Raid reveals extent of piracy in study notes

Most candidates for the chartered financial analyst (CFA) examination are thought to be using pirated copies of course study notes after raids on two photocopying shops last week revealed the scale of illegal reproduction.

Customs officers confiscated more than 90 copies and charged three people following the raids in Causeway Bay last week.

It is believed the illegal copies - on sale for $400, compared with the market price of $2,145 for an original set - are still widely available, meeting strong demand among the rapidly growing number of CFA students. Last June, 6,500 sat the annual examination, up from 4,500 the previous year.

Lee Yih Fei-shung, managing director of Kaplan Educational Centre, which distributes the popular Schweser notes found photocopied in the raids, has since called one of the shops raided and was told that illegal copies could be made for him.

'One of my friends who went to a study group for the exam said everyone there except himself was using pirated notes,' he said.

Kaplan, owned by the Washington Post Company, has lost an estimated $2.5 million to the illegal trade since December, when students began preparing for the examination run by the US-based Association for Investment Management and Research.