Copyright of game scores (go, chess etc)
Tim Benham
copyright on published two-person game scores? I know the publishers
of things like go cdroms claim to hold copyright on their contents;
yet, if the players of the game haven't assigned copyright to the
publishers, how can this be so? In none of chess tournaments in which
I have played has the organizers asked me to sign any sort of
copyright assignment. If the score of one of my games were
subsequently published (most unlikely, unless it were in the joke
column), could I sue? If I copied game scores from a published
collection (just the scores, not any of the ancillary information and
comment the publisher may have added) could I be sued by the
publisher?
I believe Bobby Fischer unsuccessfully tried to claim copyright over the
scores of his games at one time.
--
People who like this sort of thing
will find this the sort of thing they like.
Tim J.Benham ben...@cs.adfa.oz.au
Kenneth Sloan
>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>copyright on published two-person game scores?
Just a layman's opinion - and worth what you paid for it:
No one owns the copyright on an individual game score, unless the
presentation of the game is in some way original and represents some
creative choice in how to present the score.
>... I know the publishers
>of things like go cdroms claim to hold copyright on their contents;
People *claim* lots of things. In my opinion, the cdrom publisher has a
legitimate claim to the *collection* of games - but no claim on the game
score of an *individual* game. The individual game score is an
objective report of a set of facts. [Now...if the game was not actually
played - but is an artificial composition, then thing change].
>yet, if the players of the game haven't assigned copyright to the
>publishers, how can this be so?
Because the publisher did the collecting, and made choices on which
games to include (and perhaps on how to present them) . It is those
choices which are protected by copyright.
>... In none of chess tournaments in which
>I have played has the organizers asked me to sign any sort of
>copyright assignment. If the score of one of my games were
>subsequently published (most unlikely, unless it were in the joke
>column), could I sue?
You can sue - but I seriously doubt that you will win. An acid test
would be to ask an attorney if they would take this case on a
contingency basis.
>...If I copied game scores from a published
>collection (just the scores, not any of the ancillary information and
>comment the publisher may have added) could I be sued by the
>publisher?
If you copy *all* of the games, then there may be a claim against you
based on a copyright on the collection. If you make your own choices,
and include only the bare facts of each game (who, where, when, what
moves), then you are unlikely to lose and the publisher is unlikely to
even considering suing.
Also, its possible that the *method* of copying may make a difference.
If you photocopy the printed pages, then the publisher may claim that
you have copied its creative decisions on layout, font, etc. Bringing
this into the electronic domain - if the publisher has used a
*particular* format for data storage *and* there is considerable
latitude about *how* to use that format *and* you copy both the
information *and* the representation choices, *then* the publisher may
have a claim.
>
>I believe Bobby Fischer unsuccessfully tried to claim copyright over the
>scores of his games at one time.
Yes, well - even if so, Fischer is not celebrated as one of the
century's great legal minds.
--
Kenneth Sloan Computer and Information Sciences
sl...@cis.uab.edu University of Alabama at Birmingham
(205) 934-2213 115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station
(205) 934-5473 FAX Birmingham, AL 35294-1170
Robert S Orman
in a USCF tournament is tacitly agreeing that ownership of the scoresheets
belongs to the tournament sponsor.
Page 45 of the latest rulebook, rule 15.L: The scoresheets of all games
in a tournament are the property of the sponsoring organization(s). If the
organizer requires that a copy of each game score be submitted by the players,
duplicate scoresheets must be provided, and players who fail to submit
scoresheets may be penalized.
Now, this does not address whether the sponsors or anyone else has the
right to reprint such games, but I believe they do, as it is my recollection
that the courts have found such game scores to be in the public domain.
Tim Smith
>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>copyright on published two-person game scores? I know the publishers
This is going to depend on the country. In the United States, I would
guess that game scores cannot be copyrighted. Annotations *might* be
copyrightable, but the raw list of moves (e.g., "1. e4 e5 2. f4 ef")
almost certainly is uncopyrightable. In the U.S., copyright requires
some creativity. Raw recording of factual data does not qualify, unless
there is something creative about the selection or arrangement of the
data. Simply listing the moves of a game in chronological order is
not very creative.
In Japan, however, I recall reading somewhere that game scores *are*
considered the intellectual property of the players, and selling reprint
rights to newspapers is one of the ways professional players make their
livings.
I've not specifically researched any of this, so beware.
--Tim Smith
Bruce Hayden
>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>copyright on published two-person game scores? I know the publishers
>of things like go cdroms claim to hold copyright on their contents;
>yet, if the players of the game haven't assigned copyright to the
>publishers, how can this be so? In none of chess tournaments in which
>I have played has the organizers asked me to sign any sort of
>copyright assignment. If the score of one of my games were
>subsequently published (most unlikely, unless it were in the joke
>column), could I sue? If I copied game scores from a published
>collection (just the scores, not any of the ancillary information and
>comment the publisher may have added) could I be sued by the
>publisher?
>I believe Bobby Fischer unsuccessfully tried to claim copyright over the
>scores of his games at one time.
>--
I would suspect that game scores lack the requisite expression for
copyright protection. Especially since the Feist case, expression
is required. But then I also suspect that the publishers are also
pushing their claims a little.
Bruce E. Hayden 29330 Lower Moss Rock Road
bha...@csn.org Golden, Colorado 80401
(303) 526-2399 FAX (303) 526-2008
ron house
>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>copyright on published two-person game scores? I know the publishers
>of things like go cdroms claim to hold copyright on their contents;
>yet, if the players of the game haven't assigned copyright to the
>publishers, how can this be so?
Most works have at least two copyrights: My published textbook, for
example, has a copyright of mine over the contents of the book, but
the publisher has a copyright over the form: the cover design, layout,
etc. In your case, the CDROM marketer could assert copyright over the
form of presentation of the information. The facts themselves, however,
could be copyrighted by no-one because the bare fact is a functional
thing - namely the information you need to know what happened, and
function cannot be copyrighted, only form. However, I have heard that
some of these databases put obscure errors in, so that if another
marketer tried to copy the entire lot, they could be snagged violating
the first marketer's copyright over the form - i.e. the entire collation
of facts in the database.
--
Ron House. USQ
(ho...@usq.edu.au) Toowoomba, Australia.
Tim Kimberley
>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>
The game scores are public domain. Annotations, as the intellectual
property of a single author, are copyright controlled.
>I believe Bobby Fischer unsuccessfully tried to claim copyright over the
>scores of his games at one time.
I believe it was Ludwig Prins.
DR. ROY SCHMIDT
: My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
: copyright on published two-person game scores?
This should be in the FAQ, since it seems to come up so often these days.
The game score, in an of itself, cannot be copyrighted. It is simply a
record of a public event.
: I know the publishers
: of things like go cdroms claim to hold copyright on their contents;
: yet, if the players of the game haven't assigned copyright to the
: publishers, how can this be so?
The publisher holds a copyright on the *collection*. The rationale is that
the publisher has applied some unique criteria to select the games in the
collection. If the games have been annotated, then the annotations may be
copyrightable as an individual creative effort. Here I refer to
annotations that are made by the author(s) by their own effort.
Annotations in the form of quotes from other game scores are not, by
definition, newly created work. This is a grey area that would require
some careful work to establish whether the author(s) have a case for
copyright.
: In none of chess tournaments in which
: I have played has the organizers asked me to sign any sort of
: copyright assignment. If the score of one of my games were
: subsequently published (most unlikely, unless it were in the joke
: column), could I sue?
No.
: If I copied game scores from a published
: collection (just the scores, not any of the ancillary information and
: comment the publisher may have added) could I be sued by the
: publisher?
No. Note that most game analyses consist of quotes from games scores
published elsewhere. But if you copied the whole collection, or major
parts of it, and tried to sell it as your work, then you would get sued.
The rationale here is that the publisher did some original work in
selecting the games in the collection. Now, if the collection happens to
be "PCA Championship Series: The Complete Games of the Quarterfinals" then
the publisher cannot claim any special rights to the collection per se,
just the annotations.
--
Roy Schmidt sch...@usthk.ust.hk sch...@uxmail.ust.hk
Business Information Systems Dept, School of Business and Management
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Clearwater Bay, Sai Kung, HONG KONG
Steven Rix
The Copyright Laws of various countries differ, so what is true here
might not be true elsewhere. However, I think that a collection of data
can be copyrighted, even if the elements are easily available. Example:
our local telephone directory lists telephone numbers for most addresses
around Edinburgh. I am free to tell others my own number and address,
yet I would be in breach of copyright if I repackaged the collection in
some way and tried to sell it (for example, on disk). This seems fair
enough, in that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make the data
compilation, even though that required zero creativity, and their work
ought to be copyrighted.
So: for chess, you can circulate individual games if you want, but not
files containing all the games from Fischer's My Sixty Memorable Games.
All non-trivial annotations are of course copyright.
--
Steve Rix (ste...@chemeng.ed.ac.uk)
"A morbid, Edinburgh-based Chemical Engineer" - and no misprint!
Tim Benham
the trend seems to be
1) Noone, not even the players, holds copyright over the scores of games
like chess, at least in english speaking countries.
2) In the US game scores are in the public domain.
3) The publisher of a collection may have copyright over the form and
presentation, and possibly the annotations, but not over the scores
themselves.
4) The selection of works in the collection may be copyright.
So, if I were, for example, wanting to set up an ftp archive consisting
of every Grandmaster game played in the last 10 years, there would be
no legal trouble if I purchased or borrowed however many different
commercial cdroms were necessary and ran a script over them which
strips out the scores and converts them to my standard format.
Furthermore, anyone who owned such a cdrom and made it available to me
for this purpose would not be acting in breach of copyright.
Is this correct?
S. Joel Katz
Can a publisher claim a copyright for the particular text format
he has used to render the game scores? For example, if he makes neat
columns with a particular combination of capital letters and lowercase
letters, numbering each move, and so on. Can he claim a copyright
violation if I take, not just the data, but its particular format as well?
SJK
sohl,william h
>t...@duh.cs.adfa.oz.au (Tim Benham) writes:
>
>>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>>copyright on published two-person game scores? I know the publishers
>>of things like go cdroms claim to hold copyright on their contents;
>>yet, if the players of the game haven't assigned copyright to the
>>publishers, how can this be so?
>
>form of presentation of the information. The facts themselves, however,
>could be copyrighted by no-one because the bare fact is a functional
>thing - namely the information you need to know what happened, and
>function cannot be copyrighted, only form. However, I have heard that
>some of these databases put obscure errors in, so that if another
>marketer tried to copy the entire lot, they could be snagged violating
>the first marketer's copyright over the form - i.e. the entire collation
>of facts in the database.
