Copyright on chess moves – shadows on the wall?
3 March 2009, 18.10 CET | Last modified: 17:55 | By Arne Moll | Filed under: Columns | Tags: Copyright
Last week, ChessBase was apparently ‘forced to cease Internet broadcasting of the Topalov-Kamsky match’. As we noted in our report on the first match game, live broadcasting of the chess moves in this match without permission was prohibited by the Bulgarian Chess Federation (although they didn’t seem to have a problem with Chessdom’s, Crestbook’s, ICC’s and TWIC’s live coverage). This has led to heated discussions on this site. The key question here is: can you copyright a chess move at all?
The above quoted article on the official match site doesn’t address this question: it merely gives an overview of the actions which were taken by the lawyers of the parties involved. It ends with a quote from the president of the BCF, Stefan Sergiev:
This is a precedent in the world of chess and we are grateful to attorney Polzin for his assistance. This case will serve as a lesson to everybody who violates the copyright law.
Well, perhaps, but without concrete arguments (instead of words of barely concealed triumph) it all remains very mysterious. And it’s such an interesting question! You can look at it from a legal point of view, from a philosophical point of view and from a historicial point of view. The very fact that it has been debated since the rise of professional chess (over 150 years ago) as this thorough overview by Edward Winter shows, indicates the complexity of the question. You should really just read the whole piece yourself, but let me just quote what Capablanca had to say about the matter:
A chess game, from its very nature and the manner of its production, must be the joint property of the two persons producing it … You can charge what you like for the publication of the games in any form you may deem to your advantage. But, unfortunately, that is a common privilege, of which anyone may take advantage.
Capablanca’s opinion raises the question what this ‘very nature’ of a chess game is, exactly. Basically, a chess move seems to be information. But what kind of information? That’s a philosophical question, and it has obvious consequences for copyright issues. I like Macauley Peterson’s definition of moves becoming ‘factual events in the world’, but I don’t think it’s so easy to say that because of this, there can’t be copyright on them. In fact, there’s a whole branch of copyright theory that deals with this question. To quote the Wikipedia article:
There are many other philosophical questions which arise in the jurisprudence of copyright. They include such problems as determining when one work is “derived” from another, or deciding when information has been placed in a “tangible” or “material” form.
This seems to go to the heart of the matter. What is a chess move, apart from a physical act (’event’) by one player moving pieces on a board? Is it a ‘thing’? A thought? Does it exist somewhere in time or space? When I think of a chess move in Amsterdam (say 1.e4), is it somehow different from Topalov thinking that same move in Sofia? Does it change by him actually playing that move? Anyway, aren’t all thoughts free?
From a legal point of view, I haven’t been able to find any laws or jurisprudence on the this matter, even though many commenters have said that there are certainly laws that deal with this question. But what laws exactly? In the Topalov-Kamsky case, are we dealing with Bulgarian law? With EU regulations? Or, in ChessBase’s case, even with German law (as the article on the match site seems to imply)? Things are, in my view, complicated by the fact that we’re dealing with broadcasts on the internet: in other words, in a global, virtual environment.
The whole copyright discussion has changed heavily since the rise of the Internet. A very interesting speech (and following discussion) by Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software or GNU Project. which he held at MIT some years ago, deals in a fundamental way with many of the issues of copyright and the new virtual world. His point of view, too, has many shades of grey, as the following excerpt shows:
[I]nstead of increasing copyright powers, we have to pull them back so as to give the general public a certain domain of freedom where they can make use of the benefits of digital technology, make use of their computer networks. But how far should that go? That’s an interesting question because I don’t think we should necessarily abolish copyright totally. The idea of trading some freedoms for more progress might still be an advantageous trade at a certain level, even if traditional copyright gives up too much freedom. But in order to think about this intelligently, the first thing we have to recognize is, there’s no reason to make it totally uniform. There’s no reason to insist on making the same deal for all kinds of work.
The discussion about the difference between a textual representation of a move (or a game) and the actual live broadcast of the game on, for instance, Playchess or ICC (or indeed here on ChessVibes), reminds me a bit of Plato’s Theory of Forms and his famous Allegory of the Cave: isn’t a chess broadcast merely a ’shadowy projection’ of the Idea of a chess game? And isn’t it silly to worry about these projections which are, after all, merely a weak reflection of the Truth?
Engraving of Plato's Cave, 1604
Of course, the matter will be (and has been) discussed over and over again on the internet and beyond. We have actually mentioned it before on ChessVibes as a commentary on the popular Monroi gadget. I do not want to formulate a definite opinion (yet). I’ve just tried to collect some links throwing (I hope) various lights on the matter. Have a look at them. I hope you will agree with me that, really, things are never that simple.
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I for one think that copyrighting chess games is ridiculous. Who would own the rights to 1.e4? Would I owe Kasparov a royalty if I play the Catalan?
I do however take issue with live coverage … this aides electronic cheating to have a game reproduced as it occurs. To me Chess isn’t a spectator sport by nature … I’d just assume analyze a championship game a week later as speculate on moves as they are being made. The result is the same either way = improvement in the observer.
I was personally not aware that Chessbase was barred from broadcasting (mostly becuase I don’t follow the broadcasts). I did link to the chessdom live coverage on the chessvin.com blog and I can’t help but wonder why other services were allowed to broadcast and chessbase was stopped. It sounds like a corporate war going on behind the scenes … those in the chess information business have seen it coming since Chessdom launched.
The German chess federation came to the conclusion that there is no copyright on chess moves, but that has not been confirmed by any court in any way yet as far as I know.
If you can read German:
http://recht.schachbund.de/pdf_dateien/gutachten.pdf
Robert H?ºbner once tried to avoid publication of his games in a tournament. That was the (main) reason for the above expertise.
I really think the main problem here lies in that a chess move is not really seperated from the game of chess…the entire game, that is. If someone held the copyright to the game of chess, they would also own every position that could arise, and perhaps more, because the “idea” of the game, the rules, would be copyrighted. It just seems weird to me that someone could own a move within such a set of rules, without owning the rules themselves. (ok, maybe “the world” is actually, in a sense, a set of rules. so its a question of complexity and creativity. But the rules of chess arent that complex, are they?)
you could also look at the practical consequences. If you can own a chess position/game, why wouldnt you be able to charge for everyone else to use it? That is the whole point with copyright…I own this, you pay me or dont use it.
Maybe they arent trying to copyright positions or games though, maybe they are trying to claim they own the transmission of the moves? I have no idea if it would be possible in court, but it sounds better than trying to copyright a position or a whole game. Of course, then anyone who was watching the game and just told the moves to chessbase would get that problem out of the way…so it seems futile.
I do not think the main problem in Topalov vs. Kamsky match lies in the chess moves itself. The main problem is that Chessbase took the moves from official site and “forwarded” them to the playchess. I think this is the main problem. It would be perfectly OK if Chessbase had it’s own staff in Sofia who would transmit the moves to playchess. But they didn’t. It’s not the chess moves that are the problem. The problem is that chessbase hijacked the transmission without asking.
This matter is complex, that’s true. But chess should (i really believe, it should) work as the television works. There is a copyright in every program they make, and the same should happen in chess. Every game (and every move inside of a game) is a production of the players which are playing the game. When the circumstances gets to a situation where the games are officialy transmitted in a page, that page can decide who can also transmit the game, and so on: the moves.
Of course: television is right outside the little box. You can watch every program on internet. Where are the rules? I’m not sure. The internet matter is so complex that everything can be in one way or another. But, to conclude my thoughts. If the official page doesn’t want to give the permission to some page (in this case, Chessbase) to make a live transmission, they are in his right. Why not?
Poor Plato must have rolled in his grave…
hehe KramBase got scared !
As far as I know, there is some jurisprudence, though it remains to be seen how applicable it is in the current situation. There has been a court case regarding the live publication of basketball scores in het USA. The conclusion was copyright law didn’t apply, so the broadcasting continued freely. In the the earlier discussion of the chess case, it was noted by someone that the lawyers of the organisation of the Kramnik-Kasparov match deemed the USA basketball ruling applicable in the chess situation. Therefor, they advised against trying and enforce copyright on the moves played in that match.
What I find really odd is not broadcasting games on the internet, but how Chessbase profits from the collective cretive efforts of thousands of chessplayers. In essence, I think they are making good bussiness out of something they don’t properly “own”.
It’s fine they get money for Fritz, Chessbase and Playchess. That’s fair busines, they created that product.
But asking money for merely compiling millions of games produced with a lot of effort and creativity by chessplayers? = “Megabase”
I cannot think of an Editorial company publishing the entire collection of Gabriel Garcia Marquez without paying him for the rights.
