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Open letter to ChessBase

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mig

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Jan 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/9/97
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Get'em Ed! What's next, are they going to try and stop people from telling
each other the moves in the club? Game scores have long been considered
public domain, and even identical bare-bones annotation (Informator-style
perhaps) is insufficient to prove "stealing" as obviously two annotators
could come to identical conclusions.
What can they copyright? The players' names? Their Elo? The location,
maybe? Ridiculous. Maybe a player could then sue another player who
repeated his moves over the board! Maybe Miguel Najdorf (yes, he's still
alive and kicking) should sue everyone who employs the Najdorf Defense! :)
I hope you continue to use the "common-sense defense", Mr. Schroder,
there's no attack that can beat it.


Ed Schröder

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Jan 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/9/97
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Open letter to ChessBase

Since a long time now ChessBase is a company that sells games and
databases. Nothing wrong with that although some people consider these
databases to be too expensive.

The Schroder BV is a company that develops and sells chess programs.
Nothing wrong with that although some people consider .... well, never
mind.

But seriously, we as a company have started some years ago (1994) also
with selling databases (30.000 games) and later in 1995 our first Cd-Rom
Rebel Silver (158.000 games).

When we announced October 96 that we would release two CD-Roms (Rebel
Million and Millionbase) with 1.1 million games we knew that other
companies would not like the idea. To our surprise we very soon received
rumors that ChessBase and Interchess (from NicBase) thought our CD-Rom
no doubt would contain hundreds of stolen games.

We had a different opinion otherwise we hadn't bought this collection in
the first place! We checked this rumor by contacting the two companies
and they admitted that they have shared this opinion with others.

But because ChessBase and Interchess were respected companies in our eyes
till that time we sent a pre-release of the CD-Rom to them with the
question to indicate which games were supposed to be stolen from them.

We received letters and threats with the content that the CD-Rom was
full of stolen games but not *one* game was actually reported!

Over and over again for the last two months we asked to give us some
simple proof. We mean: if somebody says a CD-Rom should contain thousand
and thousands of stolen games it should not be difficult to mention a
couple, wouldn't it?

But they refused! The best ChessBase offered was to reveal a stolen game
to us if we would promise on BEFOREHAND that we would cancel the whole
project!

This was of course a ridiculous suggestion (but understandable for a
competitor). So we disagreed. Nothing wrong with that: we are just
competitors.

But then ChessBase started (behind our back!) a campaign to our retailers
asking them not to buy these CD-Roms from us because it contains stolen
data, threatening they were taken risk to be legally persecuted etc.

This is not fair competition anymore!

ChessBase: do you have any public reaction on your behavior except of
course that you don't like so many games to be sold by an other company?

- Ed Schroder -

PS, for those who are interested in this subject and want to have more
details the correspondence from our side to ChessBase and their lawyer
is available on our home page at:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/cb.htm

___________________________________________________________________
Schroder BV http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/
Software Development
P.O. Box 6365
7401JJ Deventer mailto:rebc...@xs4all.nl
The Netherlands
___________________________________________________________________

ChessBase GmbH

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Jan 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/9/97
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My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
New In Chess in Alkmaar.

I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:

1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.

2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess
games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by other
publishers and sell it as their own.

3. Our view is that this is not a matter of copyrighting chess games.
Chess games are free. Everybody can enter and sell them.
However in preparing data collections, honest publishers invest the
following:

a) Games are entered from score sheets, bulletins or received directly
as data from the organizers. The latter are usually published public
domain on the Internet at this stage.
b) Missing games are located by contacting organizers and players.
c) Name spelling and tournament titles are unified to international
standards. We often have cases like historical soviet or recent chinese
bulletins where we are the first to define transcriptions for the names
of unknown players.
d) Historically correct Elo numbers are added.
e) Editorial boards play through the games. In the case of ChessBase
Magazine, about 100 grand masters and masters see the games before they
are published. At this stage errors in score sheets/bulletins or public
domain data are detected. There are many cases where the whole game is
stored under a wrong result with wrong players names. The olympiad
usually gives us nightmares.

Points 3b)-3e) are expensive and worldwide many people are making a
living out of this working for the major publishers. In case of 3a) rare
historical bulletins can cost you up to hundreds of dollars.

4. Competitors of ours have for many years worked in the same way. Chess
Assistant and New In Chess have always paid people for entering and
editing their data. TascBase have bought their games properly from
FIDE-Chess. It is our opinion that simply copying this data means to
make profit through the work of others. Thats the reason why we are
going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they show their hand and get the
thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has written
("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the situation.

Matthias Wuellenweber
mailto:10011...@compuserve.com
http://www.chessbase.com

mclane

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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"Ed Schröder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:


AHHHHH ! Ed, you are back !!

>Open letter to ChessBase

OHHHHH ! Again some commercial stuff ! Ok - let's see:

>Since a long time now ChessBase is a company that sells games and
>databases. Nothing wrong with that although some people consider these
>databases to be too expensive.

Any monopol can increase prices ! Therefore it is good to have MANY
companies selling games to us.

I appreciate that YOU sell database and games too. More companies,
lower prices. More service to customers. No censorship !


>The Schroder BV is a company that develops and sells chess programs.
>Nothing wrong with that although some people consider .... well, never
>mind.

>But seriously, we as a company have started some years ago (1994) also
>with selling databases (30.000 games) and later in 1995 our first Cd-Rom
>Rebel Silver (158.000 games).

>When we announced October 96 that we would release two CD-Roms (Rebel
>Million and Millionbase) with 1.1 million games we knew that other
>companies would not like the idea. To our surprise we very soon received
>rumors that ChessBase and Interchess (from NicBase) thought our CD-Rom
>no doubt would contain hundreds of stolen games.

I have heard about the same rumors, but have forgotten the source of
this rumors.

>We had a different opinion otherwise we hadn't bought this collection in
>the first place! We checked this rumor by contacting the two companies
>and they admitted that they have shared this opinion with others.