As everyone else has generally asserted, factual data isn't
generally copyrightable. As to the form of such data, remember too
that the form would require an expression of creativity. Thus,
simply listing scores of several games in a manner that is
commonplace would not (IMHO) represent any creative expression.
By example: each day the sports news reports the baseball scores
of those teams that played.....
Yankees 5
Dodgers 3
White Sox 6
Phillies 9
That represents nothing creative as that is the only logical way
to identify the scores and, that is the way such scores have been
identified for many years. So, while form may be copyrightable,
it too needs an element of creative expression and can't (IMHO)
simply be claimed as copyright protected because it is arranged
in an obvious way.
Again, not a lawyer, just an interested participant on such matters:-)
Standard Disclaimer- Any opinions, etc. are mine and NOT my employer's.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Sohl (K2UNK) BELLCORE (Bell Communications Research, Inc.)
Morristown, NJ email via UUCP bcr!cc!whs70
201-829-2879 Weekdays email via Internet wh...@cc.bellcore.com
Hank Murphy
>
>
>
>The Copyright Laws of various countries differ, so what is true here
>might not be true elsewhere. However, I think that a collection of data
>can be copyrighted, even if the elements are easily available. Example:
>our local telephone directory lists telephone numbers for most addresses
>around Edinburgh. I am free to tell others my own number and address,
>yet I would be in breach of copyright if I repackaged the collection in
>some way and tried to sell it (for example, on disk). This seems fair
>enough, in that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make the data
>compilation, even though that required zero creativity, and their work
>ought to be copyrighted.
The analogy about the Telephone book is not correct as a case was just
report on in the papers where the phone company lost against a commercial
vendor who published it own yellow pages using the phone companies published
yellow pages.
Hank
Steven Rix
In article <2vd7v9$3...@panix.com>, mu...@nbnet.nb.ca (Hank Murphy) writes:
->On 4 Jul 1994 23:40:34 -0400, ste...@chemical-eng.edinburgh.ac.uk writes:
->>
->>The Copyright Laws of various countries differ, so what is true here
->>might not be true elsewhere. However, I think that a collection of data
->>can be copyrighted, even if the elements are easily available. Example:
->>our local telephone directory lists telephone numbers for most addresses
->>around Edinburgh...
->
-> The analogy about the Telephone book is not correct as a case was just
->report on in the papers where the phone company lost against a commercial
->vendor who published it own yellow pages using the phone companies published
->yellow pages.
Look, I said that "The Copyright Laws of various countries differ, so
what is true here might not be true elsewhere." Telephone directories
have been mentioned before in this type of discussion. Maybe Laws differ?
Radford Neal
>Thanks to the many who have responded to my question so far. So far
>the trend seems to be
>
>1) Noone, not even the players, holds copyright over the scores of games
> like chess, at least in english speaking countries.
In article <2v80gh$m...@panix.com>, ron house <ho...@helios.usq.edu.au> wrote:
>As everyone else has generally asserted, factual data isn't
>generally copyrightable.
I know nothing about this, really, but I don't see how this makes any
legal sense. Can I take a video camera to a baseball game, make a
"factual record" of the events on the field, and then sell copies?
Can I go to a play, make a "factual record" of the words uttered by
the actors, and publish this? I think not.
If I and another player decide to publish a book of exciting Go games,
which we create by playing against each other in private, surely the
result must be copyrightable, under any reasonable law. I don't see
why the fact that a tournament game is played in public should make so
much difference.
Radford Neal
John F Carr
Radford Neal <rad...@cs.toronto.edu> wrote:
>>As everyone else has generally asserted, factual data isn't
>>generally copyrightable.
>I know nothing about this, really, but I don't see how this makes any
>legal sense. Can I take a video camera to a baseball game, make a
>"factual record" of the events on the field, and then sell copies?
I think you can do this without violating copyright law. You might be
violating your contract with the ballpark managers (check the fine
print on the ticket and signs posted near entrances, or listen to the
security guards telling you to stop).
A few years ago an important play at a baseball game at Fenway Park in
Boston occurred out of sight of the TV cameras. There was some
question about the umpire's call, but video taken by a fan who saw the
play was broadcast by local TV news to show that the call was correct.
I haven't heard of any claims of copyright violation in this case.
As far as I know a video like this would be copyrighted by the person
who made it, not the teams or owners; the "factual data" not protected
by copyright would be "the batter flied out to the right fielder
Brunansky and the Red Sox won the game and the AL East".
--
John Carr (j...@mit.edu)
Tim Smith
>I know nothing about this, really, but I don't see how this makes any
>legal sense. Can I take a video camera to a baseball game, make a
>"factual record" of the events on the field, and then sell copies?
There would be no copyright problem if you did. However, you might
run into other legal problems. Many states protect one's "right of
publicity", and your actions would violate that right of the baseball
teams.
A perhaps relevant case is Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co.,
433 U.S. 562 (1977). In that case, a TV station taped Zacchini's act
at a county fair. Zacchini was a "human cannonball" and they recorded
the entire act and showed it on the news. Zacchini was upset and sued.
The Supreme Court got into the act to determine whether the First and
Fourteenth Amendments protected the TV station here, and the conclusion
was that they do not.
It's quite possible that a game score might be protected under such
a theory, especially if the players are professional players who
expect to make money by selling copies of the game.
>Can I go to a play, make a "factual record" of the words uttered by
>the actors, and publish this? I think not.
Here you would have a copyright problem. The play is copyrighted.
Performing the play or making copies of a performance would violate
that copyright.
>If I and another player decide to publish a book of exciting Go games,
>which we create by playing against each other in private, surely the
>result must be copyrightable, under any reasonable law. I don't see
>why the fact that a tournament game is played in public should make so
>much difference.
Copyrighted games could lead to some serious problems. How small an
element of the game would be protected? If you came up with a new tesuji,
would I be unable to use that in my games without your permission? How
about a new joseki?
--Tim Smith
Hal Bogner
>In article <2vd7ok$2...@panix.com> t...@duh.cs.adfa.oz.au (Tim Benham) writes:
>
>>Thanks to the many who have responded to my question so far. So far
>>the trend seems to be
>>
>>1) Noone, not even the players, holds copyright over the scores of games
>> like chess, at least in english speaking countries.
>
>In article <2v80gh$m...@panix.com>, ron house <ho...@helios.usq.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>As everyone else has generally asserted, factual data isn't
>>generally copyrightable.
>
>
>I know nothing about this, really, but I don't see how this makes any
>legal sense. Can I take a video camera to a baseball game, make a
>"factual record" of the events on the field, and then sell copies?
>Can I go to a play, make a "factual record" of the words uttered by
>the actors, and publish this? I think not.
I'm afraid you're right - you do know nothing about this. The video of the
baseball game would indeed be yours to exploit as you liked if you got it from
outside the stadium. I believe, though, that you enter into an agreement when
you buy your ticket not to undertake to videotape the game. But the game
itslef takes place in public view, and cannot be copyrighted.
The play, on the other hand, is a copyrighted expression of the its author.
The performance of the play, likewise, may be a copyrightable expresion of the
actors.
>
>If I and another player decide to publish a book of exciting Go games,
>which we create by playing against each other in private, surely the
>result must be copyrightable, under any reasonable law. I don't see
>why the fact that a tournament game is played in public should make so
>much difference.
>
The problem is simply that the moves of a game played by one player against
another are not recognised as being an intellectual creation worthy of
protection.
> Radford Neal
Andrew Koenig
> So, if I were, for example, wanting to set up an ftp archive consisting
> of every Grandmaster game played in the last 10 years, there would be
> no legal trouble if I purchased or borrowed however many different
> commercial cdroms were necessary and ran a script over them which
> strips out the scores and converts them to my standard format.
I wonder about the following scenario.
Suppose I sit down and invent something that looks like a game
score (legal moves and all that) but is deliberately constructed
so that no sane player would play that way. I now claim that
this `game' is a work of fiction and copyright it as such.
If you copied the entire contents of a CDROM with that `game'
on it, it might give me the opportunity to sue you for copyright
violation. I would hate to have to defend such a lawsuit.
--
--Andrew Koenig
a...@research.att.com
Jonathan Cano
>Thanks to the many who have responded to my question so far. So far
>the trend seems to be
>1) Noone, not even the players, holds copyright over the scores of games
> like chess, at least in english speaking countries.
>2) In the US game scores are in the public domain.
I know that this is nitpicking but most of the people I talk with
usually refer to the list of moves made by the players as a
game_record and, like in many sports, the word score usually refers to
the "final score" e.g. Cho won by 3 1/2.
----------------
Imagine some of the rediculous ramifications that *could* be possible
if game records were copyrightable:
a copyright allow the holder to control (partial and complete)
reproduction of their copyrighted material and derivative works of
their material.
Pro players might need to license joseki's from the person that holds
the copyright on the game in which the joseki first appeared.
Better yet, allow people to patent tesujis:
Bob "Earl, your game has really improved. I like that eye
stealing tesuji you played in the upper right corner."
Earl "Thanks Bob, my mom gave me a site license for 'important
killing tesuji: volume 1' for my birthday"
Bob "Boy are you lucky! I can only afford to buy one or two
tesuji licenses a month. Can I look at it for a sec?"
Earl "Sure, but only if you promise not to play any of them. I
don't want to get busted for pirating ..."
I'm sure you folks can think of some more humorous ramifications so
lets here 'em.
--jfc
--
============================================================================
| Jonathan Cano | <here's another pesky signature virus>
| jona...@cats.ucsc.edu | LINUX: the choice of a GNU generation!
| on IGS: jonathan 11k*
============================================================================
Radford Neal
>Copyrighted games could lead to some serious problems. How small an
>element of the game would be protected? If you came up with a new tesuji,
>would I be unable to use that in my games without your permission? How
>about a new joseki?
I don't think this would be any more of a problem than for copyrighted
music. The courts must decide just how long a snippet of melody has
to be before it is something that can be copyrighted.
I've always assumed that a basic principle of copyright was that the
thing copyrighted had to be very unlikely to be created independently
by someone else. E.g. you can't copyright the idea of a story about
Martian invaders, but you can copyright "War of the Worlds", which
contains many detailed decisions about plot, character, etc.
A Joseki is the sort of thing that many people could come up with
independently. An entire Go game, perhaps including such a Joseki as
just a small part, is not the sort of thing that re-occurs, unless the
players are deliberately mimicking a past game.