Hereby, I propose that Chessbase pays a heavy fee to the Professional Chess Association (PCA) for publishing games from professional chessplayers. The money thus collected by the PCA may serve well to those GMs who are lacking money for an expensive medical tramnet, for instance.
Why not?
Sorry, I was watching TV as I wrote my posting, so I have corrected some typos now:
What I find really odd is not broadcasting games on the internet, but how Chessbase profits from the collective creative efforts of thousands of chessplayers. In essence, I think they are making good bussiness out of something they don’t properly “own”.
It’s fine they get money for Fritz, Chessbase and Playchess. That’s fair busines, they created those products.
But asking money for merely compiling millions of games produced with a lot of effort and creativity by chessplayers? = “Megabase”
I cannot think of an Editorial company publishing the entire collection of Gabriel Garcia Marquez without paying him for the rights.
Hereby, I propose that Chessbase pays a heavy fee to the Professional Chess Association (PCA) for publishing games from professional chessplayers. The money thus collected by the PCA may serve well to those GMs who are lacking money for an expensive medical treatment, for instance.
Why not?
Further to my previous posting, the PCA may try to raise a pre-tournament contract to be signed for all those players who don’t want their games going to “Megabase” without paying to the PCA.
I guess any law student could raise a valid contract accounting for this.
Interesting stuff, supergrobi, but it does raise the question why ChessBase stopped the transmission. After all, they have at least the German Chess Federation backing them…
By the way, let’s keep the topic straight. This is not about ChessBase being the bad guys for whatever reasons – it could have happened to ChessVibes or ICC or any other chess site displaying the moves live as well.
And finally, if Chessbase doesn’t agree to pay, fine, let them go to nobody’s land.
Let’s guess the PCA is able to develop a chess program similar to Chessbase, say, “PCAbase”, including all the recent tournament games published in them. In a few months PCAbase will be up-to-date and Megabase something from the distant past.
I for one would be more than happy to pay some money I know will go back to the chess masters who “actually created” the moves; rather than fueling a dirty busines like “Megabase”…
Again, why not?
I suspect that the Bulgarian Chess Federation took issue with the moves being relayed ‘live’ and not with the issue of copyrighting the moves, etc. They put up the entire games on their website after the game, and didn’t object to any analysis of the moves on any site, to my knowledge.
There seems to be a creeping attempt to monetise the immense popularity of chess on the web: the Foidos ‘experiment’ is a case in point. That’s the real debate, if you ask me.
Sorry, I messed up the acronysms.
I meant the “Assocation of Chess Professionals (ACP), not the dead “PCA” Kasparov/Short affair from the nineties…
LOL… Of course, the above arguments remain the same!
…
@GuidedByVoices: When Chessbase charges money for its MegaBase it is not about copyright, it’s about the work they did to compile the database. They don’t own the games, nobody does, so they’re free to compile them and charge money for their effort. Nobody forces you to buy it.
@me: I hope you realize that NOONE has staff at a tournament to relay the moves, everybody uses the official relayer. If using the moves of the official website is hijacking, then ICC, Chessdom, TWIC and Chessvibes are all guilty as well. In case the Bulgarians wanted to charge for the rights it was a stupid idea to broadcast the moves on the internet for free, because copying off the relay is legal. Imagine a radio reporter at a football match and somebody who listens to him and has a live blog about the events of the game.
For me the reasons why there can’t be a copyright in chess is relatively simple.
), but in every other cases it would be horrible. Say two amateurs play a game and just by chance they copied a game between two GMs. Poor amateurs.
1) Chess moves are events in the real world, the work done by the players causes them to make these moves, but is not identical with the moves (How often have we calculated completely irrelevant variations?).
2) If there was copyright on chess moves no chessgame could be played twice without breaking the law, because playing the copyrighted moves would mean a reproduction of the original game. The thought that 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5 6.e5 Ng4 7.Bb5+ Bd7 8.e6 fxe6 9.Ng5 Bxd4 10.Nxe6 Bxb5 11.Nxd8 Bf2+ 12.Kd2 Be3+ would be illegal is nice (no known drawing lines without a fine
I am somewhat surprised and relieved to find my arguments in the document by the German federation.
@guitarspider. How does the German article actually define a chess move? (I tried to find it, but couldn’t.) Is it only a (generic) piece of information, regardless of when and where it was played, or do they consider it fixed in space and time? If they did, it would make the second argument invalid in my opinion.
It depends if chess is considered a form of Art. Then the creation of the chess game can certainly be copyrighted. Similar to the creation of a painting or a music concerto.
I happen to be a lawyer and I can only confirm that, from the legal point of view, we’re dealing with highly complex problems. I think the main problem is that nobody knows how the courts would decide – and this is what really matters, after all. Somehow it’s a pity that Chessbase didn’t dare to engage in a lawsuit – at least this would have led to a certain clarification.
By the way, I would like to point out an important twist at the end of that German article: While the authors come to the conclusion that there is no copyright on chess moves, they also say that this doesn’t necessarily mean that anybody can commercially exploit chess games played by others. To put it more clearly: you can publish chess games just for the information of people, but as soon as you want to make money with them, things become tricky.
Once again, this is just the opinion of the two authors. As they point out themselves, it’s the judges’ opinion that really matters.
?
I agree that from an objective point of view, it is not at all trivial. I am even inclined to agree with Capablance (compare it to a piece of art, or an article, short story, novel etc).
HOWEVER: from a practical point of view it just would not work, especially in todays world. It would quite litterally be impossible to enforce. And even if it would be possible to enforce: suddenly all access to chess games would cease (unless we pay for it), I don’t think that would be very benifical for chess as a whole.
Chess players can make money from their games under the current situation; example: Fire on Board: Shirov’s Best Games.
As to chessbase ceasing broadcasting the games: they are a business. My guess is they did not think it was worth it taking this to court or creating some sort of sandal, Team Topailov sure know how to do that.
(And unless an ICC insider tells differently: I’m pretty sure they did not pay the organizers. The organizers don’t like chessbase and decided they could not transmit the moves. They just pretended ICC and all the others did not exist, maybe because ICC has been threatened in the past and ignored it.)
As far as I am aware the article doesn’t really define a chess move, but page 1 b) says what I said in 1) with more words and sophistication. It seems to me that they think a chess move is not fixed in time and space (p3, case 4 for example). 2) is more what I fear could happen with copyright. The thing is there is the problem game vs moves. If you play book variations, how can you possibly have a copyright? But if the moves are protected, someone has the copyright and you would be breaking it, because someone already played the variation. Is it then possible that the game you play is partly a breach of copyright and you have the copyright after you get out of book? If you play a variation you found in a book, shouldn’t the author of the article (or his engine???) have the copyright? This too would mean you are violating the copyright by playing the moves. These practical problems are huge in my opinion. I think they had the same concerns, because they mention a lot of similar points in their article, although they talk more about abstract law than the consequences for the players. It is interpretation on my part, but I think it’s justified.
Everyone has an opinion….
Mine is that that a recording of the game (camera on the players making the moves, press conferences, etc.) is a “broadcast.” The recorded moves of a game are not. All “relayers” (ICC, Chessbase, TWIC etc). do is report facts of a game in real time.
Philosophical considerations aside, a move in a scoresheet describes an event that happened at a particular point in time by a particular person. It is the record of a fact – or a series of facts in the case of a whole game. It is not the event itself, nor a ‘recording’ of the event itself.
I think it is incorrect to say the live relay of moves is a “broadcast.”
In US law this would be akin to reporting the box score of a baseball game. As noted above, that’s been found to be legal without violating any copyright. Describe that Player A did thus-and-such (or that Team A did this, Team B did that, etc.) and it is no copyright violation in the US – even when transmitted in real time.
Chess simply seems to be one (of apparently very few) recreations where the record of facts has historically seemed to have more intrinsic value than seeing the event itself. But that shouldn’t mean that a scoresheet suddenly gets ‘better’ copyright privilege than the equivalent record in other sports.
Just my take on it.
Of course it’s not a question of copyright of moves. AT ALL!
What a biased aproach!
And in chess the moves are almost all there is about a chess event, especialy for remote public.
Much more than images or sounds, the moves matters a lot.
Imagine a sport event, say basket. If I organize it, I may turn it public by open the doors of the place, or even allow the press to broadcast it live (sound and/or images).
And everybody finds it natural that, even calling it a public event, I¬¥m entitled to charge rights for those broadcastings in real time (not to mention the entrance fees!). And I can make money on it, because I’m the one who organizes it, and because there is lots of interest on this event I’m organizing.
And nobody talks about how ridiculous is “trying to copyright ones and zeros in pixels and in digitalized sound”.
