Seoul language institute caught leaking content of TOEIC, TEPS

The chairman and five employees of a local English education institution, well known for its English ability test preparation courses, have been indicted on charges of illegally recording questions of official English tests in violation of copyright law, prosecutors said Monday.

The Hackers Group chairman, surnamed Cho, and its five employees were indicted without physical detention for copying and leaking test questions for the Test of English for International Communication, or TOEIC, and the Test of English Proficiency developed by Seoul National University, also called TEPS, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors also indicted the group's language education and research units on the same charges.

The 53-year-old chairman, also an English literature professor at a regional college, directed the indicted employees to take the English tests in order to steal the copyright-protected exam questions between 2007 and early this year, the prosecution said.

The employees recorded or videotaped written and spoken questions using specially-manufactured tiny audio and video recorders on at least 106 confirmed occasions, according to the prosecution.

The stolen questions were immediately forwarded to the company, which then uploaded the questions and their answers to its Web site right away, drawing droves of exam takers and prospective students to its site, prosecutors noted.

"It is the first case where (prosecutors) have exposed a language institution's organized efforts for illegal leaks of exam questions, using its own employees," a prosecution official said.

Hackers is one of the best-known English test preparation services here, with sales reaching more than 100 billion won ($89.1 million) in 2010 alone. (Yonhap)