Chapter 58 March 20 pirated, helpless mistakes

In principle, ETS's intellectual property agency in China should sign copyright agreements with all English training institutions in China. In the end, only New Oriental signed 20 sets of TOEFL test authorizations with ETS.But the problem is that the TOEFL test questions that ETS gave us are old questions from the past, and they are not willing to give us new questions.In this case, New Oriental will not be competitive.When enrolling students, they will first ask us if we have the latest TOEFL questions, if not, the students turn around and leave.If you don't have quality-guaranteed teaching materials for your students, most students will go to your competitors.

From the end of 1997 to the beginning of 2001, New Oriental unilaterally abolished the "97 Agreement" and continued to use pirated teaching materials instead.This naturally leads to a question that must be pursued: On the one hand, Yu Minhong sincerely apologized under the pressure of ETS and decided not to pirate anymore, but on the other hand, the piracy is endless. Can this be regarded as New Oriental? A disconnect between executives' thinking and practice?Or why can't New Oriental be independent? The abolition of the "97 Agreement" laid the groundwork for ETS to suppress New Oriental, and at the same time intensified ETS's hatred of New Oriental.

Before 2000, ETS was full of contempt for New Oriental, "If you want to come to the United States, you want to take an exam, you have to do it according to my requirements and according to my standards."The experience of Yu Minhong's visit to the ETS headquarters was sour and even a bit humiliating. At that time in 1995, ETS was not "cold" with New Oriental at all. When it heard that Yu Minhong was from a private educational institution in China, it said coldly that ETS had never dealt with educational institutions. "When I went there on the first day, the receptionist was very polite, but when I went the next day, they ignored me, which was embarrassing and boring. Therefore, it is impossible to obtain ETS knowledge authorization through normal and formal channels." Yu Minhong Recalling, "I sincerely want to buy your original copy, but instead of giving it to you, you also engage in regional discrimination. ETS entered China in 1981, but it has never released its copyright in China. On the contrary, ETS has granted intellectual property rights in some countries in Southeast Asia. It's not fair to Chinese students, and it's not fair to training institutions like New Oriental."

In May 2001, when Yu Minhong and others went to the United States to negotiate, they proposed that if ETS wanted to standardize the use of materials, the first step was not to file a lawsuit with New Oriental, but to publish the corresponding materials in China. Once it is published, so that students can buy it, more than half of the pirated copies will inevitably run away. Collective stupidity, groupthink, and piracy may be out of helplessness, but they are still mistakes that need to be avoided.