The University of Minnesota filed a lawsuit to Stop the MMPI 2 Online Test

Many times a year the lawyers for the MMPI and the authorized agents Pearson’s will file cease and desist orders for those trying to provide the MMPI 2 Online Test.  One of the most notable and widely reported cases of someone being sued for providing the MMPI in an unregistered setting is reported here.  The University of Minnesota 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.

Now days 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

In January 2012, the Regents of The University of Minnesota, and NCS Pearson, Inc (The owners of the right to distribute the MMPI) filed a lawsuit against New Zealand Hypnotherapist and Psychologist.  The Psychologist was living in the United States previous and returned to New Zealand to aid his family in the last few weeks of his dying Grandmothers care and funeral.

The lawsuit filed for damages of $500,000 and demanded removal of the MMPI test, along with full disclosure of every website owned by the defendant and any and each change made to any pages on these websites.  As the Psychologist put it when contacted about the case “I was trying to say goodbye to my Grandmother, and these people were demanding to know anytime I updated anything on all of the 4 or 5 websites I had running at the time including Facebook posts.  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.

MMPI Sues Over Online Test

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.

References

U of M sues website operator for posting psych test online

University sues hypnotherapist over psychology test

US lawsuit follows Napier hypnotherapist home

University of Minnesota Sues Website Operator for Posting Psych Test Online

Take Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) online and get access to the Cheat Sheet Answers for just $3.99 you can take the MPI-2 test online  (Test & Results only,  no analysis or interpretation provided.)