Radford Neal
Radford Neal
>... The video of the
>baseball game would indeed be yours to exploit as you liked if you got it
>from outside the stadium. ... The play, on the other hand, is a copyrighted
>expression of the its author. The performance of the play, likewise, may
>be a copyrightable expresion of the actors.
But this is just a blatant assertion - you say that videotaping the baseball
game doesn't violate copyright because baseball games aren't copyrightable,
but videotaping the play does violate copyright because plays are
copyrightable. But the whole question is whether, indeed, baseball (or go)
games really are uncopyrightable.
>The problem is simply that the moves of a game played by one player against
>another are not recognised as being an intellectual creation worthy of
>protection.
This gets closer to a real reason why courts might regard go games as
uncopyrightable, but I don't see it. I'm not at all sure that intellectual
content is required for copyright, and if it is, it would seem that go
games qualify as much as anything.
Radford Neal
Steven Rix
->>I know nothing about this, really, but I don't see how this makes any
->>legal sense. Can I take a video camera to a baseball game, make a
->>"factual record" of the events on the field, and then sell copies?
->>Can I go to a play, make a "factual record" of the words uttered by
->>the actors, and publish this? I think not.
Well, in chess, the moves of a game ARE a factual record, in different
terms, of what happened. 1 e4 means that White commenced from the initial
position by effecting the advance of the pawn which started in front of
his king two squares forward. Algebraic Notation is just a shorthand way
of representing what happened, and you can't copyright a news item.
Similarly, you could superimpose a grid on a baseball diamond and describe
where the ball was pitched, where the fielders were when the strike was
made and where the ball was hit (which square it went into). But that's not
the same as breaching a contract with the organisers of the game, whereby
in return for admission, you are agreeing not to record the match on video
and sell copies of the tape afterwards (as Hal Bogner pointed out). You
don't have to sign anything; a contract is made when you go into a shop
and purchase a Snickers bar for $0.40 (or whatever), as the shop is
guaranteeing that the goods are of merchantable quality, etc, without
anything having to be signed.
ron house
There a restrictions to the use of copyright. It is intended to protect
literary, artistic, and other creations by protecting the form of the
expression. Now consider a championship Go game. The game happened.
The record of the moves played is nothing more or less than news, and
to truthfully report the news is everybody's right. But consider a
fictional Go game invented by an expert to illustrate certain techniques.
The record of this game is a literary creation, fully entitled to
copyright protection.
You can copyright form, but not utility. In the first case, the form is
the only way to report the substance of the event, and that is
sufficient to invalidate any copyright on the form. As for plays, which
someone mentioned, the performance is itself a form, entitled to
copyright. As the events in a play did not actually happen, the
question of the utility of reporting an event does not occur (unless, say,
an actor collapsed and died during the performance, in which case a film
of the event would have a utility value as a report of the occurrence).
Steven R. Clark
: > So, if I were, for example, wanting to set up an ftp archive consisting
: > of every Grandmaster game played in the last 10 years, there would be
: > no legal trouble if I purchased or borrowed however many different
: > commercial cdroms were necessary and ran a script over them which
: > strips out the scores and converts them to my standard format.
: I wonder about the following scenario.
: Suppose I sit down and invent something that looks like a game
: score (legal moves and all that) but is deliberately constructed
: so that no sane player would play that way. I now claim that
: this `game' is a work of fiction and copyright it as such.
The sanity or otherwise of a player is not a useable feature in the
copyright arguement. 'Works' have copyright subsisting in them on
creation - a copyright notice is only added to indicate that you
claim the work as yours and therefore the copyright in the work.
Your 'claim' in copyright would need to be substatiated in this case
since there appears to be no right to it inherent in creating what
you might call a sane set of moves. One could easily argue that you
have played a game, that your work is infact the score sheet for a
game - one which you have played with yourself and therefore falls
into the same category as any other game.
By the way. Copyright protects the expression of an idea. Not the
idea itself. That requires a patent. A book may be copyrighted, but
the ideas in the book would be difficult to protect - the text is
an expression of an idea, so the wording is covered. You can reword :)
: If you copied the entire contents of a CDROM with that `game'
: on it, it might give me the opportunity to sue you for copyright
: violation. I would hate to have to defend such a lawsuit.
If I had the chance, I'd give it a go. But then, I'm not a lawyer.
: --
: --Andrew Koenig
: a...@research.att.com
Steven R. Clark
cl...@cleese.apana.org.au
Its not the Law so much that is hard to understand, its the lawyers and
judges who alway seem to make everything harder that it really needs to be.
src94
Bob Sloane
> As everyone else has generally asserted, factual data isn't
> generally copyrightable. As to the form of such data, remember too
> that the form would require an expression of creativity. Thus,
> simply listing scores of several games in a manner that is
> commonplace would not (IMHO) represent any creative expression.
I always find it amusing that every game I play on the server is
emailed to me with with the following included:
CoPyright[
Copyright (c) Tim L. Casey 1994
Permission to reproduce this game is given, provided proper credit is given.
No warrantee, implied or explicit, is understood.
Use of this game is an understanding and agreement of this notice.
]
It appears that Tim thinks that games can be copyrighted, and that
furthermore, he owns all all the games played on the server.
--
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: slo...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, slo...@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444
Seth Breidbart
>In article <2v3rn1$d...@panix.com>, Tim Benham <t...@duh.cs.adfa.oz.au> wrote:
>>My question to the collective wisdom of the net is this: who owns the
>>copyright on published two-person game scores? I know the publishers
>
>This is going to depend on the country. In the United States, I would
>guess that game scores cannot be copyrighted. Annotations *might* be
>copyrightable, but the raw list of moves (e.g., "1. e4 e5 2. f4 ef")
>almost certainly is uncopyrightable. In the U.S., copyright requires
>some creativity. Raw recording of factual data does not qualify, unless
>there is something creative about the selection or arrangement of the
>data. Simply listing the moves of a game in chronological order is
>not very creative.
But _playing_ the game is creative; therefore, I would guess that the
copyright to the game (of which the score is clearly a derivative
work) belongs jointly to the two players.
>In Japan, however, I recall reading somewhere that game scores *are*
>considered the intellectual property of the players, and selling reprint
>rights to newspapers is one of the ways professional players make their
>livings.
Why wouldn't that apply here?
Seth
Jim Prall
>The problem is simply that the moves of a game played by one player against
>another are not recognised as being an intellectual creation worthy of
>protection.
>> Radford Neal
And that sounds like a real shame, on first reading.
Surely those of us who love chess or go feel great respect for
the intellectual work that goes into a well-played game. Now,
although the moves are obviously a collaboration (at cross-purposes!)
of the two contestants, they have a great deal of creative
energy invested in them. Do any of us feel that the players
of the game ought to hold copyright on the sequence of moves,
jointly or separately, or whatever? It's never been handled
that way that I've ever heard of. (Imagine the disclaimers
the tournament director would have to get you to sign...)
Maybe the phrase "not... worthy of protection" is overly negative.
Could we not view this instead as "The moves of a game have not
received copyright protection, despite their creativity and
originality, due to historical accident, and perhaps the awkward
problem of dividing the copyright between the two competitors."
I dont suppose we could have "winner get copyright" either. :-)
Indeed, I suppose the only workable approach is to allow
the party that first publishes a record of a game to have
copyright on the record, if at all. I missed some of the
earliest bits of this thread (but I got a lot). Has any
game record publisher been trying to enforce copyright on
the record of the actual sequence of moves, without a
complaint arising from copying the exact compilation
(exact same style and formatting, or whatever?)
I have not read any law in this area. I infer from vague
impressions that chess books treat move sequences of public
tournaments as public records, although the commentary must
surely be eligible for copyright.
There is not much leeway for "restating in your own words"
the sequence of moves of a game, which was the key phrase
I learned as the way to avoid plagiarism. It seems to me
that chess books and go books reproduce the sequence of moves
of famous games freely in the course of discussing and
adding commentary.
--
-- Jim Prall "We'll jump off that bridge
-- Trigraph, Inc., Toronto, CANADA when we come to it."
-- jimp%trigra...@csri.utoronto.ca
Jim Prall
>Copyrighted games could lead to some serious problems. How small an
>element of the game would be protected? If you came up with a new tesuji,
>would I be unable to use that in my games without your permission? How
>about a new joseki?
>--Tim Smith
This is a new twist! "Hey, copy-cat, copy-cat, I thought of that
move first! You'll be hearing from my lawyer." I think not.
I think that playing a move must be different from publishing
a record of the play of that move, so it's a different problem.
But we all realise that move sequences are part of the collective
body of skill that makes up a game as a shared social experience.
Since we have no existing practice of giving copyright on moves
themselves to the person that played them, we quote moves and
sequences (perhaps with a tribute to the originator) freely
and without legal worries. And if a type of move or sequence
is valid or useful, is natural for players to incorporate it
having seen it played, or read it.
But the fallacy of composition applies: you cannot copyright
any one word, but you can copyright a book. So that does not
rule out the hypothetical case of a copyright on the moves
of a complete game. This would give you no claim on a
copyright on the publishing (or the playing, Tim :-) of
the sequences, openings, gambits, etc. that made up that game.
This distinction is a pretty sound one, to me. It's simply
that our societies never felt compelled to establish copyright
law for whole games as they have done for plays, books, videos,
songs, etc. (but not for typefaces, somehow.) I like the
status quo, since I am a consumer of game records and not
a producer of desirable ones (my IGS rank is 4 kyu and I
dont get time to play nearly enough!). Also I can see the
point that games are played, not written, and the goal is
not to produce a record for others to read but to beat
the opponent.
The sports analogy is useful. Pro sports teams put on a
public performance and charge admission. The (TV or radio) record
of the performance is copyright by the league as they always
remind us during the last few minutes as they get the credits
rolling... They put a contract on the admission tickets to
keep their monopoly on recording the event, and they license
media photographers to take stills from the front row for
a fee. I guess they give the league the copyright so that
they dont have to fuddle with dividing it between two teams.
The teams do not write anything, they compete. But the
event of them competing is something many of us like to
watch, and teams make their money off of selling access
to that good.
Pro chess and go players make a living off of tournament
prizes, but I dont know if much of the take is made up
by any admission or publishing rights! What profit do
tournament sponsors use to justify putting up the money for
such prizes? Publicity. (And maybe also a touch of fan-dom.)