>But because ChessBase and Interchess were respected companies in our eyes
>till that time we sent a pre-release of the CD-Rom to them with the
>question to indicate which games were supposed to be stolen from them.


That is pretty fair of your company, Ed.

>We received letters and threats with the content that the CD-Rom was
>full of stolen games but not *one* game was actually reported!

Unbelievable !

>Over and over again for the last two months we asked to give us some
>simple proof. We mean: if somebody says a CD-Rom should contain thousand
>and thousands of stolen games it should not be difficult to mention a
>couple, wouldn't it?

You are totally right.


>But they refused! The best ChessBase offered was to reveal a stolen game
>to us if we would promise on BEFOREHAND that we would cancel the whole
>project!


Any BLACKMAIL ?!?!?!?!?! I am very sensible with this METHOD !!


>This was of course a ridiculous suggestion (but understandable for a
>competitor). So we disagreed. Nothing wrong with that: we are just
>competitors.

aha.

>But then ChessBase started (behind our back!) a campaign to our retailers
>asking them not to buy these CD-Roms from us because it contains stolen
>data, threatening they were taken risk to be legally persecuted etc.


Any EVIDENCE for that ?!

>This is not fair competition anymore!

Right. If your claim is true, ed, then it would not be fair of
chessBase.
But I know from several times experience in the past, that this
behaviour is very typical in the computerchess-market.

>ChessBase: do you have any public reaction on your behavior except of
>course that you don't like so many games to be sold by an other company?

>- Ed Schroder -

>PS, for those who are interested in this subject and want to have more
>details the correspondence from our side to ChessBase and their lawyer
>is available on our home page at:

Brilliant !!!! Thanks for interesting news. Now I have something to
read before I go to bed.

mclane

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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"mig" <m...@satlink.com> wrote:

Thats the reason why some people want to control the internet.
Public should not be informed about the deals and law-suits behind the
scene. Internet makes anythink public. So naturally usenet and
internet is the enemy of companies that have secrets and try to
manipulate.

Somehow internet/usenet is too much anarchistic. The capitalistic
methods of CONTROL, EXPLOIT, MISUSE, MANIPULATE do not work in the
internet.


Peter L. McKone

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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In article <5b3gmg$1...@news.xs4all.nl>, "Ed Schröder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> writes:
|> Open letter to ChessBase

|>
|> Since a long time now ChessBase is a company that sells games and
|> databases. Nothing wrong with that although some people consider these
|> databases to be too expensive.
|>
|> The Schroder BV is a company that develops and sells chess programs.
|> Nothing wrong with that although some people consider .... well, never
|> mind.
|>
|> But seriously, we as a company have started some years ago (1994) also
|> with selling databases (30.000 games) and later in 1995 our first Cd-Rom
|> Rebel Silver (158.000 games).
|>
|> When we announced October 96 that we would release two CD-Roms (Rebel
|> Million and Millionbase) with 1.1 million games we knew that other
|> companies would not like the idea. To our surprise we very soon received
|> rumors that ChessBase and Interchess (from NicBase) thought our CD-Rom
|> no doubt would contain hundreds of stolen games.
|>
|> We had a different opinion otherwise we hadn't bought this collection in
|> the first place! We checked this rumor by contacting the two companies
|> and they admitted that they have shared this opinion with others.
|>
|> But because ChessBase and Interchess were respected companies in our eyes
|> till that time we sent a pre-release of the CD-Rom to them with the
|> question to indicate which games were supposed to be stolen from them.
|>
|> We received letters and threats with the content that the CD-Rom was
|> full of stolen games but not *one* game was actually reported!
|>
|> Over and over again for the last two months we asked to give us some
|> simple proof. We mean: if somebody says a CD-Rom should contain thousand
|> and thousands of stolen games it should not be difficult to mention a
|> couple, wouldn't it?
|> |> But they refused! The best ChessBase offered was to reveal a stolen game
|> to us if we would promise on BEFOREHAND that we would cancel the whole
|> project!
|>
|> This was of course a ridiculous suggestion (but understandable for a
|> competitor). So we disagreed. Nothing wrong with that: we are just
|> competitors.
|>
|>
|>

Is it possible that ChessBase has some mistakes in their database?
Perhaps one of their data entry clerks entered some extra moves
or changed the name of the city where the tournament was played?
Maybe even on purpose? If those same mistakes appeared in
someone else's database they could be pretty certain that the
games were stolen. This would not be a copywright issue, but still
the law doesn't seem clear.

Since only the people who actually played the game have the
original scoresheets, I bet that most games are actually stolen,
in the sense that someone else did the data entry.
It does seem reasonable that the person or company that enters
the moves by hand into its database ought to get some commission
from people who sell copies of the games later.
Of course it would be nice if the masters who spent five hours
playing the game could get a few pennies too!

Regards,
Peter McKone

Tord Kallqvist Romstad

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
to

Ed Schröder (rebc...@xs4all.nl) wrote:
<snipped>

Stolen games???
Since when are chess games copyrighted?

Tord

Byron Matthews

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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Peter L. McKone wrote:

> Is it possible that ChessBase has some mistakes in their database?
> Perhaps one of their data entry clerks entered some extra moves
> or changed the name of the city where the tournament was played?
> Maybe even on purpose? If those same mistakes appeared in
> someone else's database they could be pretty certain that the
> games were stolen. This would not be a copywright issue, but still
> the law doesn't seem clear.
>
> Since only the people who actually played the game have the
> original scoresheets, I bet that most games are actually stolen,
> in the sense that someone else did the data entry.
> It does seem reasonable that the person or company that enters
> the moves by hand into its database ought to get some commission
> from people who sell copies of the games later.
> Of course it would be nice if the masters who spent five hours
> playing the game could get a few pennies too!

Interesting point. I know that mapmakers put false data on their maps
(streets that don't exist, for example) to catch folks who copy instead
of doing their own mapmaking. I always assumed that would be a
copyright infringement, but I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing as
what's at issue here.

lars...@worldaccess.nl

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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The REBEL "milionbase" has stolen (copyright) chessgames ???