The question is not so simple, so please, dont throw shadows to our eyes! Plato must be revolving in the grave, really!
@me (and others) “The problem is that chessbase hijacked the transmission without asking” – apart from the fact that this is very hard to prove, I don’t really see what the exact difference is between hijacking a move from a site and hijacking it from the live event itself. In both cases, the information stays the same, no? (Would it have made a difference if someone looked at the official live transmission, learned the moves by heart, and then reproduced them from his own memory on another site?)
On a similar point to guitarspider, if copying of broadcasts are made illegal, what is stopping two amateurs, say with nicknames “Topolav and Kamskii” playing an identical game, broadcast for free with identical clock times, just happening to correspond with the exact game being broadcast? The idea that you can copyright a chess move at a given time seems nonsensical.
Indeed, Patzerboy, this is what I tried to indicate with the question “When I think of a chess move in Amsterdam (say 1.e4), is it somehow different from Topalov thinking that same move in Sofia?”. It’s a crucial point, and as I understand it, the article on the German page also doesn’t have an answer to it.
A professional chess game (ie, worth broadcasting it live or compiling it into a games database) is the joint creative effort of two players at their work. Regarding his own games, an active chess master may take money home by winning a high spot on a given tournament or by commenting his games to be published in a chess magazine or book. However, in the name of fairness, whenever somebody else is making money out of his games, he should be paid back.
I do not think we can easily work out how to manage internet live broadcasting, because I think Internet is a black box of cut & paste in itself, ill-regulated if at all.
My concern is products such as “Megabase”. Other than an amateur chess player, I am a productive scientist. In this context, I wouldn’t be happy if a company decides to “compile” my papers and sell them to interested competition. Nobody can, however, because once I submit the reviewed, final version of any of my papers, I sign a copyright contract directly with the editorial running the journal publishing my work. It’s a 1-2 pages standard contract.
In the context of professional chess games, I easily envisage here a GM signing a copyright contract with the ACP when entering a tournament (ACP is the natural body caring about his well-being). How the ACP then gives raise to a coherent games base to be sold worldwide is of course another issue. But then, back to the point, some money should go back to the GMs, IMs, FMs an so on producing the actual games contained in the ACP database. To make it even more atractive, the chess masters might be asked to comment 10-25% of their games contained in the ACP database. Of course, this doesn’t mean taking the professional games out of circulation. You could still go to TWIC or other websites to download the games or, alternatively, follow the games live on the internet. What the proposed ACP database would give you is comprehensiveness and technical annotations (ie, an atractive commercial product).
Other than the chess and science fields, I would switch to music. I cannot imagine someone “compiling” all songs ever created by the rock band Iron Maiden (200+). It would be prohibited by copyright laws, only because the band members signed a contract of reproduction/distribution…
The question here is, can the ACP raise such sort of contracts to protect the working rights of the professional chess players? I think the answer to this question is yes, but the idea needs to be embraced forcefully.
From a different point of view, what a professional chess player does on daily bases is to struggle in a highly competitive field to bring bread to the table, like in any other profession. What he creates and we so freely call a “chess GM game” is the historically discrete final outcome of many years of 4-10 hours hard work a day… To give raise to any of his games, the GM had to pay for everything, trainer, magazines, books, software, flight tickets to distant playing venues, hotel acommodation and so on and so forth… Why should a company like Chessbase make use of any professional chess game at all based on the poor claim thay are “merely compiling”… I cannot help but feel that Friedel has been laughing out loud about the lack of regulation in the creative field of professional chess… Get the point?
GuidedByVoices, one difference between music and books or articles is that chess games have two different ‘authors’ all the time. You propose GMs sign a copyright contract: fine, but what about the opponents? Do they sign too? What if the opponent isn’t a GM but some unknown amateur player? Does the amateur still have rights to his own game or is this only for the GM? What if the amateur doesn’t care about copyright and the GM does – who settles the case? So you see, the situation is much more complicated here.
@GuidedByVoices: The copyright agreement you sign with a scientific journal is a transfer of copyright. You give them the copyright of the article that took you months of hard work, and they don’t give you a penny for it. They actually make money with compilations of such articles (journals, proceedings, etc). I’m not saying it’s wrong, most scientists make their articles available for free on preprint servers anyway (like arxiv.org). So my question is: if you’re not getting any royalties for your scientific articles, why should chess players get some for their games? (and if you ask me, the same question applies to musicians and their music).
I do not get your point Johny.
First, a rock band or a phylarmonic orchestra are usually more than 2 people. Many books display more than one author. Anyway, to the point:
(1) Copyright contract for chess players are not to be signed on a game by game basis, but in the context of the whole tournament. I would rather think of signing the contract before round 1 starts. If an amateur player does not sign, fine, let’s invite another.
(2) I truly believe that we, chess players, are taken too far away by the particular features of our game. I cannot think of any other sport, scientific brand or artistic field where “amateurs” rule over “masters”… Amateurs play for fun, professionals do it for money.
(3) It seems to me that a refusal from an amateur player to make living standard of a chess master a tiny bit better is not ethically or even morally right. We should always strive to get things done the right way. If something does not hurt me but may help someone else, how can I walk away? Why on Earth would I do something like that?
Yeah a band or an orchestra has maybe more than one or two people, but it’s usually the same people, with the same interests – not different ones all the time, as in chess.
@Guillaume:
I did not say I make money out of my papers. My point is that in the science field, you decide to what journal you transfer your copyrights and the mechanism is fairly straightforward. It could be done in chess as well [from chess master to the ACP], why not?
My whole point is that the money collected by the “commercial ACP gamebase” may serve well, for instance, to those GMs who are lacking money for an expensive medical treatment. Or they could share the earnings once a year. The knot of this discussion is that money generated by the work of the chess master should go straight back to the chess master’s pocket, not to Friedel’s one…
Back to the scientifical publication system, which is also highly questionable because the Journals are selling knowledge which may impinge on humankind well-being and health issues, at least there I can chose where to publish my work, can’t I? In chess, all the money goes smoothly into Friedel’s pocket. Furthermore, at variance of the strange situation of the chess masters, I can even chose whether my papers get published or not! Indeed, I can decide not to submit my work or, alternatively, I can delay publication for strategic reasons…
Chess masters should not lack control of their creative efforts. It’s theIr work. They should have (human!) rights. I have always felt that chess GMs have been not particularly lucky regarding their rights as really hard-workers. I have a couple of GM friends who just quitted competitive chess because it’s extremely hard to earn enough money for a decent life… It also comes to mind the case of talented and strong GMs like Picket, Sadler and others…
Let’s make chess a decent profession!
A tournament game is not only an effort of 2 players, it’s also an effort of the organizer who payed the room for the game etc. Players just do their job, and if they are good enough they get payed well for that by the organizer. If somebody should get some money for publishing the game, it would be the organizer. GuidedByVoices, try to apply your thoughts about ACP to other sports, you might find them odd.
Regarding permission about live broadcast: Talking about moves and technical details how the game is beeing broadcasted is not that much relevant. Question is whether somebody is making some profit from broadcasting games without a permission. Again – compare it with other sports, nobody serious would come to a playing hall with hidden camera in order to do live broadcast of the game.
The discussion was also picked up on the blog Marginal Revolution.
It’s a thoughtful post, and the author makes a sensible point noting that “transferring income to chess players is not a goal per se.”
It seems to me this is also what Stallman points out in the article I mentioned. Why would it be a good idea to have a copyright on chess moves (or games) anyway? Who benefits, the public or the players?
To Martas:
Your thought “Players just do their job, and if they are good enough they get payed well for that by the organizer” might apply for 2700+ players who sometimes take home appeareance fees and have got sponsors (Leko, Anand, Topalov, etc). Now, what about the remaining 95-99% GMs, IMs and FMs who are 2699 and below. How does your thought apply in those gruelling Swiss Tournaments where only a few masters are lucky enough to take away the money? Is there any chess master out there winning several strong open tournaments yearly, thus making any significant money?
Mentioning the ACP so much in my previous posts makes perfect sense, because, at variance of other sports, ACP is made up by chess masters who work for their fellow chess masters…
I agree with xtra: I think a chess move can’t be copyrighted because all the possible moves exist since chess itself exist. Saying “exist”, I mean who can be played. The only one who could own a copyright would be the inventor of chess, so it doesn’t really help us: ) You can’t invent a move or a novelty: if a move is called a novelty it’s just because nobody played it before but the player who played it didn’t invent it. It’s not like a book, for instance. In this case, the writer creates something which was not existing before. In chess we know that there is a finished number (ok very big but finished) of game which are possible. I think there is nothing to find, to discover, a chess game is just a choice of a game between thousands and thousands (and more) possible games….
