Students receive no punishment for exam fraud, university receives 200 euros in compensation (Antwerp)

The criminal court of Antwerp has suspended two former students of the University of Antwerp. They had distributed photos of exam questions and thus committed copyright infringement.

Source: BELGA

Today at 1:55 PM

The Pharmaceutical Sciences students had physics exams in 2022, including mathematics. One of them had not studied enough and wanted to cheat to pass. That’s why he took his cell phone into the auditorium. When he noticed that a friend sitting in the front was also online, he sent him photos of his problems asking for help.

That friend had then posted the photos in a pharmacy group on WhatsApp and hoped to receive the correct answers. However, the photos were shared en masse, which eventually led to the university also seeing them.

The two students were punished by no longer being allowed to take exams, which amounted to a lost academic year. Both decided to exchange the University of Antwerp for the KULeuven. But there was also a legal tail, because the university had filed a criminal complaint.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, the exam questions are protected by copyright and the defendants should therefore not have simply distributed photos of them. The students’ lawyers believed that exam questions were simply an adaptation of the course material, not a work of literature that should be protected, and had asked for the acquittal.

The court disagreed and found the students’ guilt proven, but decided not to impose any punishment on them. The university had claimed 17,000 euros in damages for reputational damage and the costs incurred, but was only awarded 200 euros.

(blg)