TASC BV - perfectbase (about 300.000 games), fidebase (about 150.000 games)
Chess Assistent (more than 500.000) .... Academy, Chess for less .... doesn't
!!!

Why Schroder BV (to good to be mention ?)

Dream on CHESSBASE

Ed, I'm ordering today, many, many games, nice price.

Go on, Ed

Best regards,
W.Koopmans

Matthias Wuellenweber

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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> PS, for those who are interested in this subject and want to have more
> details the correspondence from our side to ChessBase and their lawyer
> is available on our home page at:
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/cb.htm

Hi Ed,

would you do me a favour and publish our letters as well? On the other
hand I think the disagreement can be condensed as follows:

You say (quoting your lawyer in letter 3 to Dr. Beuck):

"Thus it is perfectly legal to take 10 or 12 commercial CHESSBASE or
NICBASE files, merge them together (without notes) with a few other
miscellaneous games and sell them."

We say:

"This is not legal".

Matthias

Ignacio Marin

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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Just came back from my country and a flu. Most interesting stuff this
thing about the copyrights. My question is whether adding intentionally
mistakes to the databases to be able to trace back the origin of the
games
is an acceptable practice from our point of view. I think the amount/
type of
introduced mistakes should be made public. I have found several in the
not so many games I have been analyzing, I don't know whether
intentional or not. Typically, the final result is wrong. Maybe I have
found this because it is easy to detect, while other mistakes are much
more difficult to find out. Anyway, is this OK?. After all, these guys
are
basing part of their advertisement on the fact that the product can
give us
fast, accurate statistics about, among other things, results or
positions.
If there are mistakes then the statistics will be wrong. No less
important:
to prepare openings using wrong scores can be "a bit" dangerous. I hope
they are not touching the game scores.

Summary: they should make public the types and frequency of mistakes,
if any, introduced, for us to decide if the burden is acceptable.
Obviously,
the less mistakes there are, the more difficult to trace the games, so I
assume they are using more than, say 1 mistake /1000 games
(that would protect only against big violations, because you have
to detect several mistakes to demonstrate that the database has been
copied ).
However, if it is much higher than that or it affects the basic data,
mainly
the players/score/result of the game, then the database can be
considered
flawed to same point. I certainly would suggest them to add inexistent
games instead of modifiying the existent ones, although I understand
that
to do that would require some degree of imagination...

Ignacio

Peter Stein

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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In article <5b49ov$m...@gyda.ifi.uio.no>,

Individual games cannot be. However, value added material can be.
The value added material can consist of annotations and the
packaging of games into collections. Examples of collections might
be all Olympiad games or master games where one of the masters fell
into an obvious combination (such as the ChessBase "Patzer" database).

From the ChessBase posting I gather that their grievance revolves
around the wholesale inclusion of collections. I doubt that they are
refering to the inclusion of annotated material because that would
be too obvious of a violation. Collections are however a grey area
because not all collections represent significant added value. The
2 examples I gave represent different ends of the spectrum.

I think the question of potential copyright violation can be answered
by applying a reasonability test to the process of constructing a
collection. For instance, is it possible (and likely) that someone
might construct an identical collection without having access to the
collection in question? In the case of the Olympiad collection I
believe the answer is yes whereas for the Patzer collection it is
definitely no. Two things that must be considered are the public
accessibility of the games which comprise the collection and the
fact that mere transfer of games from one media to another doesn't
constitute copyrightable added value. Anyone can crack open a book
or tournament bulletin a enter games into electronic format. Simply
because you are the first to do so does not constitute copyrightable
material. If on the other hand you annotate and/or selectively include
games based on some motif that would be different as you are clearly
adding some value.

If truly copyrightable ChessBase material were to be found in the Rebel
database then I think they would have a valid grievance. But to pick
on Rebel simply because their database is big and therefore likely
to include games covered by ChessBase is not proper. Also can ChessBase
unequivocally state that they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that
everything they've ever sold is guaranteed to not be a violation?
For instance they might commission person X to produce something for
them. Unbeknownst to them person X includes copyrightable material
from something published by person Y. ChessBase must be careful not
to fall victim to the proverb "people in glass houses shouldn't throw
stones".

Any database vendor must realize that with the advent of cheap PCs,
BBSs, and the Internet players have access to data like they've never
had before. There are armies of people around the globe who are
entering games (quite legally) from any source they can get their
hands on. With all this activity there is bound to be some overlap
amongst databases. This doesn't in the least bit mean that anything
illegal has transpired. Vendors need to be reasonable about this.

I don't like to see sniping between vendors of any chess products.
My hope is that all chess vendors prosper so that as a chess player
more options will be available to me. Without any data we can't
possibly know who is the agrieved party in this dispute. I do hope
this matter can be peacefully resolved without any blood.

Peter Stein
n...@xnet.com


Phil Hildenbrandt

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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On 9 Jan 1997 19:25:04 GMT, "Ed Schröder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

Open letter to ChessBase


To our surprise we very soon received
rumors that ChessBase and Interchess (from NicBase) thought our CD-Rom

no doubt would contain hundreds of stolen games.

Stolen!!!! From whom??? From the million x 2 players??? Maybe we
should all recognize this as a retaliation, by ChessBase and
Interchess, based on JEALOSY. I would like to ask one thing, If
Schroder BV compiled the collection themselves, would they still be
considered stolen?
Phil "Paul Morphy" Hildenbrandt

lars...@worldaccess.nl

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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hans cornelder

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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It seems to me that it is not difficult, just time-consuming, to compile a
huge database of chess games. Gathering all games which are available on
the WEB would be a great start.

Being the first one to do so doesn't make you the owner of the public
domain games you have used. They are still in the public domain, to be used
by anybody.

Only if you can show that somebody else has copied your work, can you take
him to court. The way to show that, is to make obvious "errors" which are
not found in the original public domain games, have a unique way of putting
things in your database, or have convincing testimony of people close to
the alleged copying operation.