But I think it’s true that the problem during Toplav-Kamsky match was not about the copyright of a chess move but only about the live broadcasting.
PS: Sorry for my english
To arne moll:
Exactly the point. But the other way around: mention one, only one other sport where you can see all the games ever played for free or, alternatively, giving the money to an intermediary (Friedel) instead of giving any money to the players?
A professional football player takes money home, regarless he win, draw or even lose. Professional chess players must win about 75% of the points to get a chance to win any money… It’s a cruel profession, can you realise that, can’t you?
Finally getting there!
Then I would not give an exceptional novelist the Nobel prize, because the alphabet and grammar rules where already there. Any human creation is finite and belongs to a context.
How many games can you play along your entire life? The more games you play, the closer you get to GM level skill?
GMs must be seen as artists… When they look at the chess board, they see something completely different from weaker players. Taking back your example of the book, my younger son is already able to write, but I wouldn’t pay him to read his texts…
We are suposse to pay those who excel at chess…
“Now, what about the remaining 95-99% GMs, IMs and FMs who are 2699 and below. How does your thought apply in those gruelling Swiss Tournaments where only a few masters are lucky enough to take away the money?”
You act like we should pity them. It’s not like anybody forces them to play in those tournaments, you know…
Let me just state that I’m stunned that this discussion continues to the present day. Taking it point by point:
First of all, it is 100% clear that if anyone owns copyright to the game, that it is *neither* the organizers nor sponsors of an event, but the players. Therefore the request from the Bulgarian Chess Federation is meaningless unless it comes from both Kamsky and Topalov.
Second, it is also clear that *both* players own the copyright to a game, if such a concept existed. This would mean that every game of chess you play creates a legal contract between the two players. It is this fact alone that makes the copyright issue completely untenable.
Third, I’m stunned at the hate Mega Database is getting. First of all, 62,000 games are annotated by players who were paid for those annotations. Second, you have 4,000,000 (approximately) games, so in this case, there are 8,000,000 copyright holders. Let’s say that ChessBase decides to pay the full proceeds to the copyright holders after every sale of Mega 2009:
Mega 2009 sells for 149,90 €
8,000,000 games
Each copyright holder gets 0,0000187375 € per game
Wow. First of all, let’s talk about the stupidity of ChessBase having to send out 280,000 checks, but let’s also talk about how worthless the money would be! I personally have 130 games in MegaBase, so that’s a whopping 0,002435875 ‚Ǩ for me. Even a guy like Sveshnikov with almost 2,000 games would only be getting 0,036238325 ‚Ǩ.
So let’s see, if there *IS* copyright in chess games it is:
- Worthless
- Unenforceable
And if it *was* enforceable, chess is dead. No more software, books, magazines, bulletins, or anything.
Have fun, guys, but this argument was logically killed ages ago.
Dear GuidedByVoices,
I don’t know how many fellow bloggers will be able to follow … but as I am a publishing scientist myself, I disagree with part of your posts starting today 12:20PM:
In my opinion, a finalized peer-reviewed scientific paper is comparable to an _annotated_ game. Beyond the results it contains at least discussion and conclusions, maybe also suggestions for future research. Discussion includes statistical treatment of data, comparisons with earlier studies, and interpretation of results. In a chessic context, this is equivalent to earlier games in the same opening (or, as recently here on Chessvibes, similar rook endings) and variations. “Suggestions for future research” may be something as “21.-Rc7? loses, maybe 21.-Ne4!? can hold the draw”; conclusions may be “this line of the King’s Indian is under a cloud (or even losing by force)”.
And any GM may keep things partly secret, not giving all of his opening analysis because he may still want to play the same line in the future – just as you and I can keep things secret for the next publication on the same topic … .
The ‘raw’ moves are then comparable to the raw analytical (or experimental) data. These are (or should be) freely available to colleagues after publication. No publisher will prohibit us from doing so, quite a few actually encourage (or even force) authors to put them in a publicly available database.
And, still in a scientific context, databases or opening books are comparable to review articles or textbooks. Here the author does the additional job of compiling and synthesizing data from numerous sources, and he _may_ even be paid for it.
GuidedByVoices – again, have a look at other sports. If you play whatever at lower level, you have to win some prize money in order to get some money out of your playing. You would never get money because somebody published your game or showed the nicest moment from some of your games.
LOL John F. Hard to disagree with that. Anyway, isn’t Chessbase also offering all those games online for free on chesslive.de?
Yes, Arne, but remember, the unannotated database is 49,99 €. Therefore, the market states that the 62,000 annotated games are worth 2.5x what the 4,000,000+ unannotated games are.
And I think we can all agree that the annotations have copyright protection!
Do they? I didn’t know that. I’m still having a hard time trying to imagine which part of the annotations is actually copyrighted. Is it the exact words (often translated with Babelfish, I suppose), or the moves of the analysis, or only the ideas, or perhaps the combination of moves, words and symbols … ? (I know it’s common practice to mention the analyst’s name with moves that where (first) analysed by him, but I thought it was just politeness, not obligatory.)
I don’t think the moves of the analysis can be copyrighted. It is possible that several people find them independently – indeed plausible if Rybka is the original and common source ,:). In any case, just as an opening novelty was maybe already played in a Timbuctu club game, analyses of a Topalov game may have been already published in a Bulgarian newspaper or chess magazine – and Arne Moll or anyone else is blissfully unaware of it.
But it would be hard to believe that he invents similar or exactly the same words (translated from Bulgarian into English or Dutch) independently … .
I would presume that the copyright applies to the work as a whole, much as the word “The” isn’t copyrighted from a book, even if the book is protected by copyright. Where exactly the line is drawn is probably somewhat unclear.
John, I know that with books (and music), there’s such thing called intellectual property which at least is rather well defined. The problem is, of course, that most database analysis are not mainly words at all (and if they are, they’re often laughably badly translated), but stuff like arrows, coloured squares and symbols. How to copyright that, even considering we’d want to apply it to the ‘work as a whole’? (The longer I think about it, the harder I find it to understand the concept of ‘copyright’ at all!
)
Well, I’d say that the method of expression is irrelevant, as the arrows and symbols are just a different language.
Copyright is a subset of Intellectual Property, which gives a creator license over original work. Of course, in this case, there are two creators, and there’s some question as to how original the work is!
Of course, IP generally has to have some progressive or beneficial concept, which is probably a bit problematic to use for chess. The best comparison would be art or music, but even then, other problems creep in.
Chessbase is a commercial site, and the transmission contributes to them selling subscriptions and products, so it would be fair to share their profit with the players and organizers.
Generally I agree with Capablanca: A game of chess is the product of the players. Like a piece of art.
Chess theory, on the other hand, is a collaborative effort, a search for the truth, like science, and should flow freely.
That’s a conflict, and it should be weighed carefully where to draw the line. I think opening lines should be free, and the analysis of a single position should be free. But the publication of a complete game, or a long enough part of it, should generate a small amount of money for the players.
In reality, I don’t see how this could be achieved. The organizers would force the players to transfer the rights, prohibit unauthorized publication, and make a little money, while the players and the chess world as a whole would be worse off.
I would like to repeat:
It is NOT AT ALL a question on copyright moves of chess!
Merely knowing exactly what rights there are in reserving and/or selling (offering here, selling there, forbiding or not over there) certain pieces of information (live!) about a public (sure!) event that one organizes.
As more crucial certain type of information is, more crucial the question is!
Please, avoid that blindness about “copyrighting moves of chess”, or else become defenders of absolute freedom of broadcasting and of “no copyrighting” zeros and ones of digitalized information of TVs and radios broadcasts of any sport events (and others!).
Castro, you may not like it, but the article IS about copyright on moves (and a few other subjects), what’s wrong with that? You’re talking about ‘certain pieces of information’ – well, what else are we talking about but chess moves as pieces of information? I don’t see how this is not relevant to the discussion.
Really, Bartleby? How much is that one game worth to ChessBase? How much incremental revenue is made from it?
That’s the underlying problem here. If Mega Database, for example, sold 10 million copies a year, then yeah, there’s a huge amount of money to chop up and give to players. There isn’t. Like I once asked a particular GM (which made him very mad), “How much money do YOU deserve for your games?” He offered a rough guess at $100,000 per year. I then did the math, for GMs alone, you’re talking $90,000,000 per year! If you add in IMs, all of a sudden chess needs to be a $200 million market per year JUST for purchasing games, of JUST GMs and IMs! The money simply doesn’t add up. As I stated before, the going rate of an unannotated game today is 0.0000124975‚Ǩ per game, or 0.00000624875‚Ǩ per game per player.