I guess they had big contracts for TV rights of a few
top chess matches like Fisher v. Spassky. It starts to
look like the _organizer_ of a public tournament may be
in a position to assert copyright over the recording of
the event, instead of the players.
Tim Smith
>>The problem is simply that the moves of a game played by one player against
>>another are not recognised as being an intellectual creation worthy of
>>protection.
>And that sounds like a real shame, on first reading.
>Surely those of us who love chess or go feel great respect for
>the intellectual work that goes into a well-played game. Now,
>Maybe the phrase "not... worthy of protection" is overly negative.
>Could we not view this instead as "The moves of a game have not
>received copyright protection, despite their creativity and
>originality, due to historical accident, and perhaps the awkward
>problem of dividing the copyright between the two competitors."
I too dislike the characterization as not being "worthy" of protection.
If they cannot be protected by copyright, it is not because they are
somehow not worthy, but rather because copyright is not appropriate.
Intellectual property law in general does not provide protection for
ideas. Rather, it provides protection for things related to ideas.
Copyright protects the expression of ideas. Patents protect the use
of ideas. Trade secrets protect the unauthorized disclosure of ideas.
(Hmmm...I can't think of how to relate trademarks to ideas).
Intellectual property law does not cover all areas of creative activity.
For example, putting together a parade is creative. The arrangement
of floats and participants can be a form of artistic expression. Yet,
the one case I found where someone tried to copyright a parade found
that parades were not subject to copyright protection. They simply
do not fall into any of the categories that copyright is meant to cover.
The courts have decided that a certain amount of creativity is required
for copyright. What that means is not that the idea must be creative.
It is the *expression* of the idea that must be creative. A creative
expression of an uncreative idea can be copyrighted, and an uncreative
expression of a creative idea might fail to be copyrightable.
Another thing sometimes considered in copyright cases is whether the
expression can be separated from the idea. If it cannot, then the
expression probably cannot be copyrighted. The idea here is that
one is not allowed to monopolize the idea by copyrighting the only
reasonable expression of that idea. This can be seen on some of
the cases that dealt with copyright of video game displays. A game
that was an almost exact copy of "Asteroids" was not a copyright
infringement, whereas a game that was similar to, but quite different
from, "Pac-Man" was an infringement. The difference is that "Asteroids"
is pretty much the minimal possible expression of the idea. Any other
minimal expression of the idea is going to be almost the same. "Pac-Man",
on the other hand, is but one of many ways to implement the idea of
"be chased or chase monsters in a maze". Someone else implementing that
idea can do so without producing something at all similar to "Pac-Man".
It currently seems to me that games simply do not fall into any of
the categories that copyright is applicable to in the United States.
Game scores fall into the category of literary works, but game scores
don't have any creativity--it's the public domain game that contains
the creativity--the game score is an uncreative expression of that
game.
If I can find my copyright professor, I'll see what he has to say.
--Tim Smith
aesop
> In article <2v80gh$m...@panix.com>, ron house <ho...@helios.usq.edu.au> wrote:
>
> >As everyone else has generally asserted, factual data isn't
> >generally copyrightable.
>
>
> I know nothing about this, really, but I don't see how this makes any
> legal sense. Can I take a video camera to a baseball game, make a
> "factual record" of the events on the field, and then sell copies?
> Can I go to a play, make a "factual record" of the words uttered by
> the actors, and publish this? I think not.
>
> If I and another player decide to publish a book of exciting Go games,
> which we create by playing against each other in private, surely the
> result must be copyrightable, under any reasonable law. I don't see
> why the fact that a tournament game is played in public should make so
> much difference.
>
The distinction here rests upon principles stemming from guilds and
trade unions. Professionals operate upon a different set of guidelines
since their survival as professionals depends upon protections given
to their income source. You may sell videotape of Little League games
but not professional baseball. You may cite selections of a play
(up to 10% for educational purposes) or single quote lines for
promotional publications.
You may publish the game score and results from any tournament game
since the moves of a game are not copyrightable. You may not publish
extensive commentaries or remarks made by the players without their
permission since such publications may interfere with the professional
player's copyright to publication.
- aesop
Radford Neal
>There a restrictions to the use of copyright. It is intended to protect
>literary, artistic, and other creations by protecting the form of the
>expression. Now consider a championship Go game. The game happened.
>The record of the moves played is nothing more or less than news, and
>to truthfully report the news is everybody's right.
So if I come across Stephen King sitting on the beach, typing out
his latest blockbuster novel on a typewriter, in full view of
the sunbathing public, I can report the sequence of words he
types? After all, the content of his next novel must surely be
considered news...
Radford Neal
aesop
> A Joseki is the sort of thing that many people could come up with
> independently. An entire Go game, perhaps including such a Joseki as
> just a small part, is not the sort of thing that re-occurs, unless the
> players are deliberately mimicking a past game.
Even applied to an "entire game" the record of moves is not
copyright. To put an end to this "can of worms" one can locate
the references for copyright guidelines in the legal literature
at your local law library. Commentaries are copyright not because
they apply to a game but because they are copyrightable simply as
commentaries/remarks generally.
- aesop
F2F...@vm.biu.ac.il
on a game score. You would have to prove that it was an innovation,
that noone has played it before.
_______ Einstein: "God does not play dice with the Universe.
/\ o o o\ What do you think Irwin?"
/o \ o o o\_______
< >------> o /| Schroedinger: "C'mon, seven....gimmme a seven. Papa
\ o/ o /_____/o| needs a new pair of shoes."
\/______/ |oo| Oren Bochman
| o |o/ Email: or...@lib-science.hu.biu.ac.il
|_______|/ Or f2f...@vm.biu.ac.il
Bar Ilan University -- Mathematics, Physics & Information Science.
Tim Smith
>I think that there would be one major poroblem in getting copyright
>on a game score. You would have to prove that it was an innovation,
>that noone has played it before.
You're mixing up patents and copyrights.
> _______ Einstein: "God does not play dice with the Universe.
> /\ o o o\ What do you think Irwin?"
> /o \ o o o\_______
> < >------> o /| Schroedinger: "C'mon, seven....gimmme a seven. Papa
> \ o/ o /_____/o| needs a new pair of shoes."
> \/______/ |oo| Oren Bochman
Not to be overly picky, but on most dice, the side with 1 spot is opposite
the side with 6 spots.
--Tim Smith
Peter Anton
: In article <house.773633726@helios> ho...@helios.usq.EDU.AU (ron house)
: Writes
: So if I come across Stephen King sitting on the beach, typing out
: his latest blockbuster novel on a typewriter, in full view of
: the sunbathing public, I can report the sequence of words he
: types? After all, the content of his next novel must surely be
: considered news...
: Radford Neal
out lists of moves to a game, say between Karpov and Kasparov,
pointing to the white moves and trying to take credit for them.
This is the chess analogy to taking a set of words penned
by the brilliant yet chilling Mr. King and trying to take credit
for them.
What is at issue here is not the actual moves (chess) or words
(literature) but the right to reprint and redistribute
the information and possibly make a profit from them.
In the case of literature, copyright laws apply simply because
the person who writes the words (or more often the publisher
who pays the author) chooses to reserve the rights
at issue.
In the case of sporting events, like rugby (weak men and women need
not apply), the videotaping of the event, with the artistic
shots chosen by the producers and the brilliant commentaries
provided by the boneheads in the booth, can be considered
copyright-able. But the score of the game, including information like
who scored when, who got injured, when I ran on the field
for the first time, how often I shoved my elbow in someone's face,
and how many stitches he got while we drank mightily after the game
are facts which do not fall under copyright laws. They are news.
You can go around telling everyone you want what happened,
even charge 'em a fee for the info, without paying royalties.
But you can't charge people for viewing you pirated copy of the video,
taped off of cable on your home VCR, without prior written
consent from the BLAH BLAH LEGAL MUMBO JUMBO.
So if we bring this undeniably true analogy to chess:
You can freely redistribute the information of who moved
when, but you cannot freely redistribute videotapes of the
games, pictures taken during the game (or after, unless
the photographer wishes it).
You can redistribute facts. You cannot redistibute someone
else's record of the facts (unless they let you).
Now flame me. I ain't no lawyer.
LadyJ1719
writes an excellent explanation of the *current* copyright interpretation
on chess movelists (commonly called "scores" in most English-speaking
countries).
The courts have already ruled on this one, so it's not open to
interpretative debate at this point.
The box score for a baseball game is not subject to copyright. A
videotape of it *is* because it depends, at least in part, on the
viewpoint of the cameraperson--that is, there is selection involved in
what to record and how to record it. Even something as simple as zoom or
no zoom might be done differently by two people.
The score, which can be reported in any medium without change, is the
unedited record of the game, and has already been ruled as not subject to
copyright for that reason.
If you want to change it at this point, you need to work on changing the
copyright laws.
--j
ron house
If your "article" said something like "I saw Stephen King type a 'T', then
an 'h', then an 'e', then a space, then..." I think you might win the case.
But I won't be reading your article. :-)
Seriously, how are you going to remember it without taking an illegal copy?
Terry Carroll
Tim Smith <t...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
[many interesting and accurate comments deleted]
>It currently seems to me that games simply do not fall into any of
>the categories that copyright is applicable to in the United States.
>Game scores fall into the category of literary works, but game scores
>don't have any creativity--it's the public domain game that contains
>the creativity--the game score is an uncreative expression of that
>game.
Just to clarify, there are no categries into which a work must fall in
order to be copyrighted. Copyright vests in any work of authorship fixed
in a tangible medium of expression. Section 102 lists a number of
categories that are included in the definition of "works of authorship,"
but the list is not exclusive. If you can make an argument that a
patttern of game moves is a work of "authorship" (which is kind of
tricky, since there is no definition in the copyright act), then that
pattern is copyrighted, even if there is no category listed to which it
corresponds.
--
Terry Carroll |
Santa Clara, CA | "If it ain't in Gilbert's, it ain't the law."
carr...@netcom.com | - B.T. Collins
ron house
>but the list is not exclusive. If you can make an argument that a
>patttern of game moves is a work of "authorship" (which is kind of
>tricky, since there is no definition in the copyright act), then that
>pattern is copyrighted, even if there is no category listed to which it
>corresponds.
To report a newsworthy event such as a public championship Go game,
only one possible sequence of moves is correct. That makes it a
work of utility, which copyright does not cover.
Terry Carroll
>carr...@netcom.com (Terry Carroll) writes:
>
>>but the list is not exclusive. If you can make an argument that a
>>patttern of game moves is a work of "authorship" (which is kind of
>>tricky, since there is no definition in the copyright act), then that
>>pattern is copyrighted, even if there is no category listed to which it
>>corresponds.
