copyright
Copyright Law, are the exam questions (that aren&#39;t published) protected by Copyright?
<p>There is an examination which contains multiple choice test questions.</p>

<p>These test questions aren't published anywhere (only the official test company has access to them). We have a licence from this official company to publish their practice questions, but <strong>only</strong> the ones they give us.</p>

<p>The official authority also has the official website with the same questions (but they don't include the ones in the official exam).</p>

<p>Basically the official questions and the practice questions are 2 different sets. I can see that since the practice ones are published on their website, we need a licence from them (which we do have). But what about the exam questions that aren't published? Can we add them to our website and say that "we came up with them ourselves?"  Also, what if we advertise them as real test questions?</p>

<p>No. You can&rsquo;t steal their test questions and claim you &ldquo;came up with them yourselves.&rdquo;</p>

<p>That&rsquo;s copyright infringement.</p>

<p>The ownership of a copyright does not depend on whether the copyrighted material is published or not. The creator of the material owns the copyright the moment they create it.<sup><a href="http://www.legal-sherpa.com/legal-sherpa-school/blog/copyright-ownership" rel="nofollow noreferrer">[1]</a></sup></p>

http://www.legal-sherpa.com/legal-sherpa-school/blog/copyright-ownership

<blockquote>
  <p>Copyright ownership is instantaneous, when a work is created and it is in fixed form its author immediately becomes the copyright owner and is afforded copyright protection.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.legal-sherpa.com/legal-sherpa-school/blog/copyright-ownership" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Read more here.</a></p>

<p>If you "come up with the same question yourself", you will probably be accused of copyright infringement, and may end up in court. And in court, you would have to convince a judge that it is more likely you came up with the same questions yourself than that you copied them. </p>

<p>So how many questions do you intend to "come up with yourself"? If you had 100 test questions, and some were the same, you would likely be believed. If 100 of your test questions are the same as those published elsewhere, no court on earth will believe you, and you <em>will</em> be convicted. </p>

<p>In the end, you expressed quite clearly that you are intending to copy and then come up with a lame excuse. It's not going to work. (Just watch Judge Judy and think what she would say about your claim :-) Judges are not stupid, and they have seen every excuse you can imagine and some more. </p>