Yes, I agree that in certain circumstances, some games may be so valuable that people would pay for them. World Championship matches are one good example. Even then, the market won’t bear very much (Say, $10 per visitor), and the mere act of charging excludes a lot of people from watching the game, and frankly, costs you money when you factor in the negative publicity that you get. If you’re paying millions for a world championship match, clawing back $20,000 via a live broadcast is at best penny wise, pound foolish. At worst, it is casastrophic stupidity.
*If* there was some giant money pool, then perhaps you would see some demand to craft some type of system similar to that used by the Screen Actor’s Guild for movies. As it stands now, the costs of such a system are many times larger than the market itself! (Let’s ignore the fact that you’d need a contract signed before every single game of chess is played, or at the beginning of every tournament, and so on and so forth.)
If someone can propose a system which works better than the current “All games are free, with no protections or restrictions on their use” concept, I’m all ears. Talking about imaginary money being paid for games when the market has made it clear that the money is very very small for so many games is not a solution at all.
Sorry, no offense, but if you don’t see now, maybe you’ll do next time. Just read me again and better, and think about it.
Of course the article IS about something, and I say that something IS NOT at stakes in the Topalov vs. Kamsky broadcasting issue (nor on similars).
Or else, it would be a question on EVERY broadcastings with reserved rights.
And, of course, calling the “copyrights” question here grants one thing: The bombastic effect, the controversy. But I’d say it is quite artificial.
The good thing is that maybe, without this type of articles, we wouldn’t write so much these days
Castro, everybody understands what you’re saying, it’s just that it ignores a basic aspect of what I tried to point out in my article, which is that the nature of the game of chess is completely different from other things that can be ‘broadcasted’. You really can’t compare it with, say, a movie or a live baseball game (except perhaps with the bare results). A chess move is ONLY information, nothing more, and as soon as a chess move is played by someone, this information is – what, free? Or not free? What do you think? Does it really make a difference if the move is transmitted via a (paid) live site or via a cell phone from someone in the audience? How is it different? It’s still the exact same piece of information.
By the way, the matter of the Bulgarian Federation vs. Chessbase really is about copyright on chess moves. After all, Chessbase was not the only site that broadcasted the moves. Somehow, they hadn’t obtained ‘copyright’ over the moves, but other sites did. How else would you call this, if not a copyright issue?
Arne,
I think the baseball example is not half bad. The way the court ruling went over here, it breaks down as follows: Scores and Statistics are public domain, while Commentary, Images, Sounds, etc. of the game are not.
You can recreate a baseball game fully from the boxscores, much as you can recreate a chess game fully from the score.
The analogy would be that moves, time taken and the results would be in the Public Domain, while the pictures, commentary, annotations and audio would be copyrightable. So it actually works quite well as a comparison.
Though yes, the images of chess are, well, more boring, but that doesn’t defeat the purpose.
You’re also correct that copyright must be vigorously defended. Either the Bulgarians would have to be attacking everyone who ‘violated their copyright’, or they would have to be attacking no one. Selectively going after one or two makes no legal sense, and may even undermine a copyright claim.
@John Fernandez
I agree 0.0000124975€ is exactly the amount an unannotated, otherwise unnoteworthy game should be paid for.
But Chessbase generates revenue from the visitors to their site, directly and indirectly, and a live coverage gets them a lot of visitors. That’s what I think should be shared.
About small payments: I just read an article how newspapers need a viable, non-intrusive way to charge small payments (0.01-0.10) for online content.
If there would be such a way, it might be feasible for watching chess games online, too, at least live for live transmissions.
Right now, there isn’t. And I can’t believe $10 fees are realistic.
“Either the Bulgarians would have to be attacking everyone who ‚Äòviolated their copyright‚Äô, or they would have to be attacking no one.”
I think the official Bulgarian version was that Chessbase didn’t ask permission to ‘copy’ the live moves from the match website, and everyone else did.
But I think hardly anyone (read: neither those calling Chessbase ‘Krambase’ nor those who would disagree on that one) believes that this was the actual or only reason for singling out Chessbase … .
What if I put a super computer to play chess games, do I own all the games that the computer generates? Does that imply you cannot play those games anymore unless you pay me?
Copyrights should be forbidden.
I don’t get question of this article? Why is it speaking about copyright on moves?
Totally irrelevant IMO, it’s about copyright on the broadcast, or better put broadcast rights. Just like there’s no copyright on kicking the soccer ball (i.e. making a certain chess move), but there is a broadcast right to show a certain match on television.
@Arne Moll
As I posted in another article where this question arose, I feel I don’t have the complete LEGAL competences/information.
) are comited here.
But there are some things I know and I can see, and one of them is that many “easy” errors (evident when you see them
Answering to your post…
First of all, let’s put appart, once and for all, the simpliest issue.
“After all, Chessbase was not the only site that broadcasted the moves. Somehow, they hadn‚Äôt obtained ‚Äòcopyright‚Äô over the moves, but other sites did.”
This is easyly dismised: Call it “copyrights” or not, broadcasting something you shouldn’t (*IF* you shouldn’t) can only bring you problems if the “damaged” part complains, because it is not a “public crime”. If two TV stations broadcast ilegally something, and only one of them is sued, only this one gets problems. Period!
Now, does the story here imply that either some sites payed and Chessbase didn’t? They may, but not forcely: They could just have been tacitally allowed, and Chessbase haven’t. In this last case, would it imply the bulgarians have something against Chessbase? Is Kramnik some reason for that? All this can be, but again, not by force. The thing one gets to notice right away is that all these questions are not the matter we’re supposed to discuss, when discussing IF the bulgarians have (or not) some rights regarding live broadcasting of certain informations about their (public) event.
*IF* you have a right to exclude anyone from something, you will exclude who you want to.
So, saying other sites broadcast without problems is mixing things, passionately maybe, but artificialy.
“a basic aspect of what I tried to point out in my article, which is that the nature of the game of chess is completely different from other things that can be ‚Äòbroadcasted‚Äô. You really can‚Äôt compare it with, say, a movie or a live baseball game (except perhaps with the bare results). ”
I agree (and said before!) with that difference of natures between chess and other things. But while you compare the most important part of a chess event (minute-by-minute!) with one of the not-the-most-well payed pieces of a baseball game for broadcast (the “bare results”), I completly desagree, and think about Plato (Where the shades? Where the real thing?)
“A chess move is ONLY information”
So… didn’t you say “everybody understands what you‚Äôre saying”. Well? It doesn’t look like understood! If you don’t feel strange about rights on zeros and ones, if they are the crucial part of something (the most desired part), I don’t know what more to say!
(but I’ll try)
“as soon as a chess move is played by someone, this information is – what, free? Or not free? What do you think?”
Another usual dangerous mixing of things is confusing principles with pratical questions. Again, *IF* the live broadcast of chess games (move-by-move) is to be considered the most important thing to be broadcasted, about a chess event, then *MAYBE* the organizers should get to say IF and WHO would perform those broadcastings. Sounds plausible to me. Moreover, because others can (and do) make money on that (directly and/or indirectly).
So, the information that Topalov has just played Na1 in the current game of the current event, MAYBE should be a non-free information, especialy while the event is running.
Pratically, it can be feasible but difficult to avoid transmition of the moves in almost real time, but that is that: A pratical question. (Which would be easier IF the legal frame and jurisprudence was that the organizers really have rights on that).
“Does it really make a difference if the move is transmitted via a (paid) live site or via a cell phone from someone in the audience? How is it different? It‚Äôs still the exact same piece of information.”
Yes, it is. But the difference could be the legality (And, again, the pratical issue that no one would use a cell phone in a cell phone scrambled environment).
And *IF* the bulgarians have those rights, it doesn’t realy matter who takes the information out of the place, I agree! They’ll only sue who they want! THEN, we would discuss the reasons, and the intrigues, etc., NOT the copyright question per se.
“How else would you call this, if not a copyright issue?”
Again it looks you didn’t read me! I repeat: Yes, we could call it “a copyright issue”, but first, that discussion has nothing to do with the “Chessbase concrete issue”, and second, looks like you should be prepared to discuss copyrighting on every type of broadcasts (ONLY information, you know?) — exactly because you know precisely the differences of natures!
(Well, let’s hope this post doesn’t get lost)
@MM
Yes, I think you got the point right, and in wiser and much less words than myself!
That is the nonsensical thing about the article.
MM,
You’re half right. The Bulgarian Chess Federation has exclusive broadcast rights. Everyone agrees about that, and they relay the moves directly from the site, no one else does.
What is in question is what *rebroadcast* rights others have.
You can’t take images, video, sounds, analysis from the original broadcaster without their written permission (which would require payment in many cases), because those are all copyrighted material.