>
>To report a newsworthy event such as a public championship Go game,
>only one possible sequence of moves is correct. That makes it a
>work of utility, which copyright does not cover.
Well, my point was limited to Tim's comment from which I inferred that he
believed the list of works in section 106 of the U.S. copyright law was
an exhaustive list of categories of protected works.
On your point, that's slightly inaccurate, at least under U.S. law.
What you describe is the doctrine of "merger." Under merger, if a
noncopyrightable matter can be described or depicted in only one way,
then that description or depiction, even though it would normally be
copyrightable, is said to "merge" with the noncopyrightable matter, and
is not subject to copyright. My favorite example of this involved a set
of lines depicting a pipeline on a map.
Contrast this with the useful article doctrine. In the U.S., a useful
article is defined as an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function
that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article to convey
information. Here, the description of the game moves is to convey
information, and so the useful article doctrine does not apply. Even if
it did, a work depicted in a useful article may still be protected if the
expression is "conceptually separable" from the utilitarian aspect.
Also, by terms of the statute, the useful articles doctrine is limited to
pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works. I think that this is because
those were the obvious examples. Congress in the 1960s and early 1970s
did not really think of the possibility of a literary work that was also a
useful article. In retrospect, we can see that a computer program is just
such an article. Unfortunately, courts have not seemed to pick up on this
and import the useful article doctrine from the p, g & s works and apply
it to computer programs. But I digress.
At a more basic level, I think you are conflating the pattern of game
moves and the reported description of them. You indicate that the report
would be a useful article, and therefore the object of the report would
not be copyrightable. Actually, what you want to look at is whether the
object of the report (not the report itself) was not copyrightable (either
as not being a work of authorship (my personal leaning), or within the
merger or useful article exceptions).
If (and I take no stand on this issue -- I know enough about copyright law
to recognize a close call requiring research when I see one; my gut feel,
though, is that a pattern of play is not a "work of authorship" and hence
is not subject to copyright), the game moves are considered a work of
authorship, then a report that incorporated that pattern would no more be
immune from infringement liability then, to use the example someone else
posted, would be a report that said "Stephen King wrote the following in
his latest novel:" followed by the text of his novel.
Radford Neal
>>>There a restrictions to the use of copyright. It is intended to protect
>>>literary, artistic, and other creations by protecting the form of the
>>>expression. Now consider a championship Go game. The game happened.
>>>The record of the moves played is nothing more or less than news, and
>>>to truthfully report the news is everybody's right.
>
>>So if I come across Stephen King sitting on the beach, typing out
>>his latest blockbuster novel on a typewriter, in full view of
>>the sunbathing public, I can report the sequence of words he
>>types? After all, the content of his next novel must surely be
>>considered news...
>
>If your "article" said something like "I saw Stephen King type a 'T', then
>an 'h', then an 'e', then a space, then..." I think you might win the case.
>But I won't be reading your article. :-)
>
>Seriously, how are you going to remember it without taking an illegal copy?
My point is that an assertion that publishing a record of a go game
does not violate copyright on the grounds that it simply reports facts
misses the whole point. Obviously, a factual report of a series of
events is immune to copyright only if the sequence of events reported
does not constitute a physical embodiment of copyrighted information.
A factual report of the sequence of words typed by an author, or
spoken by an actor, does not qualify. Whether a factual report of the
sequence of moves played in a go game would violate copyright depends
on whether the sequence of moves is copyrightable information. That
the sequence of moves was actually played, and hence is embodied in a
sequence of physical events, is irrelevant, since all information has
some sort of physcial embodiment.
Radford Neal
Radford Neal
>carr...@netcom.com (Terry Carroll) writes:
>To report a newsworthy event such as a public championship Go game,
>only one possible sequence of moves is correct. That makes it a
>work of utility, which copyright does not cover.
To report a newsworthy event such as the first public performance
of a new play, only one possible sequence of words is a correct
representation of the dialogue. That makes it a work of utility,
which copyright does not cover.
WRONG! You are just assuming your conclusion, that the moves of
a go game do not constitute copyrightable information, and hence
are merely news. This argument has no force to anyone who doesn't
already believe its conclusion.
Radford Neal
ron house
>If (and I take no stand on this issue -- I know enough about copyright law
>to recognize a close call requiring research when I see one; my gut feel,
>though, is that a pattern of play is not a "work of authorship" and hence
>is not subject to copyright), the game moves are considered a work of
>authorship, then a report that incorporated that pattern would no more be
>immune from infringement liability then, to use the example someone else
>posted, would be a report that said "Stephen King wrote the following in
>his latest novel:" followed by the text of his novel.
I think this gets to the main point of the problem, and I agree with your
'gut feel'. The distinction, it seems to me, is between a designed
performance and an event. A play is a designed performance. A public Go
game is a contest; a Go player has no more copyright in a Go game than
a boxer would have if a reporter wrote "Joe Bloe was knocked flat in
the fifth round." Does Joe have a copyright over his getting knocked
flat? I think not. Similarly for "Joe Koe was defeated when he made the
following moves in a game of Go...". (Of course, a designed exhibition
match to prearranged moves would have a better chance of being grouped
with plays and other copyrightable material.)
Radford Neal
>... The distinction, it seems to me, is between a designed
>performance and an event. A play is a designed performance. A public Go
>game is a contest...
I've seen plays in which the dialogue was entirely improvised by the
actors, with each actor presumably reacting to the other actors'
improvisations. Jazz performances are improvised to a considerable
degree, with the players reacting to each others decisions. I would
expect that both of these performances are copyrightable. Why would a
Go game be any different? The only apparent distinction is that the Go
players are acting, in one sense, at cross-purposes, whereas the actors
and Jazz players are cooperating. I can't see why this difference should
be so important.
>... a Go player has no more copyright in a Go game than
>a boxer would have if a reporter wrote "Joe Bloe was knocked flat in
>the fifth round."
Even if go games are copyrightable, the reporter would no doubt be
allowed to write "Joe Bloe's moyo was invaded by his opponent on the
97th move", just as they can write "Joe Bloe's novel takes a dark
turn in the fifth chapter". The issue is whether publishing a complete
(or substantially complete) record of the game would violate copyright.
Radford Neal
Edwin Scheepmaker
>Does Joe have a copyright over his getting knocked
>flat? I think not.
Have you ever tried bringing a video camera or a radio transmitter to a
boxing match? You'll find out soon enough that someone thinks he has a
copyright, and he'll probably be right.
I guess copyright is meant as a reward on an effort. In games like chess or GO
there are only two outputs: first the moves and the score and second the
struggling athletes. Since the latter is completely uninteresting, from a
commercial point of view, a player would like to think he had copyright on the
sequence of moves like (anyway in Holland) there is a copyright on dictionaries.
Does a player invent a 'word' or does he 'write a piece of poetry'? What about
the Enceaclopedia of chess? Is that a dictionary or an enceaclopedia?
The discussion seems to be analogue to the discussion on copyright on mathemat-
ical formulas. I would say that you do not have a right on copyright if your
material represents a discovery. In my opinion copyright belongs to an artistic
achievement, all the other things that might ought to be protected or rewarded
need to be protected with a patent. Can you imagine in chess that you are not
allowed to play a variant because your opponent has the patent??
What about the inventor of the game? Did he not write all the variants by
inventing it? The only copyright that the player has is his performance in the
game. The real game is in the head of the player and therefore the question of
copyright is not a real question.
Edwin Scheepmaker
Chess, what a wretched game; aren't there enough problems in the world?
Stephen Carlson
>Also, by terms of the statute, the useful articles doctrine is limited to
>pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works. I think that this is because
>those were the obvious examples. Congress in the 1960s and early 1970s
>did not really think of the possibility of a literary work that was also a
>useful article. In retrospect, we can see that a computer program is just
>such an article. Unfortunately, courts have not seemed to pick up on this
>and import the useful article doctrine from the p, g & s works and apply
>it to computer programs. But I digress.
To continue your digression, Judge Keeton refused to apply the useful article
doctrine to computer programs in Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Paperback Software Int'l,
740 F. Supp. 37 (D. Mass. 1990). For a law review article that argues the
other way, see Keith A. Overstreet, Note, Copyrightable Expression in the User
Interface of a Computer Program: Lotus Development Corp. v. Paperback Software
International, 18 RUTGERS COMPUTER & TECH. L.J. 941 (1992).
Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc.
s...@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr.
(703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA
Clark Brooks
Radford Neal <rad...@cs.toronto.edu> wrote:
>.... Jazz performances are improvised to a considerable
>expect that both of these performances are copyrightable. Why would a
>Go game be any different? The only apparent distinction is that the Go
>players are acting, in one sense, at cross-purposes, whereas the actors
>and Jazz players are cooperating. I can't see why this difference should
>be so important.
I have no legal expertise, but I'll inject some superfluous digression...
The naive idea that Jazz performers are invariably more cooperative
in their performance than Go players must come from someone with
little actual Jazz performance experience. ;-)
I often feel my games to be cooperative performance art. And I regularly
feel a pitch of competitiveness during improvisational performance
which beggars comparison with the goban. (Let's talk stakes here -
the number of MOTAS impressed by a fiery solo dwarfs the total number
who have ever heard of 'tesuji' :-) And hostility - you haven't
gone over the edge until your rhythm section changes time signature
in the middle of your solo.
-- Clark
3-dan master of the syncopated dominant
2-kyu student of the chest-reddining tesuji
CHUA YEOW HOOI
Copyright protects the expression and not the substance of a work. The scores of the game comes closer
to the substance rather than the expression. It is similar to news, one could copyright a news report
because there are various method of expressing the news but one can't copyright the actual news.
Similarly, the score is closer to the subject matter unless someone choses to express a game in lucid and
descriptive language.
Svetlana
Timothy Allen
an announcement like the following:
All descriptions or accounts of this game belong to the
XXX team and are intended solely for the private
enjoyment of the listening audience.
Usually, recording and rebroadcasting are prohibited.
David Forthoffer
I record the game as, "1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qf7 mate."
I add "Copyright 1994 David and Jim". I think this is a valid
copyright. Although it is a factual recording of an actual event,
no one else had the right to record that event. It is the factual
recording of something created by Jim and me.
If I showed the copyrighted game score to someone else, and they
published this as a game between David and Jim with these moves,
it would be violating my copyright.
Suppose later, two people in a public tournament played the same
moves, without being aware of my document. They would not be copying
my document. They would be entitled to make a record of their game:
"1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qf7 mate", without violating my
copyright.
