chess online
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 A legal question about annotations and puzzles |
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baronderkilt 06-Aug-10, 22:29 |
HI, I am no lawyer ... and hope you hear from one. For instance, in the past, say mid-80's one might buy a package deal of Chess software which included an IBM & APPLE disc both, use the one that fit and sell the other, since you were buying a product, not a license. And so it was like buying a dozen pieces of fudge; they could not tell you what you could Do with your fudge, especially if advertising did not include any restrictions. There were Programmers from the time who would hold that you could not resell that duplicate diskette you bought, but they were dreaming cyber-dreams, at that time. There Is an Intellectual Property concept now, as I understand it. But there are still limitations. You cannot copywrite the letter "L", the number "4" but start getting into gray areas with combined letters, names, etc if held to be Trademark for instance. Certain tournament organizers have tried to hold that ScoreSheets were their property in the past. And have you sign an entry giving up copywrites to them. I don't know if that is actually valid however, for the information on them. Or might apply only to the sheet of paper and ink; as is true for personal Medical Records for instance. So I am very interested also, to here what replies you receive here. I wonder too, if State Laws come into effect at all, within the USA, or if all Federal. And also if any International Laws/Agreements would apply. A very interesting Question & Topic sccadams , imo. Regards CAC }8-D PS// It is my 'Guess' that Chess diagrams can probably not be CopyWritten in themselves based upon position show... but PERHAPS the design of the actual Pieces/Figurines could be. And that in the case of "Staunton" pieces, it would be held to be Public Domain from long ago & yet what if someone makes a new design of pieces that appears substantially Staunton ... but different/uniquely stylized, etc? Will that be a gray area? I sure do not know. |
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If you didn't know.... As for the chess games, there should be no problem with annotating a game like Anaad-Topalov 1... look at the 'best annotations' link on this sight and the top rated are GK players annotating GM games For the Anaad-Topalov games, there are some great Youtube annotations of them by a person with the username 'jrobichess'... here's the first game annotation www.youtube.com |
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Some interesting legal points here... With that off my chest, I fail to understand that a game (as played, as distinct from the rules of the game), and the score of the game, can possibly be subject to, or subjected to, copyright. The thing is ludicrous on the face of it, though I do find that a ludicrous position in law has not prevented people from litigating from it, occasionally with success. Even the 'authors' of the game can not claim copyright, as the exact same game might be played quite inadvertently by another pair of opponents. You can see how idiotic this whole gig can become if you were to suppose that Frank Marshall decided to copyright the sequence of moves that comprise his trademark counterattack in the Ruy Lopez. Would that mean no one else could play that sequence? Suppose some kid were to discover the idea. Would that violate copyright? The whole thing is just nuts. However, annotations might well subject to copyright, but in my view that can only apply to style and presentation, that is to say, the comments surrounding any 'hard' analysis and variations that might arise from any given position. Now, reading old anthologies, one forms the distinct impression of punctiliousness about attributing the source of a given piece of analysis, particularly in a difficult position subjected to examination by several analysts. This is honest and good practice. But there is no real question orf copyright, nor even of plagiarism if one fails to acknowledge any such source. One might well have found the line out for oneself. In my annotation of the 1964 Portisch-Tal game under the title 'Flights of Fantasy', I relied heavily on the notes found in the Barden, Hartston and Keene book "The King's Indian Defence" (Batsford). They in turn were citing Aleksandr Kotov's article on the game. I mention this extensively. But you will find additional stuff there I don't cite. Why? Because I found those particular pieces of analysis for myself. It is quite possible Kotov and others had found them also, but I wouldn't know anything about that. So far as I am concerned, that annotation is my own original piece of work overall, however based on others' efforts, duly cited. That's how it should work, I think, were I to include that annotated game in, say, my own published anthology. Quite where it stands placed where it is, I don't know. I certainly wouldn't claim copyright - such a claim probably wouldn't stand anyhow - but could Gameknot claim it? That might be ajn interesting point... |
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