Many times a year the lawyers for the MMPI and the authorized agents Pearson’s will sues over MMPI Online, filing cease and desist orders for those trying to provide the MMPI 2 Online Test. One of the most notable and widely reported cases of Mindfit Hypnosis being sued for providing the MMPI in an unregistered setting is reported here.
The University of Minnesota sues over MMPI has received such a negative backlash about this case – subsequent attempts to squash this information are conducted in a less public forum. University of Minnesota chief legal officer Mark Rotenberg says the university has pursued legal action several times in the past to protect the MMPI copyright. Since 2013 Minnesota University has stopped legal actions themselves leaving the task up to Pearson’s. Each year Pearsons assigns the task of having this website removed to what seems to be an endless number of new legal representation.
After several years of filing DMCA notices (claims of copyright) and failing to prove the claim; almost all of the legal action taken is to register a complain with the ICANN (people who police website domain names), claiming copyright over the letters ‘MMPI”. This website has undergone several domain name changes over the last few years as the owners of the MMPI 2, now just sue to claim ownership of the website domain names. The previous version of this website was www.psychtest.net however in May 2020 the 4th such legal claim for ownership of that name was claimed
ICANN ruled in favor of these protests and NSC Pearson’s successfully claimed the following domain names that this website was previously called
www.beatthemmpi.com
www.mmpionline.com
www.takethemmpi.com
www.takemmpionline.com
Minnesota University sues over MMPI Test provided online
The lawsuit filed for damages of $500,000 and demanded removal of the MMPI test, on the Hypnotherapy website Mindfit Hypnosis. In addition Pearsons and the University of Minnesota DEMANDED to be informed of every post and update on All Social Media and any other websites administered by the owner of Mindfit Hypnosis.
When contacted by the Media at the time, the Psychologist stated that at this time he was helping his family make the passing of his grandmother as comfortable as possible and would deal with the situation in short time. Within a week the MMPI Test was removed from the Mindfit Hypnosis Website. Several Months later in response to a retro-active complaint from Pearsons to PayPal, a lifetime ban was placed on Mindfit Hypnosis being able to process payments for Hypnotic MP3s available on this website. He stated when asked why he provided the MMPI test online, “It was a public domain free facsimile that I thought would be of benefit visitors to my hypnosis website, as are many of the free articles available there.
As part of the settlement, the Psychologist removed the MMPI from his website, saying while he believed this information should be available to the public, he was in no position to fight against the Lawyer engaged who literally wrote the book on International Copyright used in American Universities. “I removed the test from my website, told the lawyers I was traveling the world, and that they could do what they liked – but I was not prepared to advise them of every website I had and each Facebook post”.
1) Practicing the Test Makes it Invalid:
Stuart Hemphill, an attorney representing the University of Minnesota, said the contents of the test need to remain private.
“We are concerned that the test responses are not valid when there has been prior exposure,” he said. “If they’ve seen it before, then the responses can be of questionable validity.” (citation)
This is an admission of great concern: For decades the use of the MMPI tests have been used to determine acceptance of job offers and litigation of child custody in courts. It is done so because the promoters of the MMPI test claim consistently that the test is robust and unable to be cheated. Yet here the lawyer for the case slips up and acknowledges that the creators of the MMPI test have concerns to it’s fallibility.
2) Minnesota University holds Copyright of Questions Used:
The main basis of the Law suit was that the University of Minnesota holds international copyright of the questions used in the MMPI. The Psychologist claimed that he was using a public Domain test created and provided for use by it’s author. He initially believed that the University should first prove this software he was using was not owned by the author, and the University then added the Website Host provider to increase the pressure.
In the end, the website owner decided as much as he wanted to provide this information for free, the bottom line was – it did not contribute to his bottom line.
Continued Attempts to remove this website
From 2015-2020 Lawyers on behalf of NSC Pearsons (The distributor with sole rights to make money from the MMPI 2 Exam) filed several complaints with the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) for copyright infringement of any domain name using the term ‘MMPI’ in it’s title.
ICANN ruled in favor of these protests and NSC Pearson’s successfully claimed the following domain names that this website was previously called
www.beatthemmpi.com
www.mmpionline.com
www.takethemmpi.com
www.takemmpionline.com
Since 2020 the MMPI Exam Test Prep has been available under the domain name psychtest.net which does not include the term ‘MMPI’ in it’s title.
2 Nov 2021
NCS Pearson’s legal representative Ritu Rathi filed a DMCA notice to NameHero web hosting falsely claiming that this website was providing their copyrighted MMPI Test. A DMCA counter notice was filed pointing out the numerous errors in Mr Ritu Rathi’s legal points and called attention to yet another abuse of the legal system by misrepresenting facts in an attempt to protect the MMPI.
This update was presented on Nov 4th and marks yet another failed attempt by NCS Pearson’s at preventing the public from having access to their MMPI
=======Begin DMCA Notice=======
Ritu Rathi
SuppliedEmail:
ritu.rathi@pearson.com
SuppliedPhone:
+1 952-681-3000
DMCA Address:
5601 Green Valley Dr #220, Bloomington, MN 55437, United States
DMCA Location:
A description of where the material that you claim infringes your copyright is located on the site:
https://psychtest.net/mmpi-2-test-online/ The website is providing the MMPI test, a copyrighted test, for a fee without the permission from the copyright/license owner.
DMCA Description:
A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed:
I represent NCS Pearson, Inc. (Pearson), the exclusive licensee or publisher of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), which is a secure assessment restricted to purchase by qualified professionals. The copyright owner of the MMPI-2 is the Regents of the University of Minnesota and NCS Pearson, Inc. is the exclusive licensee for distribution of the MMPI-2.
It has come to Pearson’s attention that you are hosting a web site that allows an unauthorized reproduction of the MMPI-2 to be downloaded. The reproduction, display, and distribution of the material at the online location infringe Pearson’s rights in the MMPI-2 because the test items are reproduced and displayed on the online location without Pearson’s permission. As such, the web page you are hosting clearly infringes United States copyright law. See 17 U.S.C. 512(d). The infringement is located at the following URL:
Take the MMPI 2 Test Online
The purpose of this letter is to advise you of Pearson’s rights and to seek your agreement to (1) remove and destroy the copyrighted material; and (2) disable or remove any hyperlink(s). Disabling or removing of Pearson’s copyrighted and/or licenses material from this site should include destroying the usefulness of any textual directory or pointer information contained therein. We are only requesting removal of the MMPI-2 test and MMPI related material as it is contained on that site. We are not asking or requesting removal of any other material.