If a publisher of a chess database cannot show anything like that, he has
"no leg to stand on" as the Dutch expression goes, if he wants to fight his
competitor in court. He would not even have that if that competitor indeed
has copied his work. After all, the burden of proof is on him, but he
cannot prove it.

For What It Is Worth

Hans Cornelder


Palle Mathiasen

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Jan 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/10/97
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Wuelle...@t-online.de (ChessBase GmbH) wrote:

>My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
>matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
>New In Chess in Alkmaar.

>2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess

I think the question of copyright on chess games is really important
for the chess world, and thus I would like to state my opinion. I am
not a laywer, but in this case I think, that even laywer's and judges
are going to have to resort to common sense in order to determine
what is right and what is wrong.

A collection of chess games, as produced by ChessBase is certainly
an expensive piece of work, essentially it is comparable to a piece
of software, as it is really just a sequence of binary digits.

When ChessBase release a collection of chess games, they are as
a whole a software product. Copying and reselling them must be
considered software piracy. However, I think that if we think of a
games collection as a software product, i.e. a sequence of binary
digits. The copyright only extends to the situation where someone
makes a nearly exact copy of the product. So in my humble and
possibly unlawfull opinion - If you take a collection of 1000 chess
games distributed by chessbase, and remove all annotations, ELO
stuff, perhaps changes the tournament names a little bit, as well as
changing the players names a little bit, like Anatoly Karpov changes
into A.Karpov. And then if you put in 1000 games from another source,
shuffle the database like mad, so as to make the individual games
appear in a completely different order than before, THEN the database,
seen as a binary file, is completely different from the original
chessbase product. There will be short patterns all over both product
that are the same (i.e. the chess moves), but regarded as binary
files, the two products will be very different. If you do it like this
it should in my opinion be a legal operation. If the judges decides
that it is not, they are effectively saying that whoever is first to
tap the games into a computer has the copyright to the games, which
is nonsense.

I would be very interested in hearing both Mr. Wuellenweber and
Mr. Schroeder's opinons on this. It might be better for chess if
we could resolve this issue among ourselves. Its in our interest
that it remains profitable to do the laborious work of typing chess
games into databases.

Best Wishes

Palle.

---------------------------------------------
Palle Mathiasen http://www.chesschampions.com
Chess-Links,Docs,Pics,Books,Shareware,Reviews


Ed Schröder

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Jan 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/11/97
to

From: Wuelle...@t-online.de (Matthias Wuellenweber)

> PS, for those who are interested in this subject and want to have more
> details the correspondence from our side to ChessBase and their lawyer
> is available on our home page at:
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/cb.htm

: Hi Ed,

: would you do me a favour and publish our letters as well?

Well I have thought about it since I am in favor for complete openess.
Yet the answer is no since it would give people the impression that we
have some kind of minor (soft) disagreement.

Well, we have a huge disagreement.

You (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen of Nicbase were able to tell me that
our 2 announced Cdroms with 1,100,000 chess games were illegal on
beforehand while they were not even released!

As a result of that you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen of NicBase:
- Threatened me with a juridical case;
- Threatened my German dealers not to sell my 2 new products;
without even seen one single game of the 2 Cdroms in question.

Are you clear-sighted or so?

Perhaps you can explain your behavior to me?

So perhaps you could use your own home page if you want to publish your
correspondence to me.


: On the other hand I think the disagreement can be condensed as follows:


: You say (quoting your lawyer in letter 3 to Dr. Beuck):

: "Thus it is perfectly legal to take 10 or 12 commercial CHESSBASE or
: NICBASE files, merge them together (without notes) with a few other
: miscellaneous games and sell them."

: We say:
: "This is not legal".

: Matthias


Point taken, you maybe right but also be very wrong!
Chess games are public domain, like it or not.

Fact is (since we like to be on the safe side) that we DID NOT DO THAT!

No single chess game on Rebel Million and MillonBase was taken from any
CHESSBASE or NICBASE commercial diskette or Cdrom! We informed you on
that many times.

If you want to know how the 1,100,000 games were collected you should
take a look at:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm

- Ed Schroder -

On behalf of the Schroder BV who (like it or not) is a competitor on
the database market since 1994.

Ralf W. Stephan

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Jan 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/11/97
to

I think it is a similar situation to the work being done on digitizing
old books. Only that none of the CDROM publishers claim they have
rights on the Etexts. Why would they, that's silly! The same goes
with CDROMs full of free/PD soft.

My question to ChessBase is therefore: What rights do you think you
have on something that has been created by other people (the players),
most of which you probably didn't ask for the right to copy their work?

AFAIU, you can only claim rights on your whole compilation, and the
additional tools you provide with it, respectively.


Sincerely,
ralf
--
Lynx-enhanced pages at <http://www.bayreuth-online.de/~stephan>

Chris Lott

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

>I think the question of potential copyright violation can be answered
>by applying a reasonability test to the process of constructing a
>collection. For instance, is it possible (and likely) that someone
>might construct an identical collection without having access to the
>collection in question? In the case of the Olympiad collection I
>believe the answer is yes whereas for the Patzer collection it is
>definitely no.

Thanks. This clearly answers my question.

c

--
Chris Lott
ecle...@polarnet.com

Eclectica Magazine! Best Lit and Book/Movie Reviews on the Web!
http://www2.polarnet.com/~eclectica

Play Chess!! Zazen on FICS/ICC Chess servers


Chris Lott

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
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On Sat, 11 Jan 1997 08:55:08 GMT, ra...@ark.franken.de (Ralf W.
Stephan) wrote:

>I think it is a similar situation to the work being done on digitizing
>old books. Only that none of the CDROM publishers claim they have
>rights on the Etexts. Why would they, that's silly! The same goes
>with CDROMs full of free/PD soft.
>

This is not the same since projects that are digitizing old texts,
like Project Gutenberg that I have helped with, are carefully
selecting only texts whose copyrights have expired under law.

