) to all
residents in their final year to help with board prep
-a majority of the noon conference sessions simply involve one of the chief residents reading MKSAP
questions directly from their online account, asking the crowd to shout out the answers,
and displaying everything on the overhead projector for the whole crowd to see
-a weekly newsletter published by the chief residents has current MKSAP questions published in it
-the program director frequently emails MKSAP questions and answers to all the residents

You may be wondering: "why do you ask? these perks seem to be of benefit to you." My concern is that my program seems to have lately taken a turn towards "malignant" status in that they have been finding residents to make enemies of (for various reasons) and then work towards firing them (I know a friend of mine not too long ago met such a fate, of course this is unofficial since the program forced that person to stay silent otherwise they would refuse to write a letter recommending that person for another residency program). If my program is in fact breaking serious US federal copyright laws this could jeopardize the entire program and everyone in it if one of these disgruntled "enemies" of my residency program were to talk to the feds and ACGME (i.e. lots of innocent people could get hurt). Should I raise these concerns to my residency program to protect myself and my fellow residents? Thanks in all seriousness.
Click to expand...

This sounds like a good way for the program to pick you as the resident to make an enemy...
 
gutonc said:
The short answer to your question is "no", programs aren't exempt from copyright. Using the questions as a teaching tool (when paid for by the person using them) probably falls under fair use. But copying the Medstudy books isn't kosher.

A bigger question though is, how much do you want to f*** yourself by bringing this up to your program, which clearly knows about the issue and either actively or passively condones it? Going to the "feds" will be pointless, they won't care.

Head down, do your work, graduate and GTFO. The end.
Click to expand...


You miss the point. I think what they are doing is illegal and unethical, but I'm not asking if I should blow the whistle on them. My point is that my program seems to be creating enemies of insiders and I'm concerned that my program is exposing itself to serious retribution by these enemies (and in kind is exposing me and all of my colleagues). I want them to stop exposing themselves in this way.

If you think the "feds" won't care then I would really like to hear your reasoning why, especially if you've ever read the penalties posted by the FBI for copyright violation. I have friends who got busted and fined for downloading from Napster back in the day and they were just college kids. You don't think the MKSAP and Medstudy publishers and the FBI would be interested in considerably deeper pockets? If you combine Medstudy and MKSAP together that's around $1000 and when you consider we have about 40 residents per year and they've been doing this for at least a few years, the real and potential damages can tend to add up (much less whatever the ACGME might do to the program if it finds out they are knowingly doing something that violates federal law).
 
And you missed my (and Thoracicguy's) point. You bring this to them, you're going to make yourself the next "enemy".

You also don't really understand the way the copyright system works. Go nuts and call the FBI...see what happens. Exactly nothing. If ACP and the Medstudy folks want to bring a case against your program, they're more than welcome to (which is what happened in the Napster case...it was the RIAA that went after them, the FBI came later). But the FBI will thank you for the call and tell you to have a nice day and you'll be the subject of somebody's happy hour conversation later that week.

And LOL at the ACGME caring about anything other than cashing checks from programs and covering their own asses.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users
You will get no meaningful benefit from bringing this up or pursuing this in any way. The program may be violating copyright law but to be honest, I can think of a hundred more useful things to pursue that would develop me personally/professionally.
 
Yeah, I don't think this gives you a sword against the malignancy of your program but certainly agree with gutonc that it could be the equivalent of strapping on a target, not just from your administration, but also from the co-residents who perhaps find those resources helpful. It's one thing to whistleblow about duty hours. It's another to try to get a program in trouble with the Feds or third party vendors where you don't even have a stake in the issue. The federal government likely won't care, the vendors will send cease and desist letters, but because of the murkiness of "fair use" and the small dollars involved probably won't sue a single program, and all that will happen is this resource will dry up at your program "because some idiot ratted them out". Guess who gets the code red. Bad idea.
 
I think we may be missing the point/tone of the OP's question. To my eye, the OP doesn't want to use this as a sword against their program. Instead, they are afraid that someone else, who has already been targeted by the program and terminated, will use it against them. The OP is wondering (I guess) whether they should try to do something to "help", by pointing this out in a nice/friendly/helpful way to their program.