Observers to this public game could also make the same recording.
They would be making a factual recording of a publicly-recordable
event. They would not be copying my document.
If I copyright and publish some complex analysis, and someone
reads my analysis and plays my moves in a game, it would be an issue
of fact whether they copied my moves versus came up with the moves
some other way. I would think it would be extremely difficult to
prove they copied my moves.
In summary, most games we're interested in cannot be copyrighted,
though some games can be. And copyrighting a game does not stop
someone from independently coming up with and playing those moves
in a game.
--
David Forthoffer NEC Technologies Printer Division
dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com 110 Rio Robles, San Jose CA 95134
"I'm not speaking for NEC unless I explicitly say so."
LadyJ1719
Forthoffer) writes that if he played a game in the privacy of his own
home, that added the phrase "copyright Jim and David" it would be a valid
copyright.
Unfortunately, not as copyright law has currently been interpreted.
That's why magazines like CHESS LIFE, NEW IN CHESS, etc. can print game
scores without having to pay royalties to those who played them.
Again, this isn't a philosophical position--it's the one currently in
force, and in use in publishing. Any commentary is copyrightable, and
cannot be reproduced--any written record of the moves of the game, no
matter who played it or where, is not.
This was one of the big issues for the some of the original GM
organizations in the early 80's, around when the revised US copyright law
was being interpreted, but the interpretation has stood, despite attempts
to have it changed, for at least 10 years.
If you want it enforced differently, I'm afraid that at this point you
will need to work to change the law.
--J
Anders Thulin
>improvisations. Jazz performances are improvised to a considerable
>degree, with the players reacting to each others decisions. I would
>expect that both of these performances are copyrightable.
Perhaps, but in these cases the purpose of the improvisation is to
produce an artistic or literary work.
> Why would a Go
game be any different? The only apparent distinction is that the Go
>players are acting, in one sense, at cross-purposes, whereas the actors
>and Jazz players are cooperating. I can't see why this difference should
>be so important.
What is the purpose of a Go game or a chess game? To fight, to be at
cross-purposes, and perhaps also to win. There is no plan to produce
a literary work -- to produce a beautiful game. Thus, any `literary'
pretenses are entirely secondary to the main purpose of the game.
There are beauty-prizes, for artistic games yes. (In chess at least
-- don't know about Go) But I know of no such prize to be awarded
*both* players for their joint work of art. Should copyright then be
similarly restricted to the most artistic player? Who decides who that
will be? Any why should someone decide? That would probably be a new
thing in copyright protection - copyright by committee decision.
The difference you mention is very likely the prime reason that
prevents Go (and chess) games from being copyrighted. Most games are
fights. Now look at those literary works that can be copyrighted:
most books, statues, houses are *not* the result of a fight, a
competition between two rivalling authors, or architects.
There seem to be two ways out of this:
either demonstrate why games are sufficiently similar to already
copyrightable literary and artistic works to merit being
copyrightable on the same grounds.
or show that the entire idea of copyrighting is too narrow, and need
to be extended to include any direct competition. But games are only
one type of these ... the concept probably needs to cover *all* of
them.
I've heard of `wars' being fought over copyrights, but I hope I never
will see a war fought in order to get the copyright on it.
--
Anders Thulin a...@linkoping.trab.se 013-23 55 32
Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
David Forthoffer
: What is the purpose of a Go game or a chess game? To fight, to be at
: cross-purposes, and perhaps also to win. There is no plan to produce
: a literary work -- to produce a beautiful game.
Speak for yourself. I often try to produce beautiful games.
: There are beauty-prizes, for artistic games yes. (In chess at least
: -- don't know about Go) But I know of no such prize to be awarded
: *both* players for their joint work of art.
So what? Does one have to be compensated for producing a work
before it can be copyrighted? Of course not. That answers your
other questions.
: The difference you mention is very likely the prime reason that
: prevents Go (and chess) games from being copyrighted. Most games are
: fights.
So what? Records of fights can be copyrighted. Look at the TV footage
for boxing, or wars.
: either demonstrate why games are sufficiently similar to already
: copyrightable literary and artistic works to merit being
: copyrightable on the same grounds.
The comparison of game records with obviously-copyrightable works
should be made in terms of copyright law. I don't recall that
copyright law has any restrictions about records of fights.
: or show that the entire idea of copyrighting is too narrow, and need
: to be extended to include any direct competition.
Whether the entire idea of copyrighting is to narrow had nothing to do
with whether a work is copyrightable under current copyright law.
It has to do with possible future legislation.
I think the reason it is impractical to copyright most game records is
because one person copyrighting a record of a publicly-recordable
game does not stop another person from making their own record of
the same game. The second person's record can be identical to the
first person's record without violating copyright because it is the
standard way of making a factual record of that event.
David Forthoffer
: dav...@atherton.com (David Forthoffer) writes that
: home, that added the phrase "copyright Jim and David" it would be a valid
: copyright.
:
: Unfortunately, not as copyright law has currently been interpreted.
: That's why magazines like CHESS LIFE, NEW IN CHESS, etc. can print game
: scores without having to pay royalties to those who played them.
Is that what the law *says*?
Or is that what some court has *ruled*?
If the latter, do you happen to have some cites?
: If you want it enforced differently, I'm afraid that at this point you
: will need to work to change the law.
It's not obvious to me yet whether it *is* the law!
Radford Neal
>I think the reason it is impractical to copyright most game records is
>because one person copyrighting a record of a publicly-recordable
>game does not stop another person from making their own record of
>the same game. The second person's record can be identical to the
>first person's record without violating copyright because it is the
>standard way of making a factual record of that event.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but let me point out one final
time that this argument is totally invalid.
It it *were* valid, it would mean that one could attent a public
performance of a play, make a "factual record" of the dialogue, and
publish this without fear of infringing copyright. Since this is
clearly false, the argument must be wrong.
Put another way, you are simply *assuming* that the sequence of moves
in a game is not copyrightable, and hence is something that anyone can
report as news, but whether this is in fact the case is the whole
point at issue.
Radford Neal
Michael Sullivan
Tim Smith <t...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>All three reporters in this example have to worry about the copyright on
>the play itself. Note in particular that even though reporter 1's
>transcript is in the public domain, the *play* is not. This means
>that if you want to copy that transcript, you don't need reporter
>1's permission, but you do need the play owner's permission.
Radford's point, I believe. If the game record is copyrightable, then the
equivalent of reporter 1 would infringe, just as reporter 1 is infringing
on the play's copyright. You've been worrying about the differences
between recordings of the game and whether *they* are copyrightable,
instead of offering an opinion on the game itself. (Which fortunately
you attempt below)
>Now, getting back to chess and go, there are two questions we must
>consider. (1) Can a game be copyrighted? (2) Can a game score
>be copyrighted?
>(2) is probably easy. A game score lacks originality. It should not
>be copyrightable.
From the standpoint of someone who knows only the spirit of copyright
law, and not the nooks and crannies of the decisions, I don't think that
(2) should be easy unless (1) is. Unlike other things, the game record
of a chess or go game is a nearly complete description of the game. And
it *is* complete as far as the game universe is concerned. This is
unlike a baseball game, where the stats could fit many entirely different
games, which just happened to get the same order batters out in the same
way. The chances of a stat record being duplicated randomly may be
vanishingly small, but the game would not necessarily be the same.
In go or chess this is not the case. If two players play all the same
moves over again -- they have in fact played the same game. The game
record is a complete description. You aren't likely to play the game
again without the record. In fact, it is a much more complete
description of a game, than the dialogue and scene descriptions are of a
play.
You may be correct that a game/game record isn't copyrightable, from the
opinions of many here, you probably are, but it is certainly not
self-evident that it shouldn't be.
>the event), but the fixation of the work in a tangible medium of
>expression, by or under the authority of the author. This means
>that if you and I were to play a game, and not record it, no copyright
>would be created--just playing the moves on the board would not be
>a fixation in a tangible medium of expression. If a third party
[....]
>place, so it has been suggested that if one were, say, giving an
>improvisational performance, and one wanted it to be copyrighted,
>one could keep an open phone line in the theatre to a remote location.
>That would count as a broadcast. Then, one could record the performance
>locally, and that would count as a simultaneous fixation of the broadcast,
>and one would get copyright. This is a kludge.)
Why isn't the performance itself a tangible fixation? Or for that matter
the play of the game. Are the stones not tangible? You are using a
different definition of tangible than I do (which may quite possibly be
more correct as regards copyright law). I would regard intangible the
play/game forming in an author/player's mind. Once it is
performed/played, it would be tangible.
Mike
--
________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sullivan (Society for the Incurably Pompous) m...@pcnet.com
"Life is like a sewer -- what you get out of it, depends on what you put
into it." -- Tom Lehrer.
Tim Smith
>>To report a newsworthy event such as a public championship Go game,
>>only one possible sequence of moves is correct. That makes it a
>>work of utility, which copyright does not cover.
>
>To report a newsworthy event such as the first public performance
>of a new play, only one possible sequence of words is a correct
>representation of the dialogue. That makes it a work of utility,
>which copyright does not cover.
I think you're failing to distinguish between possible copyright in the
game and possible copyright in the game score. Let's take an old game
of chess (old enough that even if games can be copyrighted, this one
has fallen into the public domain). If I published a copy of that
game like this:
1. P-K4 P-K4
2. P-KB4 PxP
...
then I could not claim any copyright in my work. You could freely copy
this with no fear of liability for copyright infringement. On the other
hand, if I published that same public domain game like this:
Elmer the Pawn stood proudly in front of the White King,
reveling in the honor that was soon to be his--the honor of
being the first of White's loyal soldiers to thrust forword
toward the evil Black King.
Suddenly, the moment came, and Elmer lept forward. It was
a mighty leap, carrying him forward two full sqaures. He stood
at the front line, practically in enemey territory.
The Black King quickly sent his lacky, Boris the Pawn, forward
to block Elmer. Elmer was terrified, and prayed for assistence.
His prayers were answered when the King's Bishop sent his
alter boy, Clarence the Pawn, forward to stand by Elmer's side.
Elmer's relief was short lived. Boris suddenly thrust forward
and sideways, obliterating poor Clarence. To add insult to
injury, Clarence was not allowed to rest in peace. His
body was lifted from the battlefield and rudely slamed
into the shinning brass button on the clock.
...
then I *could* claim copyright. My copyright would extend only to my
expression of the game, though, not to the game itself, so you could
read the above, and publish
1. e4 e5
2. f4 ef
...
with no fear in your heart.