The argument is whether you can take the moves themselves, or not. If the moves themselves are copyrighted, then you can never do anything with that game without the express written permission of the copyright owner.
That’s where the debate lies, with regards to this issue.
Indeed, John.
Castro, MM: in my view, a chess game is always a broadcast and a rebroadcast and a re-rebroadcast at the same time. There is simply no difference between a game played 100 years ago and that exact game replayed today. There is also no difference between a game broadcast on site A and the same game broadcast on site B. No difference at all! And you don’t even need a board or software to see the game – you can replay it in your head only and the information remains the same. That’s why it’s so silly to speak about broadcasts in the first place. Now imagine doing this with a soccer game! I hope you see the difference.
Basically, I think ‘broadcast’ is a useless concept in chess, therefore I prefer to speak about ‘moves’ only.
Castro+MM: Indeed, that’s the distinction the Bulgarian organizers are claiming and trying to make – live transmission should be protected or copyrighted in their opinion (controversially discussed here). Post-game reporting of the moves is yet another story … . The Bulgarians don’t even try to prevent the game moves from being published at numerous websites, newspapers, New in Chess, Informator, databases, …….. or selecting who has such rights.
BTW, at least some players indirectly benefit from the fact that their games are published – the more people know about Shirov’s games, the more copies of “Fire on the Board” are likely to be sold. The disadvantage is that database games help your opponent in his preparation, but that goes both ways – one reason why no player should even try to ‘block’ his games from apppearing in databases.
And this (first sentence in the previous paragraph) mostly applies to a few players who are strong enough AND publish that kind of books. With all respect, I haven’t encountered the name John Fernandez before – trying to find out your rating failed because there are far too many “Fernandez’s” on the FIDE rating list.
Says someone rated 1930 who presumably has no games in Megabase [even though a few were publlished on my club homepage ,:)]. So if I _ever_ got to play GM Shirov, I would have one advantage, not nearly compensating for numerous disadvantages … .
I’m only a 2162 FIDE fish, but for what it’s worth, copyright doesn’t make qualitative judgements on the work, but I’ve been fortunate to have had my share of games broadcast live on the Internet from major events (and if I recall correctly, two draws in two games vs. a GM and an IM). I’m just trying to give some dimension to the problem.
As an aside, you’ll find some games of mine vs. GMs, including ones where I don’t lose (and some vs. IMs and FMs where I win!) Obviously you’ll have heard of many of my opponents, but I was just as much a part of the game as they were.
Dear John Fernandez,
), but also giving dimension to the problem – singling you out rather than a semi-anonymous John Miller because you were posting your (very useful) comment.
Of course I didn’t want to insult you in any way (at the very least, you are still a bigger fish than I am
If anything, you might have more rights to claim money from Megabase than top GM’s – for them it’s part of their job and indirectly compensated. I assume the 0.0024 Euros you mentioned are per copy of Megabase – so if 10,000 copies are sold it would mean 24 Euros, still “peanuts” and clearly not worth the considerable administrative effort.
It’s worth to mention that ICC have been threatented by organizers I believe on several occasions in the past when the games were covered live. I remember specifically the European Championship in Turkey some years ago, when they also published several warnings to ICC online seriously threatening lawsuit. ICC have always ignored such threats.
The super tournament in Dortmund also tried pay-per-view for access to the live games a few years back, but as they can do nothing with ICC simply re-broadcasting these games, they didn’t try it again the next year.
The way for organizers to go, is to collaborate better with the chess servers like ICC and Playchess. Make special deals with them, in order to give them something more than just the moves. This would be beneficial for the tournament’s sponsor as well.
@Arne Moll
@John Fernandez
Still some confusion. Let’s see…
)
The article is bombasticaly called “Copyright on chess moves – Shadows on the wall”. And, indeed, defends that trying to restrict access to Chessbase live broadcast of the moves is exactly THAT issue. Lots of people entered that train, discussing it on that basis.
The simple fact is that such an approach is simply WRONG, ARTIFICIAL AND MISLEADING (I could try more ways of saying the same…
As MM rightly said, one can talk about Broadcasting Rights. It doesn’t even matter if one call it broadcast or not (or re-re-rebroadcast), and it doesn’t even matter if one call it copyrights or not. The important thing is NOBODY is trying to copyright chess moves (or even whole games) of chess, as belonging to him, not even saying something like “This game was played on my event, so you must pay me, if you want to reproduce it”. That is NOT the question, and the names we call it are not of much importance.
In order to — hopefully — put an end to this confusion, I have imagined a little 3-scene abstraction.
Act I – Imagine that tomorrow YOU organize a match between Topalov and Kamski. At your place. Closed doors. No broadcasts, no nothing. It is not a public event, but in it can parcialy turn into one, if, after the games, you (or any of the players) show the game to the public, or press.
Act II – Imagine YOU organize (after tomorrow) a similar match, with the difference that you allow people to watch the games in the playing room, charging them some entrance fee, but demanding that no transmission of the games can be done during the same games. You inform them, you forbid the press (or demand that they don’t broadcast), and you can even scramble the mobile environment, etc. After the games, other more general public around the world can see the games.
Act III – Well… Next week YOU just do what the bulgarian organizers did! Organize it as they did, and demand your (arguably) rights, as they demanded!
The only thing I’m saying (and some people more) is
With good reasons for your doings (or not), in NONE of the 3 above scenarios YOU would be asking to have copyrighted any moves of chess. There is NO QUESTION OF COPYRIGHTING MOVES OF CHESS W-H-A-T-S-O-E-V-E-R!
(Let’s hope this one doesn’t get lost either)
In fact, originaly I though about yet another “scenario”, which would be “Act III”, before the final would-be Act IV. It’s when YOU organize the same match, allowing people to enter, and forbiding all transmission of the moves during the games, except for ONE radio station (for instance).
Do you see? The questions on those scenarios could always be: “Can YOU do it that way? Are you entitled to charge this or that? Can you determine who can acess the moves? And can YOU determine THE WAYS people can acess them? What if a site copies the moves and reproduce them on the net without YOU allowing? Can YOU sue them?” ETC.!
And not “Can YOU copyright moves of chess? Are the games your property? Is it like Bell and the telephone?” Please!!
And (do you see?) one can think “Ah!, but if the ONE radio station is lissened by Chessbase, they can write the moves on their site, as they are reeled.
BUT CAN THEY?
That’s the question! The pratical aspects are one thing, other thing is the legal issue!
In my “Act I”, for instance, someone could ilegaly enter YOUR place, see the moves and transmite them!
In “Act II”, someone in YOUR playing room could have a mobile phone (with some unscrambler), and get to USE IT for transmit the moves, even if YOU had the right to have that not happening!
Those are PRATICAL things ONLY. Enough confusion!
Am i missing something or was this -far from obvious- view of the author of all chess games always and forever being broadcasts not in the article itself? Just like in the Fide’s odds article there are then some basic things missing, imho.
Therefore I personally would rather see more coverage of tournaments instead of these pseudo intellectual articles.
@sjoerd. Do you have a serious argument, or are you just whining as usual?
just whining as usual. I joined the club
My turn to whine. I’m tired of Castro’s meaningless, confusing and interminable rant.
But not of mine, right??! Woohoo!
p.s. castro has a point and Arne is indeed clearly wrong when he says that there was a case of copyrighting chess moves during the games of the Kamsky-Topalov match. The organization complained about broadcasting during the match, and said nothing about publicizing the games afterward.
It is a pity that mr. Moll presents not the whole truth in 2 consecutive articles.
Last thing; Arne wrote “basically i think broadcast is a useless concept in chess, therefore i prefer to speak about moves only”. The first part is clearly rubbish but the last part is exactly what i hope he will do more in the future.
@Thomas – Not insulted, that was exactly my point.
I was just showing off that I have done well vs. titled players in my career!
@Castro – Copyright is the means by which someone can control the Rebroadcast rights. If the moves are copyrighted, then they cannot be rebroadcast without the express written consent of the broadcaster. If they are public domain, then there is no such thing as protecting the rebroadcast.
LOL
Death to The Castro guy! His rant is as big as my bad manners and ignorance!
Thanks, sjoerd!
(but pls be easy on people who try to give us information and food for thought about this chess thing)
@John Fernandez
Ok, never mind the names, but you must agree that, by that meaning, the discussion is posible (even if maybe one are not fully prepared for it), the confusions stop, but (and because of that) the scandall and the bombastic effect disappear, and maybe one begins to find that kind of copyright as acceptable and plausible to the chess moves of an elite tournament as for images of a football match…
Live “broadcasting” of both, must be said. That’s what it is about.