ChessBase can clearly copyright any annotations as well as collections
of games... I think this is the issue that is being raised, not
individual games. From the looks of things, they are accusing Ed S. of
taking collections they built and resuing them in the same order. It
would be interesting to see how they are going to prove this, however.

GUIDO STEPKEN

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

Ed Schröder <rebc...@xs4all.nl> schrieb im Beitrag
<5b3gmg$1...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> Open letter to ChessBase
>
I think, that chessgames can be seen as the author's property, like
written verses. As far as no player claims copyrights, you and all
others are not concerned. I am sure, that one day - it will perhaps be
normal in the U.S.A. certain openings can be patented.....

I have let patented my asshole - sure in the U.S.A. !


Ed Schröder

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

: My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this

: matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
: New In Chess in Alkmaar.

: I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between


: Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:

: 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
: from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.

As soon as we heard from Mr. Andriessen that he (NicBase) and you
(ChessBase) accused us from illegal copying games (while the product
wasn't even released!) we against the advice of our lawyer immediately
have sent you a pre-copy of our MillionBase on Cdrom with the request
to show us proof.

Since October 1996 we have asked you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen of
NicBase to come up with proof instead of statements. Till now (January
11, 1997) you and Nicbase have refused to show us one single game.

Now should I withdraw 2 attractive products because of a statement?

Have you ever heard of proof before you start threatening me and some
of my dealers?

Well, your threats have been succesful till now. One major german dealer
already informed me that he will not sell MillionBase and Rebel Million
because he wants no problems with ChessBase!

: 2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess


: games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by other
: publishers and sell it as their own.

You twist my words here Matthias.

We have told you *many* times in the past 2 months that *no single* game
on our 1,100,000 chess games Cdroms was taken from any CHESSBASE or
NICBASE diskette or Cdrom!

If you want to know how the 1,100,000 games were collected you should
take a look at:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm

: Thats the reason why we are going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they

: show their hand and get the thing published.

Well that sounds much better than threatening innocent chess dealers
behind my back! "the thing" is published so I am awaiting to receive
evidence of your public accusation:


"Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply
copied from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and
ChessBase".

which I think you can't because it is not true!

I think you have to come up with proof or apologize.

- Ed Schroder -

BTW, you will find the copies of our correspondence here on Usenet also
on my home page at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/cbu.htm

Wuelle...@t-online.de (ChessBase GmbH) wrote:
>My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
>matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
>New In Chess in Alkmaar.
>

>I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
>Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:
>
>1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
>from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.
>

Ed Schröder

unread,
Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

Hold on Matthias, you are going much too fast!

Let's start with the very beginning...
Ok?

When we announced our 2 new Cdrom's to our dealers we got an angry phone
call from Mr. Andriessen of Interchess (Nicbase). He told us that we
should STAY OUT of his business (the database market).

Well at least Mr. Andriessen is an honest guy telling me the real truth.
However we do not share his opinion, it's a free world you know.

After that you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen (NicBase) informed me that
our 2 announced Cdrom's with 1,100,000 chess games were illegal WITHOUT
even having seen the 2 products because they were NOT yet released.

Yet you and Mr. Andriessen already threatened us with a juridical case on
beforehand.

To me this looks like trying to eliminate a competitor even before he
actually has become one!

Is it true that you (ChessBase) like Mr. Andriessen of NicBase does not
want us to sell databases at all thus depriving many people the pleasure
of huge databases?

- Ed Schroder -

On behalf of the Schroder BV, the company who believes in sharp prices for
their customers.

Thorsten Heedt

unread,
Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

"
>
I regret the following remark is in German ...

Wenn Herr Schroeder sich so sicher ist, dass er Recht hat und er keine
Datenpiraterie betreibt, wieso schreibt er denn dann tausende von
Rechtfertigungsbriefen ? Das ist doch irgendwie verdächtig...

Wenn ich so ein Produkt erstellt haette und sicher waere, dass es
vollkommen 'koscher' ist, dann haette ich mich durch ChessBase'
Warnungen nicht einschuechtern lassen und es einfach VEROEFFENTLICHT !

Denn dann muesste ich ja ueberzeugt sein, auch vor Gericht Recht zu
bekommen !

Also raus mit dem Produkt und die Sache vor Gericht geklaert !

Denn die Sache scheint ja ohnehin so verfahren, dass ein anderer Weg
nicht denkbar scheint.

Wenn Herr Schroeder allerdings ueble Piraterie betrieben haben sollte,
sollte er seine CD lieber einstampfen lassen !

mclane

unread,
Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

pet...@mckone.loc3.tandem.com (Peter L. McKone) wrote:


>Is it possible that ChessBase has some mistakes in their database?
>Perhaps one of their data entry clerks entered some extra moves
>or changed the name of the city where the tournament was played?
>Maybe even on purpose? If those same mistakes appeared in
>someone else's database they could be pretty certain that the
>games were stolen. This would not be a copywright issue, but still
>the law doesn't seem clear.

Yes. It is said that THIS is the way they MARK their data by making
errors into the material.

>Since only the people who actually played the game have the
>original scoresheets, I bet that most games are actually stolen,
>in the sense that someone else did the data entry.

That is another question, if the players have the unique right about
the notation. I think this is not to realize. Consider a soccer-player
would say to the television-station: you have to cut me out of the
whole 90' game or you pay me for each time I am seen on the screen !!
Imagine if this would be the normal law, the soccer-players would not
run to the goal, they would run wherever a TV-camera is placed and try
to get as much money instead of shooting goals!

>It does seem reasonable that the person or company that enters
>the moves by hand into its database ought to get some commission
>from people who sell copies of the games later.
>Of course it would be nice if the masters who spent five hours
>playing the game could get a few pennies too!

That would be a nice idea, and ChessBase has to pay any player of
their 1 million database a fee for putting them in, for the whole time
from 1985 until now. Ough, maybe somebody else can calculate how much
money ChessBase would have to pay for selling data that is "stolen
from the chess-players" !! :-)


>Regards,
>Peter McKone


Churak

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

GUIDO STEPKEN wrote:

> I have let patented my asshole - sure in the U.S.A. !