The differnce between my two hypothetical publications is that in the
first, I simply reported the moves in one of the will known formats.
There is not enough creativity there to allow for copyright.
Now let's replace the public domain old game of chess with something
copyrighted, such as that play you used as an example. Suppose that
reporter 1 transcribes the dialog. Reporter 2 describes the play in
detail, in his own words. Reporter 3 copies the work of reporters 1
and 2. Reporter 1 would have no copyright claim against reported 3.
Reporter 2, however, would have a copyright claim, because his work was
more than just an uncreative transcript of the play.
All three reporters in this example have to worry about the copyright on
the play itself. Note in particular that even though reporter 1's
transcript is in the public domain, the *play* is not. This means
that if you want to copy that transcript, you don't need reporter
1's permission, but you do need the play owner's permission.
Now, getting back to chess and go, there are two questions we must
consider. (1) Can a game be copyrighted? (2) Can a game score
be copyrighted?
(2) is probably easy. A game score lacks originality. It should not
be copyrightable.
(1) is the more difficult question. I think the answer here is that
the game cannot be copyrighted. The reason is not lack of originalty.
The reason is that it is not something that copyright was meant to
cover. Originally, copyright only covered a few limited forms of
expression (e.g., in the U.S., it started with books, maps, and
charts). Over time, new categories were added (e.g., music, films),
and the courts managed to construe things fairly widely. However, I
don't think it's become wide enough to include games.
By the way, even if games can be the subject of copyright, there are
still some problems. For example, in the U.S., the event that
causes the copyright to spring into existence is not the creation
of the work (although it is a common misconception that that is
the event), but the fixation of the work in a tangible medium of
expression, by or under the authority of the author. This means
that if you and I were to play a game, and not record it, no copyright
would be created--just playing the moves on the board would not be
a fixation in a tangible medium of expression. If a third party
were watching, and prepared a score of the game (either from memory,
or by writing down the moves as we played them), that third party
could freely use that score. We didn't fix the game, and so no
copyright attached.
(I'm not sure what happens if you and I later record the game. I'm
not sure if copyright then attaches, or if the game was injected into
the public domain when we played it in front of spectators.)
(By the way, there is an exception to the fixation requirement for live
broadcasts. If a live broadcast is simultaneously fixed by or under
the authority of the author, it's treated as if the fixation occurred
before the broadcast. "Broadcast" just means transmitted to some other
place, so it has been suggested that if one were, say, giving an
improvisational performance, and one wanted it to be copyrighted,
one could keep an open phone line in the theatre to a remote location.
That would count as a broadcast. Then, one could record the performance
locally, and that would count as a simultaneous fixation of the broadcast,
and one would get copyright. This is a kludge.)
--Tim Smith
Tim Smith
>I hate to sound like a broken record, but let me point out one final
>time that this argument is totally invalid.
>
>It it *were* valid, it would mean that one could attent a public
>performance of a play, make a "factual record" of the dialogue, and
>publish this without fear of infringing copyright. Since this is
>clearly false, the argument must be wrong.
Your play analogy is not analogous. The play is copyrighted *before*
the performance. It became copyrighted when the author of the play wrote
it (not when he created it--copyright springs into existence when the
work is fixed in a tanglible medium of expression).
If the game can be copyrighted, that copyright can only come into
existence as the moves are recorded by the players. It's not clear
to me what the consequences of playing the game in public are--it might
make it public domain. (This is also a problem faced with improvisational
works).
--Tim Smith
Radford Neal
>>I hate to sound like a broken record, but let me point out one final
>>time that this argument is totally invalid.
>>
>>It it *were* valid, it would mean that one could attent a public
>>performance of a play, make a "factual record" of the dialogue, and
>>publish this without fear of infringing copyright. Since this is
>>clearly false, the argument must be wrong.
>Your play analogy is not analogous. The play is copyrighted *before*
>the performance. It became copyrighted when the author of the play wrote
>it (not when he created it--copyright springs into existence when the
>work is fixed in a tanglible medium of expression).
So on this theory, the game might be copyright if the players, or their
agent, recorded the moves as they made them? Surely this would be
the case whenever the matter might become an issue. Or perhaps you
think they could be copyright only if the players wrote down each
move *before* playing it on the board? But wouldn't making a distinction
on the basis of the ordering of these two almost simultaneous events be
rather silly?
It's all irrelevant to my point, anyway. I'm not certain that games are
copyrightable. I'm just certain that the argument about it being OK
to make "factual records" is bunk. It's circular. You have to argue
on other grounds that the game does not constitute copyright information.
Radford Neal
Terry Carroll
Again, though, that is a reference to the description/account, not the
plays of the game itself.
I think that there's a case on point here, that a baseball game is not
copyrightable. Check out Baltimore Orioles, Inc. v. Major League
Baseball Players Ass'n, 805 F.2d 663 (7th Cir. 1986). I haven't read it
recently - the only reason I have the cite handy is because I cited it
for another proposition in an article I wrote.
--
Terry Carroll | I survived the Great California Bar
Santa Clara, CA | Exam of Summer 1994, and all I got was
carr...@netcom.com | this lousy .signature.
Terry Carroll
Radford Neal <rad...@cs.toronto.edu> wrote:
>In article <31fkmd$8...@news.u.washington.edu> t...@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
>
>>Your play analogy is not analogous. The play is copyrighted *before*
>>the performance. It became copyrighted when the author of the play wrote
>>it (not when he created it--copyright springs into existence when the
>>work is fixed in a tanglible medium of expression).
>
>So on this theory, the game might be copyright if the players, or their
>agent, recorded the moves as they made them?
No. In the U.S., there are two requirements for a work to be copyrighted:
1) it must be a work of authorship;
2) it must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression by authorty of the
author.
Tim is pointing out that the play meets both prior to the hypothetical
report of its contents.
A go or chess game probably does not meet the first, and even if it meets
the second, that will not confer copyrightability on it.
Radford Neal
>>>Your play analogy is not analogous. The play is copyrighted *before*
>>>the performance. It became copyrighted when the author of the play wrote
>>>it (not when he created it--copyright springs into existence when the
>>>work is fixed in a tanglible medium of expression).
>>
>>So on this theory, the game might be copyright if the players, or their
>>agent, recorded the moves as they made them?
>
>No. In the U.S., there are two requirements for a work to be copyrighted:
>
>1) it must be a work of authorship;
>2) it must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression by authorty of the
>author.
>
>Tim is pointing out that the play meets both prior to the hypothetical
>report of its contents.
>
>A go or chess game probably does not meet the first, and even if it meets
>the second, that will not confer copyrightability on it.
So, to summarize, the argument was first made that recording a go game
can't violate copyright because it is a "factual record" of events. I
pointed out that this argument is nonsense, since other factual
records of events do indeed violate copyright. It was then claimed
that a go game can't be copyright because it isn't recorded in a
"tangible medium of expression". I pointed out that in any case of
interest, the players (or someone they delegate) will indeed be
writing the moves down.
Now it is claimed that a go or chess game probably does not meet the
requirement that it be a "work of authorship", though no argument to
this effect has been given. However, I expect that in a few days,
someone will claim that a go game can't be a "work of authorship"
because it's just a "factual record of events".
Radford Neal
Terry Carroll
unrelated questions, and that's what's making it tough.
Q1 is: what is required for copyright;
Q2 is: what is required to infringe a copyright;
In article <94Jul31.17...@neuron.ai.toronto.edu>,
Radford Neal <rad...@cs.toronto.edu> wrote:
>So, to summarize, the argument was first made that recording a go game
>can't violate copyright because it is a "factual record" of events. I
>pointed out that this argument is nonsense, since other factual
>records of events do indeed violate copyright.
That goes to Q2.
> It was then claimed
>that a go game can't be copyright because it isn't recorded in a
>"tangible medium of expression". I pointed out that in any case of
>interest, the players (or someone they delegate) will indeed be
>writing the moves down.
That goes to Q1.
>Now it is claimed that a go or chess game probably does not meet the
>requirement that it be a "work of authorship", though no argument to
>this effect has been given. However, I expect that in a few days,
>someone will claim that a go game can't be a "work of authorship"
>because it's just a "factual record of events".
I won't give an argument that a go or chess game is not w "work of
authorship," although I suspect that it is not. The term is unfortunately
not defined in the copyright statute. However, again, if I remember
correctly, the Baltimore Orioles case whose citation I posted earlier
did, I believe, hold that a baseball game (not the account or depiction
of it, but the play of the game itself) was not a work of authorship
(again, I'd have to reread to be sure, because I haven't read the case in
about a year).
However, the moves in a game are facts. Plain old facts. I cannot
imagine a way of fixing the game in a tangible medium of expression in
such a way that the expressive portion of the game-play could be
protected while still leaving the facts in the public domain. And under
U.S. copyright law, if that's the case, then the copyright fails, because
copyright will not protect facts.
Terry Carroll
Edwin Scheepmaker <ed...@cvi.ns.nl> wrote:
>
>Have you ever tried bringing a video camera or a radio transmitter to a
>boxing match? You'll find out soon enough that someone thinks he has a
>copyright, and he'll probably be right.
No, that only means that he has a right to exclude someone from bringing
in a video camera or a radio transmitter. That's wholly unrelated to
copyright.
Radford Neal
>I won't give an argument that a go or chess game is not a "work of
>authorship," although I suspect that it is not...
>
>However, the moves in a game are facts. Plain old facts. I cannot
>imagine a way of fixing the game in a tangible medium of expression in
>such a way that the expressive portion of the game-play could be
>protected while still leaving the facts in the public domain. And under
>U.S. copyright law, if that's the case, then the copyright fails, because
>copyright will not protect facts.
The actions taken and words spoken by players on a stage are facts.
Plain old facts. I cannot imagine a way of fixing the actions of the
players in a tangible medium of expression (e.g. a script) in such a
way that the expressive portion of the play could be protectd while
still leaving the facts in the public domain. And under U.S.
copyright law, if that's the case, then the copyright fails, because
copyright will not protect facts...
BZZZT. Circular argument. All sorts of facts cannot be reported without
infringing copyright. Like the facts about exactly where the ink is
on the pages of this novel... Obviously, you can report facts only as
long as they are not a tangible expression of a copyrighted work, and
whether this is the case for a go game is exactly the matter under dispute.