@Castro,
That’s what the Bulgarians are arguing. However, it is clear that Images of a chess match = Images of a sporting event. Gamescores of a chess match = Statistics of a sporting event. No need for further comment on this from me.
@John Fernandez
Sorry, if no more comments here from you.
Your “system of two equalities” (not “equations”, of course) is HIGHLY dubious, hehehe
“Clear” is something it surely isn’t, otherwise you would also agree:
A chair has four legs. A dog has four legs. Hence, a chair is a dog”
“The organization complained about broadcasting during the match, and said nothing about publicizing the games afterward. It is a pity that mr. Moll presents not the whole truth in 2 consecutive articles.”
Sjoerd, where in my article do I say anything about publishing the games afterwards? I already knew you don’t like what I write, but now I must assume you also don’t like what I don’t write?
well; after your introduction about the match you state that the key question is whether or not one can copy right chess moves. That is not the key question here. By ignoring the FACT that a broadcast is something different then viewing a game afterwards you created a problem that does not exist. Limited broadcasting is not claiming copy right on a game.
And by the way, I Do like some of your (earlier) writings, but I feel the last two articles were very bad. It seems they were written because you had to write something.
The discussion changed (maybe lost) focus a bit when GuidedByVoices was hitting Chessbase for making money with Megabase – here, John Fernandez still gave the best reply … .
BTW, GuidedByVoices, what do you think about my reply posted 4March 17:53PM? Obviously I don’t know your research fields – maybe there are some fields where raw data without interpretation are sufficient for a peer-reviewed paper, but I kinda doubt it …. .
Sjoerd, I thought it would be clear by now that the whole point of the article was to discuss whether this ‘FACT’ is really so factual! As I said, I’m still not sure, but I don’t see what’s wrong with discussing it.
Well Thomas, to be perfectly honest, I lost interest in this discussion as I noticed that most people insist to take it nowhere… Meanwhile, I have got the feeling that this is a hot and relevant discussion topic for chess and, in this context, I have tried to make several strong points which I feel were never actually addressed… So why to continue posting?
Anyhow, Fernandez (‚Äúthe big fish‚Äù) made some trivial maths to show that any given GM would receive less than peanuts out of copyright contracts and databases being sold from a commercial platform and market comparable to Chessbase. My point here was quite different, I said the ACP should be collecting the money to raise a trust which might be used for instance for some kind of health insurance for retired chess masters . The problem I see with being a professional chess player is that is already tough enough as a mean to make a decent living, let alone this profession isn‚Äôt really formal…
To my mind, ACP = professional chess players taking care of their colleagues, whereas Friedel = someone making money out of alien gruelling effort.
Why have I pointed Friedel so insistently? He is not actually breaching any chess game copyright, because there is not one out there; but to show what actually happens just because professional chess players have not been able to bring such copyrights about.
Can copyrights be brought about? Of course they can. Most people participating in this debate does not recognise chess as an extremely demanding job, a nearly scientific search for the truth, stained by a nice aesthetic component, which also involves a sporting component. Why should professional chess players leave the business part of chess in the hand of a mere aficionado like Friedel?
I am fully convinced any human creative effort (intellectual effort if you prefer) may be subjected to copyright laws. A completely different matter is that this will never happen out of a discussion like the one taking place here, with not real intention to change the current ‚Äústate of the art‚Äù… You need the ACP board to discuss all these issues with lawyers who specialise in copyright issues…
Having said all that, before leaving this dying thread of discussion for good, I would like to address your interesting points as follows, Thomas:
In the field of my scientific work (Physiology), I use to publish in Journals like: Endocrinology, Journal of Physiology, Molecular Brain Research and others… From this background I would compare scientific and chess publication issues, more or less as follows:
Experiment = chess tournament
Raw data = score sheets of the games played in a given tournament
Proceedings = chess magazine (NIC, etc)
Research paper (peer-reviewed standard) = a game played and/or deeply annotated by a professional chess player (GM, IM and/or FM standard).
A Review paper = a book, for instance ‚ÄúFire on the board‚Äù by Shirov or the nice book on Zurich 1953 by Bronstein…
But clearly, in the face of formal science (where any given paper may cost the supporting government agency something like £ 100,000), one is reminded that chess is only a game after all!
Oooopsss, you may now spot where I live… But not where I come from anyhow, because my English is decent but not really good! BTW, I am a killer 4NCL player!
It’s worth to mention that a few years back, the organizers of the individual European Championship made some serious lawsuit threats against ICC and even published a statement on the site saying that ICC violated copyrights. Even though they seemed quite serious with their threats, the case died out once they realized that ICC always ignores such threats.
Organizers of the Dortmund super tournament also tried to charge for access to the live games a few times, but seeing that most people are not willing to pay for just the moves to these evens when they can follow it on chess servers, they gave that up quickly.
It seems obvious to me that instead of accusing chess servers of violating copy rights and working AGAINST them, they should instead work WITH them. This would be beneficial for the tournament’s popularity, which against would please the sponsors. You just can’t copy right chess moves.
Oh Lord!
“just the moves”
“copy right chess moves”
These kind of expressions, added with the usual mixing with practical questions about a (I agree) somewhat legaly blured scenario, makes justice to the subtitle of the article: “Shadows”!!! (on peoples eyes! But we still can see, you know?)
Castro, I’m not sure what you mean, but in any case, in my view the moves of a chess game are not the shadows on the wall – they are the Forms itself. And yes, I know the analogy doesn’t work 100% – analogies never do, that’s why they’re called analogies, not equations
@Castro The facts of the event (moves, move times, result) are facts, not copyrightable. Making random analogies about dogs and chairs isn’t really relevant.
@Tarjei Yes, this is something that has been going on forever. Every year some organizer somewhere comes up with some random demands about game broadcasts. As an aside, this was something I remember us looking into at X3D for the Kasparov matches, and the lawyers we’d spoken to basically just laughed at the concept.
@Arne Moll
Sure, you’re right about analogies. But if you insist in presenting something by an analogy which is very remote, because born out of distorting and/or forgeting essencial data, it is not an useful analogy (to say the least).
@John Fernandez
The analogy with the dogs and chairs sylogism makes sense, because it presents the same lack of sense of your “equalities”.
The “Images of a chess match” can be considered “Images of a sporting event”, but have 1/1000 of the public interess of images of almost all other sporting event. Somehow it is crucial here, but somehow you “forget” to consider it.
As for the “Gamescores of a chess match” being equal to “Statistics of a sporting event”, well this one is far worse! Myself, MM (and maybe others) have already dealt with that. No offense, but it’s a childish aproach. Dogs and chairs being equal (because both have something in common) come imediately to mind…
@Castro
Copyright doesn’t make qualitative judgements. A Picasso painting has the same copyright protection as a scribble from a three year old. The approach isn’t childish, your approach is simply wrong. The fact that there are multiple people arguing it doesn’t make it any more correct. It’s, simply put, embarrassingly wrong.
@John Fernandez
I’m not perfect, but surely I wouln’t make the (also childish) mistake of calling the number of people with a certain opinion in order to legitimate that opinion. And so I DIDN’T! Try reading again. Again a try to distort facts, which maybe you should see doest’t work a lot, from you to me
As for the Picasso thing, many things were said here that destroy that analogy, and you don’t even imagine how much of your distorted related things I let pass. For instance: “Facts” not being copyrightable, one understands. But a move in a chess game is as much of a fact as a kick in a ball. Not “scores”, of course.
Other: If I were to use your “logic weapons”, I could easily ridiculise your importance to the laughs of the lawyers (we’ll see who laughs last!).
Am I wrong? Who says? The actual presenter of the easiest refutable arguments here? Ok, I’ll laugh too.
@Castro, the best analogies are often the most ‘remote’. Try picking up a book by Douglas Hofstadter sometime, you’ll be surprised. Not that mine was so great, of course, but .. oh well.
Goran, over at Chessdom, has clarified on my blog that they “had no deal with the organisers”.
- TCG
@Arne Moll
Hehe Let’s not discuss exactly and only about analogies.
But there is “remote” like “giving good perspective through distance, or through an unexpected but fair angle”, and “remote” as in “I say this means that, I so this is scandall, and now lets discuss this scandall”.
(Sorry, I know you wouldn’t use those words, nor probably even mean exactly that meaning, but another good thing about analogies is their “economy”)
Dear Arne,
Leaving philosophical confusions for what they are, I decided to ask my good friend Ilan de Vre for his opinion, who is currentlcy an IO (intellectual ownership)-lawyer at the well known dutch firm ‘Kennedy (Van der Laan)’. So here is my report of an expert’s point of view.
Protecting with copyright can only be done if something is ‘a work’. THAT’s the real crucial part in the definition you quoted from wikipedia’s article.
