Copyright War over Duchamp Chess Set

It would seem that an international copyright war has been declared by Marcel Duchamp's estate against certain digital reproductions. Very interesting that this article came to my attention the same day I received Chess Bazaar's email marketing its Duchamp reproduction. It suggests a certain conundrum. You supposedly protect intellectual property because it has economic value. But it only has economic value if you protect it. This photo and link are from The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/the-international-fight-over-marcel-duchamps-chess-set/404248/?utm_source=SFFB

From the Chess Bazaar promo email...

"Declaring an international copyright war" seems a little strong as a description for what they did. It was one nasty letter from a French attorney.

Also, the picture you posted is not a picture of the set that produced the controversy.  That is a "parody" of the Duchamp reproduction set that was made after they decided they had to pull the original recreation.

A picture of the Duchamp original and the Kildall 3D recreation can be seen here:

http://kildall.com/what-happened-to-the-readymake-duchamp-chess-pieces/

And cgrau - what do you think of CB's 'interpretation'?

Although I'm not cgrau I would like to share my opinion.

HOS did a similar thing with their monza set. I don't understand the reason why the producers made these sets so "rococo". The Marcel set was made with simple lines. No frills and so.

I think the duchamp set needs to be adapted, but that's not the spirit IMHO.

I prefer the custom one I ordered to them.

SZO - I understand your angle. And Your knights certainly have alot more detail in them. Nice set!

With all due respect to Chess Bazaar, from whom I've bought many sets that I thoroughly enjoy, I do like the knights, but beyond that they seem to be a mish-mosh of baroque design elements that are leaving poor Marcel churning in his grave. Szocio said "rococo." Quite apt.

It bugs me when estates protect the copyright but don't make it available to anyone. I've been trying to get permission for a song arrangment for years of a song that used to be in the public domain but the estate of the author secured the copyright and now the heirs (who don't seem to care as much as the last generation that secured the copyright) won't return my inquires. It's an annoying thing. I make my living in the music publishing industry, though, so I see the need for copyright protection. At least for a while I understand people in the 3D printing community were making and distrubuting designs that were simply exact copies of copyrighted art like the Duchamp set. A creator emailed me for demension on my Charles O. Perry set in order to help to make a copy. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but only for fair use. He didn't seem to understand copyright law or care about it, however, and he proceeded to distrubute his copy. I guess people are just doing it and waiting to get caught... and it's hard to object to that when you've been on the other side of trying to aquire legal permission.

I am curious is something 100 years ago still copyrighted?  I know books aren't. I know cars aren't. I know patents in the USA aren't.  Is it about the name or the design?  Maybe if it is about the name they might have a point. 

Just reading up on the law, in the USA it is puiblic domain before 1923 but each and every country has it's own laws yada yada yada. It's silly and I can see no stopping a place like CB from selling this set. Look at Fischer's copyrighted My 60 Memorable Games.  Also tell me how is it possible for people to skirt around our laws here especially on this Fischer book. 

Copyrighted 1964-1977

All books initially copyrighted in the US from 1964 through 1977 have had their copyrights automatically renewed (by law) and the copyrights are still in force. The initial copyright term was 28 years; the renewal was for 67 more years. So a book initially copyrighted in 1964 will pass into the public domain in 1964 + 28 + 67 + 1= 2060.

That's another problem. Copyrights are being renewed indefinately by coorporations to keep making money. Right after all the SOPA fighting the US extended copyright terms on a lot of important works and it went completely under everyone's radar.

Marcel Duchamp's chess sets do seem to be rather misunderstood. IMHO

He made and designed several sets I think the one in question here was produced whilst he was in  Buenos Aires, where he remained for nine months and often played chess. He carved his own chess set from wood with help from a local craftsman who made the knights. However what wiki does not comment on is that the knights were mounted on top of 4 springs each surely an amusing comment on their 'leaping' move.

His pocket chess set, one of his more 'readymade' or Dada pieces was in fact just the board with silver headed  pins pressed into the slots. MD noticed it made a pleasing pattern. The card pieces were pushed into the slots over the pins to make them stand up more like their 3d counterparts. Not as modern scholarship would have us believe with the pieces behind the pins.

Great shots. Nice idea with the set. I like the clean lines better than the rococo. I have that set with the standard Lardyesque knights.