I don't know what country you're in, but the fact that your head is
firmly lodged in it certainly renders your patent null and void in the
U.S.

-- Steve Lopez

--

=============================================
lummra khatunikh churak himrukkal gual.
lummra dlanmukoi hiweshma tahen gual.
lum surimtokoi gual.
lum brufenul tsulajun muni.
tusmriremra dlanmukoi lakun ssiya!
=============================================

Cpsoft

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to





ChessBase GmbH <Wuelle...@t-online.de> wrote in article <5b3sdv$p...@news00.btx.dtag.de>...

These threats have been emanating from Chessbase sources from the very beginning.

I note that Chessbase has never yet carried them out.

Personally, I doubt that Chessbase would risk it. Losing would be fairly catastrophic for you, no ?

Emitting threats has kept the monopoly situation under control for some time now. Why
ruin a good thing, eh ?

Maybe you should just accept that times have changed. Just about every game there ever has
been is now floating around the Internet. Maybe Friedel and co served some useful
purpose in the days of limited communication facilities, with monopolistic 'control' over
the data, but these days are gone, and you know it.

Any more of these provocations and I (and others too, no doubt) will be sorely tempted
to collect up all these PUBLIC DOMAIN games and bust your monopoly forever.



> as soon as they show their hand and get the
> thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has written
> ("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the situation.

I seem to recollect something similar when New In Chess broke the Chessbase monopoly.

You didn't have the guts (or bad sense) to sue then either.

Go jump in a lake, Chessbase.

Chris Whittington

Cpsoft

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to





Matthias Wuellenweber <Wuelle...@t-online.de> wrote in article <5b4s0n$1...@news00.btx.dtag.de>...


> > PS, for those who are interested in this subject and want to have more
> > details the correspondence from our side to ChessBase and their lawyer
> > is available on our home page at:
> >
> >

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/cb.htm
>
> Hi Ed,
>
> would you do me a favour and publish our letters as well? On the other


> hand I think the disagreement can be condensed as follows:
>
> You say (quoting your lawyer in letter 3 to Dr. Beuck):
>
> "Thus it is perfectly legal to take 10 or 12 commercial CHESSBASE or
> NICBASE files, merge them together (without notes) with a few other
> miscellaneous games and sell them."
>
> We say:
>
> "This is not legal".

Do you own these games ?

I think not.

If (big if), you really meant business, you wouldn't be messing around with silly threats on
r.g.c.c.

These Chessbase postings are mere noise, designed to protect your monopoly. Times have
changed, Chessbase. The Public domain games are NOT your property.

Chris Whittington

>
> Matthias
>

Phil Hildenbrandt

unread,
Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

On 9 Jan 1997 19:25:04 GMT, in rec.games.chess.analysis you wrote:

>Open letter to ChessBase
If any of my games are found in ChessBase should I sue? I give written
permission for Schroeder BV to include any and all of my games in
thier database. ChessBase, I am checking yoour database now. I never
recall giving you permission. If I did, please foward a copy of such.
If I didn't, I expect a royalty check from you promptly.

Phil "Paul Morphy" Hildenbrandt

Hal Bogner

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Jan 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/12/97
to

Dear Matthias,

I very much enjoyed your comments about "honest publishers", and have a
few comments to ofer (below).

ChessBase GmbH wrote:
>
> My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
> matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
> New In Chess in Alkmaar.
>
> I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
> Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:
>
> 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
> from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.
>
> 2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess
> games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by other
> publishers and sell it as their own.
>
> 3. Our view is that this is not a matter of copyrighting chess games.
> Chess games are free. Everybody can enter and sell them.
> However in preparing data collections, honest publishers invest the
> following:
>
> a) Games are entered from score sheets, bulletins or received directly
> as data from the organizers. The latter are usually published public
> domain on the Internet at this stage.

Historical events cannot be addressed in this manner, can they?
Unfortunately for your arguments, no copyrights have ever been granted
for actual, played chess games. Therefore, it doesn't matter who you
get them from. You undermine your own argument when you cite the Net as
a source.

> b) Missing games are located by contacting organizers and players.

Never from researching bulletins, or other news reports, or the Net?

> c) Name spelling and tournament titles are unified to international
> standards. We often have cases like historical soviet or recent chinese
> bulletins where we are the first to define transcriptions for the names
> of unknown players.

In other words, making choices about standardizing spelling gives you
some sort of "right" in the game?

> d) Historically correct Elo numbers are added.

I am sure that "honest publishers" could disagree about what's right in
this instance. (By the way, do you have any Fischer games from his
childhood, with very low ratings next to them?)

> e) Editorial boards play through the games. In the case of ChessBase
> Magazine, about 100 grand masters and masters see the games before they
> are published. At this stage errors in score sheets/bulletins or public
> domain data are detected. There are many cases where the whole game is
> stored under a wrong result with wrong players names. The olympiad
> usually gives us nightmares.

As the US sales and support rep in the US in the late 1980s, I sometimes
played through them, too. Some erroneous data was embarrassing, such as
an 1800s world title game in which White moved a rook to an open file in
the late middlegame, threatening a back-rank mate, and Black responded
...a6, but White politely did not delievr the mate. Maybe the Black
move in the original was ...P-KR3, not ...P-QR3?

Similarly, many many games had wrong results. Lots of these resulted
from Chessbase's contract laborers' use of Chessbase to input games back
when your "result dialog" defaulted to "1-0", as I recall being told by
someone close to your headquarters.

I asked several players in the 1991 San Fransisco International GM
Tournament about the accuracy of the games that the major, honest
publishers distribute. One GM said he had searched out his own games,
and found a very high rate of wrong moves, such as a "wrong rook" moving
to a square.