Records of go and chess games are rather strange "reports of facts" in
any case. They aren't along the lines of "Joe picked up a black stone
with his left hand, and loudly smacked it down on the central point of
the board". Moves are quite deliberately reported at a high level of
abstraction, with everything suppressed except the abstract information
that determines the course of the games according to a set of abstract
rules - that is, the report contains *only* the information that one might
well be able to argue is copyrightable.
Radford Neal
Radford Neal
>I think the reason it is impractical to copyright most game records is
>because one person copyrighting a record of a publicly-recordable
>game does not stop another person from making their own record of
>the same game.
>A public performance of a play is an example of what is *not*
>a publicly-recordable event. That's why I said, "publicly recordable".
>Your argument concerning making a "factual record" of the dialogue
>is clearly inapplicable, so your argument must be wrong.
*Why* are "most game records" "publicly recordable", even though a
play is not? You are just *asserting* that this is the case, without
advancing any reason why it should be.
One reason why a go game *might* be "publicly recordable", is that for
some *other* reason go games might not be copyrightable. However, if
we were for this other reason to decide that go games are not copyrightable,
that would be the end of the matter - we wouldn't need the "factual record"
argument at that point! The only role of the "factual record" bit is to
obscure the issue.
Radford Neal
David Forthoffer
: dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com (David Forthoffer) writes:
:
: >I think the reason it is impractical to copyright most game records is
: >because one person copyrighting a record of a publicly-recordable
: >game does not stop another person from making their own record of
: >the same game. The second person's record can be identical to the
: >first person's record without violating copyright because it is the
: >standard way of making a factual record of that event.
:
: I hate to sound like a broken record, but let me point out one final
: time that this argument is totally invalid.
:
: It it *were* valid, it would mean that one could attent a public
: performance of a play, make a "factual record" of the dialogue, and
: publish this without fear of infringing copyright. Since this is
: clearly false, the argument must be wrong.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but let me point out one final
time that this argument is totally invalid.
A public performance of a play is an example of what is *not*
a publicly-recordable event. That's why I said, "publicly recordable".
Your argument concerning making a "factual record" of the dialogue
is clearly inapplicable, so your argument must be wrong.
--
David Forthoffer
:
: In the U.S., there are two requirements for a work to be copyrighted:
:
: 1) it must be a work of authorship;
: 2) it must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression by authorty of the
: author.
: A go or chess game probably does not meet the first, and even if it meets
So why isn't a go or chess game a work of two authors?
Michael Sullivan
Radford Neal <rad...@cs.toronto.edu> wrote:
>One reason why a go game *might* be "publicly recordable", is that for
>some *other* reason go games might not be copyrightable. However, if
>we were for this other reason to decide that go games are not copyrightable,
>that would be the end of the matter - we wouldn't need the "factual record"
>argument at that point! The only role of the "factual record" bit is to
>obscure the issue.
I share your frustration with the immense quantity of circular argument on
this question... but others have answered the main question already.
There is an *other* reason that go games are not copyrightable. By some
definition of the law, games are not considered copyrightable material.
Lord knows what the reasoning was, but it has been determined so
arbitrarily and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.
Or so the argument went. I don't recall a specific statute or case
being referred to, however. Someone really should come up with one
instead of wasting time with specious analogies, so that we can end this
argument.
Mark S. Hathaway
Perhaps we would have to return to the olde way of describing the moves
of a game. For example,...
At the start of the game the beastie raised his hairy hand and throttled
it's king's pawn. He moved it forward two squares and, with a smashing
motion, brought it down onto that square. He proceeded to grind the poor
pawn into the square until it felt bad (the felt came off it's bottom).
The audience gasped, the arbiter's mouth was agape, the opponent simply
studied the situation. Then the goliath farted, rose from his chair and
stalked off the stage while groaning loudly.
The player of the Black pieces thought seriously for a moment, screwed up
his face in delight and played his queen's bishop's pawn forward one
square with the most delicate touch of his long thin manicured hand. He
then rested back in his chair, laced his fingers over his chest and began
rocking gently back and forth while smiling at the audience. He was
clearly gleeful at having played the most gentle finesse known in all of
the game of chesse.
"et cetera et cetera et cetera" - The King of Siam in _The_King_and_I_
Mark S. Hathaway <hath...@muvms6.mu.wvnet.edu>
Jim Prall
or reading them in books. I don't think anyone would want
to assert that "you can't use that opening/move/gambit, that's\
MY idea!" Games like chess and go are not like writig or music
there is no sense of "plagiarism" to say you cannot repeat
a good move or sequence you saw or read that someone else
originated. The object is not to be original, but to win
games. You are not creating a performance to amuse the
audience, and critics can't claim "oh, that's unoriginal"
if the move improves your position.
The one reason well-worn good moves might not help you
win is that everyone else has studied them and the good
answers to them. Original moves can take a game in
unexpected and untried directions, forcing your opponent
to read more deeply rather than just respond by rote.
--
-- Jim Prall "We'll jump off that bridge
-- Trigraph, Inc., Toronto, CANADA when we come to it."
-- jimp%trigra...@csri.utoronto.ca
Anders Thulin
>: What is the purpose of a Go game or a chess game? [...]
>: There is no plan to produce
>: a literary work -- to produce a beautiful game.
>
>Speak for yourself. I often try to produce beautiful games.
That may be. I'm not concerned with quirks in individuals. Nor should
copyright law be -- at present it does *not* ask: did the author try
to write a beautiful book? Or was he just out to get money for food?
Copyright is awarded no matter what the authors intention was.
>So what? Records of fights can be copyrighted. Look at the TV footage
>for boxing, or wars.
Yes, but that is *both* a record, as well as a running commentary, or
other 'added value'. Annotations if you like. No-one disputes
copyright on those. (Films are also one step removed: there's usually
an editor who 'adds value' by selecting just what part of the total
footage shall be part of the final show. Again, this selection is
probably enough to get copyright.)
But the fight itself -- the 'score' -- is not copyrightable as far as
I can find.
>The comparison of game records with obviously-copyrightable works
>should be made in terms of copyright law. I don't recall that
>copyright law has any restrictions about records of fights.
Copyright is awarded to artistic, literary and scientific works. Is a
fight or some other direct competition either of those? This is the
central problem. I suspect it isn't. But only a court of law can
decide. It would be interesting to know if this has been disputed
already.
>the same game. The second person's record can be identical to the
>first person's record without violating copyright because it is the
>standard way of making a factual record of that event.
If such is the case, copyright is not awarded. There has to be some
individuality involved, as in annotations. Just plain recording of
moves would be done in essentially the same way by anyone. So, no
copyright. Sweat of the brow alone does not produce anything
copyrightable.
As always, this is based on my personal understanding of copyright. I
could easily be wrong.
Steven Rix
In article <1994Aug4.0...@linkoping.trab.se>, a...@linkoping.trab.se (Anders Thulin) writes:
->In article <31c3ue$r...@elvis.syl.sj.nec.com> dav...@atherton.com (David Forthoffer) writes:
->>
->>the same game. The second person's record can be identical to the
->>first person's record without violating copyright because it is the
->>standard way of making a factual record of that event.
->
->If such is the case, copyright is not awarded. There has to be some
->individuality involved, as in annotations. Just plain recording of
->moves would be done in essentially the same way by anyone. So, no
->copyright. Sweat of the brow alone does not produce anything
->copyrightable.
What can be copyrighted as far as annotations are concerned? In chess,
after 1. f4 e5, can I copyright the note "Not now 2. g4 Qh4 mate" and
prevent other people from making the same observation? Okay, maybe I
would not the first to observe that, but when a game has just been
played (say, from the Candidates tournament in India) there might be
an incentive to publish a series of banal comments because I know that
this new game has not been annotated before AND will be annotated in
many publications in the future.
Can I copyright only a set of annotations, or each one individually?
Do my annotations need to be deep and creative?
--
Steve Rix (ste...@chemeng.ed.ac.uk)
"A morbid, Edinburgh-based Chemical Engineer" - and no misprint!
Mark S. Hathaway
>> In article <31fjqh$8...@news.u.washington.edu>,
>> Tim Smith <t...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>> Now, getting back to chess and go, there are two questions we must
>> consider.
>>
>> (1) Can a game be copyrighted?
>>
>> (2) Can a game score be copyrighted?
IMHO
A copyright, as I understand it, is used to name the owner(s) of
intellectual property. To become the owner(s) one must be able to
show they are in fact the creator(s) of the intellectual property
or that they have purchased the intellectual property rights from
the prior owner. I doubt that anyone would require proof that there
was "creativity" required to create the property.
So, in regard to a chess game we could say that the people who play
a game have, by the act of moving the pieces (or otherwise noting
the movement of the pieces), created at least this one instance of
these moves. It may be a repetition of the same moves played by
other people, but when these people play them they are still indeed
playing them of their own will (no discussion of "free will" please).
It's the act of playing them rather than an act of "creativity" that
is relevant.
That means the players should be declared the owners of the game.
How is that game presented? If someone else films them playing the
game then surely that person's time and efforts should give them
some share of the ownership of the film. Surely, also, the efforts
of an event organizer would give them some share of the ownership
of any game(s) played during the event they've created. A financial
sponsor, likewise, has an interest in the results of their investment.
How these entities decide to share the intellectual property rights
to a game should be decided by them and no other body.
When a newspaper reports that Player A has beaten Player B they have
reported the bare-bones facts that something has occurred and that
this x is the result of that occurrence. The written game score
(moves) is a presentation form that's been used for centuries in
lieu of modern video filming. Those moves couldn't be recorded or
written had they not been played. Therefore, the players and the
organizer and sponsor(s) and the reporter(s) share ownership of
that game score.
Historically this hasn't been recognized and book authors, magazines,
and newspapers have made money while the players have reaped nothing
from the publicity of the game scores. Players have normally been
awarded monies based on their results and/or otherwise compensated by
the event organizer(s) upon completion of the event. And when they
turn author or game annotator they have been paid royalties or in a
lump sum. But, that's for their annotations and other writing "about
the game".
It is generally recognized that the players are compensated and awarded
for their efforts by any prize monies at the event and that the game
score is immediately placed in the public domain. We have all benefitted
from this generally accepted practice.
If an event was held secretly and filmed with perhaps verbal annotations
of the players to be presented as a package (say on a VCR tape) to the
public then the entities which created that package should be able to
share in the profits of its sale to the public without it (the package)
becoming public domain. The raw game scores, once publicly known, would
however still become public domain - according to historical practice.
In other words, things are cool - don't rock the boat. :-)
Mark S. Hathaway <hath...@muvms6.mu.wvnet.edu>