They include such problems as determining when one WORK is “derived” from another, or deciding when information has been placed in a “tangible” or “material” form.
The point being that chess moves do not – legally – count as a ‘work’. What does count as ‘work’ would be an analysis of a chess game. Copyright is meant to prevent others taking advantage of my hard work. Compare it to football matches:
you can get copyright on the images of a game because reporting the game counts as ‘a work’ (meaning: the journalistic effort of capturing the images and reporting etc.). However the moves of the football match (like the dribbles of Ronaldo) cannot be protected by copyright. In the same way the moves of a chess game cannot be protected by copyright.
As I understood it, but I am happy to ask Ilan to join the discussion, there is a huge difference between buying the rights to televize a football match. This would be legally impossibile considering a chess game in a tournament. Legally one could only protect the right of broadcasting this chess game in a certain way, but one cannot legally be prevented to braodcast a chess game in some other way (using another applet).
Hi Frank, I’m afraid your post has made my confusion even bigger, because I’m pretty sure most if not all chess professionals would by definition consider making (strong) chess moves very real ‘work’ indeed!
Of course I understand the moves of a game ‘as such’ cannot be copyrighted, but surely making these moves can? Or am I missing something here?
Among many other things one can say regarding this “new” perspective (and sayings), the “work” (or property) of those organizing and allowing (or not) some (crucial) information to get public (in this or that form) during the games must be taken into consideration too.
Imagine that you try to make some money on some kind of broadcast of an elite chess tournament.
If you try to sell video images of an elite chess tournament by which the moves are not visible, no one will buy them. They’d be 100% disapointing.
If you sell (or allow to be taken) video images where the moves are visible in real time, of course you can make big money, but because of the moves!
If then people know that, besides the video images, everybody could freely transmit the moves in many sites, the original video images loose almost all their value!
Doesn’t it make yet another hint that there is “work” (or interest, or property) besides “making (strong) chess moves” or “journalistic effort-type”, in the broadcasting of moves of a chess tournament in real time?
I’d like to see someone making any interesting money out of TV broadcasts of a chess tournament from which the public could only see the moves AFTER the tournament (or even after each round).
Isn’t everything considered ‘work’ these days?
I am a lawyer in Los Angeles. Under American law i seriously doubt you could copyright chess moves. You can only copyright particular expressions of an idea– you cannot copy the idea itself! In chess, the idea of a move is “merged” with the expression as XTRA astutely noted above (not sure if he is an attorney but he thinks like one!). In other words there is only one way to express the idea of queen takes h7, check, on move 14 in a certain position. Thus the “merger doctrine” would apply to wipe out any copyright protection for the expression/idea 14.Qxh7+. You can copyright the selection and arrangement of games/variations, and you can certainly copyright editorial expressions such as += , “With compensation”, !?, ??, etc… The solution is to have contracts to secure exclusive broadcasting access, rather than some feeble attempted copyright protection that (in my opinion) judges would simply laugh at.
Calling it “broadcasting” or not, that’s rights on that we should be talking about.
“Copyright on chess moves” surely not, in any of the scandalous/bombastic meanings it can have.
“14. Qxh7″ is as uncopyrightable as (for exemple) the word “Morning”, or the sentence “You sleep in the morning”, that I could easily agree.
I think the point of the article is that it’s not so easy to distinguish ‘copyright’ from ‘broadcasting’ … so in practice, suggesting broadcasting rights is basically the same as having copyright on the moves after all. As soon as a move is broadcasted, is it free to use on another broadcasting site? If not, why not, given the fact that moves themselves apparently can’t be copyrighted? And what’s the use of exclusive broadcasting rights if anyone can broadcast the moves the second after they’ve been broadcasted on the original site?
Exactly Johnny, it seemed to me, this was the point made by my friend, the IO-lawyer.
Once a move is made, it’s out and anyone else can re-transmit the fact that the move was made. I do not think there is any way around that. Intellectual property is not my specialty field, but this is my opinion. The original broadcast has the advantage of being first in time and the advantage of being official. They can have contracts for exclusive footage, exclusive player interviews, and high-level commentary. The annotations, analysis, and presentation of the games can be copyrighted. But not the actual moves. In an analogous context of a sporting contest, one station might have exclusive license to have cameras at the premises, but other stations can still run a live score “ticker” at the bottom of the screen. Same here. Other websites can transmit the moves as soon as they can get them.
Look: If you want to call it “copyright moves of chess”, you’re free to do it.
In the way it would be (and IF it would be)
First: No scandal would exist. The courts or the legislators would (Will? Have already?) focus on the question, as they may focus on any other dispute situation.
Second: No one assured that that kind of “copyright” (is it posible some of you people oblige me to use that stupid expression??) is not posible, moreover because there are some types of “work” involved. Please read the thread, lots of times that was exposed. We’ll see what the courts will rule.
Now: The article IS about an aleged “copyright” on chess moves. Please be kind to read the VERY FIRST (and the firsts) posting(s) the article imediately originated! It is a simply ridiculous situation. Thomas said, somewhere, that by the post of GuidedByVoices, the discussion “changed (maybe lost) focus”. Actually, the discussion was induced as to be out of focus, from the very start, from the articles’ irrealistic and bombastic approach.
And many people here is still trying to claim a scandal, because someone is trying to copyright chess moves!
Well, Chessbase would realy like this ridiculous confusion to settle in.
I wonder… Why so much interest? MMM, maybe because it IS interessant.
Or could it be because the live moves from an elite chess tournament are completely free, and property of the human kind? Maybe they should be, but try explaining that to someone who pays for tv broacasts of football or words of a conference, or bytes of music. Or try to impose those “rights” at the door of a tournament without broadcasts.
See? The only things that could genuinely realy shock us about paying for chess moves are the (shocking) things that no one is asking for: The property of the move itself, and the ilegality of showing (analising,…) the game afterwards.
A clip of 1 second of a Ronaldo’s kick in the ball is maybe not free to reproduce. It is not the very kick itself, but it is the most public-friendly and acurate representation of the kick. Maybe one can see that 14. Qxh7, when reported live, has a similar role to that clip, in what a chess tournament concerns…
yawn…
I’m sorry Castro, I hate to point it out to you, but you still seem to have missed the main point, despite various people trying to point it out to you. This doesn’t prevent you from using friendly words like ‘bombastic’, ‘ ridiculous’ and ’stupid’ again and again. Perhaps if you could express yourself in proper English I would understand what you mean, or you would understand what I meant, but for now, I give up.
Imediately when begining to read those words of yours, I though “Maybe it’s my bad English”
Yes, words are “dangerous” and misleading. That you could have seen from the start (your start), and about that yes, you could do something other then giving up.
Arne, passing here again, I read again your observation, and you’re right complaining about my ugly expressions (’bombastic‚Äô, ‚Äò ridiculous‚Äô and ‚Äôstupid’). My bad english doesn’t allow being rude, and so, even if it wasn’t my intention to be rude, I apologise, because maybe I could have found more friendly expressions.
This story has now been picked up here: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090305/0158524003.shtml#comments. See especially comments no. 20 and 29.
- TCG
I just love discussions, for the sake of discussion! Feels like people speaking, only just because they like to hear themselves.
@The Closet Grandmaster
LOL That thread on that other forum is hilarious (artical and some posts)!
The moral lesson: It’s always possible to do worse.
Sorry: *article
Long time ago I had some version of Football Manager. They used real names of players, but instead of one, there was only nr. 9. Other firm had copyright on name. Assuming that I still have right to use my name, I can ask from ChessBase to remove it from commercial program, for example Mega 2009. They can publish all my games, but without connection with my name.
Am I right or wrong ?
@Dragan
It’s a different issue, but I’d say no, or at least very difficult, for instance because somehow it’s understood that if you played those events, you were aware of the “common practice” of the games being published. That’s the problem of “common practices”.
But if you fight, maybe in some years your reason will be recognised. Try getting Kasparov on your fight
@Dragan,
Many sports leagues have organizations which protect the images and likenesses of professional athletes with licensing deals. Occasionally, superstar players will opt out of such agreements and create their own licensing.
Sadly, there’s really no such market in Chess, so such an organization would make zero sense.
The notion of copyrighting an order of moves in a game of chess is ludicrous. Fortunately United States judges have already set this straight.
there are no copyright or broadcasting issues …
It’s just a reaction by the bulgarian chess federation to the bad treatment of topalov by chessbase in the topalov-kramnik match.
Chessvine
If you play the Catalan, of course not , you don t owe a royalty to Kasparov.
You owe a royalty to Xavier Tartakover.
Boxing matches are often relegated to a “pay-per-view” broadcast, but that doesn’t stop you from throwing a jab without being arrested…