It is widely rumored (at a minimum) that you have seeded databases with
games with erroneous move orders. If this is true, it isn't
self-protection, it is intellectual dishonesty, and misrepresents the
actual play of the contestents. Additionally, it seems to me, that if
you assert that a game is a true historical record, when in fact you
have made that game up, you are giving all future researchers who
consult your data a reason to honestly believe such a game to be real.
Do you really do these things? I would like a conclusive statement from
you about these rumors or allegations.



> Points 3b)-3e) are expensive and worldwide many people are making a
> living out of this working for the major publishers. In case of 3a) rare
> historical bulletins can cost you up to hundreds of dollars.
>
> 4. Competitors of ours have for many years worked in the same way. Chess
> Assistant and New In Chess have always paid people for entering and
> editing their data. TascBase have bought their games properly from

This does not fully address the issue, because it can be argued that the
reason why this work is done is to produce product for sale promptly, to
customers who wish to rely on the timeliness, quality, completeness, or
other values inherent in the data. Ownership of the games is not why
the major publishers succeed in this field; skill in bringing product to
market and attracting customers is why they succeed.

> FIDE-Chess. It is our opinion that simply copying this data means to
> make profit through the work of others. Thats the reason why we are

> going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they show their hand and get the


> thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has written
> ("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the situation.

I can't ask you to be honest here, and therefore to admit the true
reason you threaten to sue (which is to discourage competition by
wasting Schroeder's money on lawyers). Because if you were honest, you
would not be doing this.



> Matthias Wuellenweber
> mailto:10011...@compuserve.com
> http://www.chessbase.com

Hal Bogner
USCF Master
International Arbiter
former US rep, Chessbase (1987-1989)
former owner, Chess Laboratories (1989-1993)
Producer, Kasparov's Gambit (Electronic Arts, 1993)
Program Manager (Chess Engine), Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess (Simon &
Schuster/Davidson, 1995)

Robert Hyatt

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Ed Schröder (rebc...@xs4all.nl) wrote:
: : My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
: : matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
: : New In Chess in Alkmaar.

: : I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
: : Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:

: : 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
: : from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.

: As soon as we heard from Mr. Andriessen that he (NicBase) and you

: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm

: - Ed Schroder -


Personally, I think the entire concept of a law suit is not only foolish
but stupid. Just take a PC to the trial, with an RF modem, and show the
judge and jury that there are millions of games stored on public FTP
sites. And all are absolutely free. I'd be willing to bet that every
database company out there has trolled the net and sucked in these games,
but of course they don't want anyone to steal them after they stole them,
right?

The way games are stored on the internet, I doubt any suit would ever
succeed, because there are so many "Fischer's games", "Alekhine's games"
"the Alapin opening", etc... proving that a collection came from a database
rather than the public ftp archives would be nearly impossible. And it would
be stupid to try.

The database companies ought to be working on making the engines better and
faster and have more features, and not worry about trying to sell the "data"
as well. It sounds greedy. It smells bad. And it encourages me to never
buy one of their products nor recommend than anyone else do so.

When's the last time you purchased Oracle and had it come with a database
of data? You buy the package, and supply the data.. As someone pointed out,
the copyrightable part of this is the "intellectual contribution" you make
by annotating the games. Not the drudgery work you do in ftping the games in
and cleaning up a few errors. You can get over 1/4 million games from my
ftp site for Crafty's book. Others have books with > 1M games, all from the
public archives. Come on Nicbase... seems stupid...


Sloan

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

So, when do I get my 1.1 million chess games?

I am still eagerly waiting.

Sam Sloan


Ed Schröder

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to sl...@ishipress.com


Hi Sam,

Shall I attach them to an email?... :)

Just kidding of course...

- Ed -

Jochen Schoof

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Hello,

I'm quoting Matthias Wuellenweber from someone else's posting, because
I was not able to locate his original posting. I hope it is a complete
version of what he wrote.

Wuelle...@t-online.de (ChessBase GmbH) wrote:
: My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
: matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
: New In Chess in Alkmaar.
:
: I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
: Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:
:
: 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
: from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.

Much more people would believe your statement if you would a least
give us the impression that you can prove what you state above. Up
to now to my knowledge noone has seen any prove from you.



: 2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess
: games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by other
: publishers and sell it as their own.

First of all Schroder's lawyers argued that Millionbase was not generated
in the way you want to make people believe it was produced. They then
added that even it it were simply copied you nevertheless would have no
copyright in the games. Discussing their second point without dealing
with the first one won't buy you anything. To make all your remarks in
this posting relevant, you first have to provide proofs for your assump-
tion that the games were simply copied.



: 3. Our view is that this is not a matter of copyrighting chess games.
: Chess games are free. Everybody can enter and sell them.
: However in preparing data collections, honest publishers invest the
: following:
:
: a) Games are entered from score sheets, bulletins or received directly
: as data from the organizers. The latter are usually published public
: domain on the Internet at this stage.
: b) Missing games are located by contacting organizers and players.
: c) Name spelling and tournament titles are unified to international
: standards. We often have cases like historical soviet or recent chinese
: bulletins where we are the first to define transcriptions for the names
: of unknown players.
: d) Historically correct Elo numbers are added.
: e) Editorial boards play through the games. In the case of ChessBase
: Magazine, about 100 grand masters and masters see the games before they
: are published. At this stage errors in score sheets/bulletins or public
: domain data are detected. There are many cases where the whole game is
: stored under a wrong result with wrong players names. The olympiad
: usually gives us nightmares.
:
: Points 3b)-3e) are expensive and worldwide many people are making a
: living out of this working for the major publishers. In case of 3a) rare
: historical bulletins can cost you up to hundreds of dollars.

This in fact sounds like hard and maybe expensive work, but all this
does not change one thing: It does not make you the copyright holder
for all games in a collection in which you have corrected these errors.
To show you an analogy: If I buy a book and correct all the typos in it,
is the result something I'm holding the copyright for? Or even if I find
errors in your databases and correct them, do I get the copyrights on the
entire database? I (and almost anyone participating in the discussion)
agree that Chessbase have copyrights in special compilations of games
and especially in annotations to games. However claiming that correcting
some errors gives you copyrights for a larger document does not sound
very convincing to me.