That said, I think the answer remains the same. I would stay out of it. If a disgruntled ex-resident makes a big deal about this, and it's been going on for years, it won't matter whether the program "just stopped" doing it. Agree that neither the ACGME nor the FBI will care. I actually think the ACP will care quite a bit, and might make an example out of the program -- not for the money, but for the publicity (to stop others).

As far as fair use is concerned, scanning the whole book(s) and emailing them to everyone seems way outside the line. That's pure plagiarism. Using MKSAP for noon conference is "weak" IMHO, but is fine (nothing illegal about buying a book and reading it aloud to a group). Reprinting and emailing questions are in the grey zone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
aProgDirector said:
I think we may be missing the point/tone of the OP's question. To my eye, the OP doesn't want to use this as a sword against their program. Instead, they are afraid that someone else, who has already been targeted by the program and terminated, will use it against them. The OP is wondering (I guess) whether they should try to do something to "help", by pointing this out in a nice/friendly/helpful way to their program.

That said, I think the answer remains the same. I would stay out of it. If a disgruntled ex-resident makes a big deal about this, and it's been going on for years, it won't matter whether the program "just stopped" doing it. Agree that neither the ACGME nor the FBI will care. I actually think the ACP will care quite a bit, and might make an example out of the program -- not for the money, but for the publicity (to stop others).

As far as fair use is concerned, scanning the whole book(s) and emailing them to everyone seems way outside the line. That's pure plagiarism. Using MKSAP for noon conference is "weak" IMHO, but is fine (nothing illegal about buying a book and reading it aloud to a group). Reprinting and emailing questions are in the grey zone.
Click to expand...

You nailed it with your first paragraph, thank you! I may be disappointed that my program does this and I'm generally in favor of obeying the law (if you're wondering, I didn't accept their gift of the photocopied Medstudy and I've paid for MKSAP), but I'm not about to do something that could also harm all of my friends and colleagues. As I pointed out and you detected, my concern is about the disgruntled ones who already are out or on their way out. I agree with the rest of what you said. I was hoping you would be one of the ones to comment on this.

Lol about the MKSAP for noon conference being "weak". I agree with you on that. I think doing MKSAP questions is the one thing residents can and should do throughout training because it's easy to fit a few questions in here and there every day when you have 5 minutes of "in between time". That lunch hour is the consistent daily opportunity for a solid block of "protected learning" when you can take a topic and review it in depth. It boggles my mind that my program uses that time to feed us an assortment of "free" MKSAP questions for lunch.
 
Here is my brief experience with a similar situation...the place I went to med school had a flash drive with a bunch of textbooks they gave out to students to download to their computers.

Long story, short. One of the books was wrote by a professor at our school....he found out and is now suing the school for copyright infringement or something similar. Although this is civil not criminal matter.

So people do care if their books are stolen.

Conversely I think the FBI only is only going to investigate and prosecute copyright infringers who are doing it on a large scale and making a considerable amount of money (10K-100K+) on it. But that's just my guess.
 
The feds don't care. Copyright violation is a civil matter. The copyright owner would need to sue. No ones going to do that though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
jonnythan said:
The feds don't care. Copyright violation is a civil matter. The copyright owner would need to sue. No ones going to do that though.
Click to expand...

Well They don't care but no, its not just a civil matter -- it's definitely got criminal implications. Copyright law is federal and there are hefty criminal fines for each violation. But the Feds need it to be something worth their while to make a stink about it. A residency program pirating a few copies of a study guide isn't going to do it. What are we talking, a few hundred people nationally stealing a $30 book? BFD. Nailing a teen for pirating thousands of dollars of music to send a message to many hundreds of thousands of teens doing the exact same thing on every college campus is much meatier and more in line with enforcement goals.
 
MKSAP is $400-500 (depending on whether you're an ACP member). Medstudy is similar. So we're not talking about $30 books.

I agree the Feds are unlikely to get involved, because the scale is too small. But the publishers may very well want to make a statement to prevent others from doing the same. All a guess -- who knows what they would do if they found out about it. But the ACP certainly has deep pockets.
 
aProgDirector said:
MKSAP is $400-500 (depending on whether you're an ACP member). Medstudy is similar. So we're not talking about $30 books...
Click to expand...


Splitting hairs. In the world of multimillion dollar copyrights both amounts are equally zero. The point is it's hardly a platinum recording artist level issue and that's what is needed to get the g-men to your door.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread
Top