Chess Copyright

You're not allowed to copy the written annotations of GM or IM's NM's anywhere without written permission and a royalty payment nor can you copy their work in a book and claim it as your own. Copying game scores is usually ok but you still have to be very careful like if you play a game against player John Doe online you can't publish the game if he didn't consent to having his real name associated with it. It's kind of a grey area when an organization says they can copyright the entire game scores of a tournament this has yet to be tested legally. I do know copyrighting game scores goes all the way back to Emmanuel Lasker in the early 1900's he believed players should be compensated for them but as far as I know nothing came of it.

The names of the players are given on our newsfeed.  Our editor included his own annotations including a brief quote of something Botvinnik said about one of the intermediate positions.  There are no annotations from either of the original players. The litigant is trying to make new law.  If he is successful we will probably no longer be able to post chess games on our website and will have to close down our email news magazine.

We have not been served yet but have been told that a court case has been filed.  I will have more details once I have seen the filings.  I believe that filings in such cases are public record.  We are not the only ones being sued.

I believe a national Canadian and prominent NY paper are also being sued.  I don't want to give assistance to our opponents and fully answering your questions accurately and honestly would do so.  Our statement of defense should answer your questions when it is filed and I plan on making this a very public fight in part to mobilize help with research.  We (CFC - Chess Federation of Canada) are a non-profit with very little in the way of resources though we do have access to a pro bono lawyer and former CFC president who will help us with our filings and arguments.  I suspect that one reason the lawsuit filer picked us is because we are perceived as weak and possibly willing to settle to avoid a fight but I understand the implications if we lose this or settle this at least for chess in Canada. Given that we have previously locked horns (over the FIDE election in 2014 where he was the on and off and on again official chairman of the Kasparov campaign in Canada and I was the CFC president) I don't understand why he would think that we will be a soft touch.

I believe the suit is asking for something like $150 in damages if I can believe emails I have seen.  Perhaps sending this to small claims court is a test run for seeing how such a case might play out against a feeble opponent. I don't know. Its not April Fools Day but maybe this is an elaborate joke.

Words, sounds, chess moves (or notation).

Human mind interferes with words, musical notes, moves then creates books, musical artworks, chess games.

Either the final product is a book, song or a chess game, it is some individual(s) intellectual creation.

If the first two types of creation can be copyrighted then I believe that there must be a solution waiting to be explored/formularized/applied to the chess games.

If the first stone is placed correctly and then, all other stones are putted on top of each previous stone, finally, there is a wall (one stone large) which can even reach to the moon, at least in theory: THe WaLL

I think the claim is that he is doing it for the good of chess and for selfless motives. If you burn everything that is currently established to the ground then something else will have to take its place and perhaps there will be some opportunity in the chaos that ensues.

I have no doubt that we should prevail after some days of reading up on the issue.  I just have to properly prepare our defense.  There are many lines of argument only one of which has to succeed.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3

There are literally tens of thousands of games just on this site alone that open with that sequence. So who should own the copyright there?

Me. There's, like, less than a 0.003% chance I'll try to invoke it for money.*

*Odds apply to any given instance, not the sum of all instances

    For all practical purposes    if you wanted to RE-post something here or on U-Tube, I don't see any problem with that at all. Its not like your gonna make any money off of it. They may be pissed but So What?  Post it with a caveat ****  saying, "this material 1st aired on _________ so and so's tape or book". Give THEM some free publicity. You get more with honey than vinagar.

Dang, there are a lot of people in this thread who know very little about copyright.

Copyright law doesn't care whether you make (or try to make) money off of your republication. Also doesn't matter whether you give credit to the original player(s) of the moves.

This also doesn't matter: "if you can find that game on a online database means that the players joined a tournement which had stated that they will share the games public"

You also don't have to actively "copyright" or register things. What is copyrightable receives a copyright automatically when it is "fixed in a tangible medium" (this includes saving it to a computer's disk or some such)

Chess moves are not copyrightable. The analogy to baseball scores is usable.

But -- as with baseball -- there are organizations trying very hard to confuse people about that. They would very much like everyone to get into the habit of asking permission for everything they do.

http://medialoper.com/warning-those-copyright-warnings-may-not-be-entirely-accurate/

Hi, what about the pgn of a book ? For example a tactics book that have only diagrams, like 5334 chess problems Laslo Polgar or Tactics Time ? I just uploaded the first 100 mate in ones from Polgar book in chessable plataform. I wonder if I can share it or should I make it private.

It probably should be private. I imagine the book is under copyright in most countries. Having it for private use would be fine, allowing others to access it wouldn't be.

I believe copywriter law varies between countries ( national jurisrdictions) unless this had been fixed. One variation is the issue of creative endeavour. In some countries the material must be a creative endeavour for it to be protected by copywrite law.. An example is a business directory listing local businesses. In some countries this can be subject to copywrite which provides some protection to the business producing it. They will have incurred costs compling the directory and do not want it simply copied by a competitor. In other countries a list of facts such as this is not seen as a creative endeavour, so cannot is not protected. Old encyclopedias etc are stuffed with fake facts to detect copywrite infringement. If the consequences might be serious for you then consider seek professional advice.

This is the sort of thing patent attorneys can advise on I believe. Patents, design rights, trade mark, copywrite. It all comes under intellectual property law. Some may provide free initial consultation or offer low cost clinics for small businesses etc. A local small business group may be able to help.

Google something like "sweat of the brow vs creative endeavour" and you'll get some hits.

At the time, I thought Milliern's feedback was helpful.

It might still be helpful, but apparently he needs my support to maintain confidence.

I wonder how he was confident to begin with if more recently it destabilized? It's possible that i'm missing something that he isn't showing me, however. maybe this is a temporary interpretation

i guess having someone to resist can draw out my thoughts via contrast, but him? seriously?

i find that to be kinda disappointing, but also ironic.

In our 2016 case, things dragged out for a period of time and we may have even defaulted because our lawyer did not get a notification of the date while he was out of the country on vacation but apparently a default did not set a precedent so the case just went away.

I'm just wondering if I can use the chess pieces on my chess profile

Here's a helpful article for reference in the U.S.:

Chess and Copyright: A Losing Gambit | Copyright Lately