: 4. Competitors of ours have for many years worked in the same way. Chess
: Assistant and New In Chess have always paid people for entering and
: editing their data. TascBase have bought their games properly from
: FIDE-Chess. It is our opinion that simply copying this data means to
: make profit through the work of others. Thats the reason why we are
: going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they show their hand and get the
: thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has written
: ("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the situation.

I get the impression that you only read the parts from Ed Schroder's and
his lawyers' letters which pleased you. You simply tell thousands of
readers that Ed Schroder is lying when saying: "This millionbase is the
result of collecting and entering chessgames for over a decade. The games
come from all over the world and from various sources."? And you don't
provide one single proof for this? After claiming that "major parts" of
Millionbase are stolen from you, you should at least show us one game
for which you can prove that claim.
To me Schroder's arguments sound much clearer and better founded than
yours. I tend to agree with those who believe all Chessbase is inter-
ested in is to scare away a powerful competitor. There are so many more
dubious games collections being sold you did not take any steps against
that I don't see why you start arguing on a collection by a respected
competitor if not to spoil his business.

- Jochen

--
Jochen Schoof (http://www-info2.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/staff/joscho)
___________________________________________________________________________
\_Address __/ Informatik II, Uni Wuerzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Wuerzburg
\_Email ___/ mailto:sch...@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de

Ed Schröder

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)

>We have told you *many* times in the past 2 months that *no single* game
>on our 1,100,000 chess games Cdroms was taken from any CHESSBASE or
>NICBASE diskette or Cdrom!

: So you can show us 1,100,000 notations of games, which you put into
: the computer by hand? Perhaps you can only show us a photo of 100,000
: notations of games that were handed over to Ed Schroeder? Which last
: 10 years has spent fulltime to put them in the computer?

Vincent,

Have you checked: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm ??
I suppose not. Here you will find how MillionBase was created.

: Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
: much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
: who sees that you can make 'easy' money?

Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for
some time. Now you totally unfounded call me a big liar, do you have
no manners?

You always speak so easily, you accused Fritz from cheating on the BT-test
and the BK-test. Also here when I asked you for proof you could NOT! And
I don't believe a word of it. You must be much more careful with your
words in public!

: No scanner in the world can read these notations.

Please note that MillionBase and Rebel Million do not contain one single
annotation. Just bare games.

: They are all inserted into the computer by local volunteers, and
: handed over in ascii to the national chess organisation. Perhaps
: this organisation should speak the last word?

: Perhaps they should ask money from Chessbase?
: From Ed Schroeder?
: From both?

It would certainly solve the problem for good.

I would have no problems with that and should be willing to pay for
games from tournaments if things would be properly arranged (players
should also receive their part) (no exclusivity on games) etc.

: I guess all national organisations could use some money. To organize
: some nice tournaments, support youth, support computerchess?

I agree...

- Ed Schroder -


: Vincent Diepeveen


Enrique Irazoqui

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote
<5bdp1t$7...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>...
> In <85306274...@gln01-12.dial.xs4all.nl> "Ed Schrder"
<rebc...@xs4all.nl> writes:

<snip>

> Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
> much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,

By the way, Vincent, a long time ago you claimed to have found a killer
line in the opening book of Rebel 8. Several people asked you to post it
and you never did.

Enrique


Vincent Diepeveen

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

>: My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
>: matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
>: New In Chess in Alkmaar.

>: 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied


>: from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.

>We have told you *many* times in the past 2 months that *no single* game

>on our 1,100,000 chess games Cdroms was taken from any CHESSBASE or
>NICBASE diskette or Cdrom!

So you can show us 1,100,000 notations of games, which you put into the

computer by hand? Perhaps you can only show us a photo of 100,000 notations
of games that were handed over to Ed Schroeder? Which last 10 years has
spent fulltime to put them in the computer?

Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too

much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,

who sees that you can make 'easy' money?

No scanner in the world can read these notations.

They are all inserted into the computer by local volunteers, and handed over


in ascii to the national chess organisation. Perhaps this organisation
should speak the last word?

Perhaps they should ask money from Chessbase?
From Ed Schroeder?
From both?

I guess all national organisations could use some money. To organize


some nice tournaments, support youth, support computerchess?

Vincent Diepeveen

>http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm

--
+----------------------------------------------------+
| Vincent Diepeveen email: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl |
| http://www.students.cs.ruu.nl/~vdiepeve/ |
+----------------------------------------------------+

Harald Faber

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Hello Ed,


ESd> From: "Ed Schr/der" <rebc...@xs4all.nl>
ESd> Subject: Open letter to ChessBase
ESd> Organization: Schroder BV
ESd>

ESd>Open letter to ChessBase

Interested if they answer to you.. :-)

ESd> Since a long time now ChessBase is a company that sells games and
ESd> databases. Nothing wrong with that although some people consider these
ESd> databases to be too expensive.

Hehe, there are some more than a few... ;-)

ESd> The Schroder BV is a company that develops and sells chess programs.
ESd> Nothing wrong with that although some people consider .... well, never
ESd> mind.

If you would stop this stupid copy-protection and sell Rebel8 and on on CD-
rom I would be absolutely glad. Is there a reason why you sell Rebel8 in
opposite to Rebel Gold etc not on CD-rom?

ESd> When we announced October 96 that we would release two CD-Roms (Rebel
ESd> Million and Millionbase) with 1.1 million games we knew that other
ESd> companies would not like the idea. To our surprise we very soon received
ESd> rumors that ChessBase and Interchess (from NicBase) thought our CD-Rom
ESd> no doubt would contain hundreds of stolen games.

What can they do? They must have been shocked when they sold CBWIn1.0 with
much less games than ChessAssistant when CA entered the market, so they
had to adjust their prizes what reduces their profit. It changed some
times, they raised their database, CA did also and so on. But it was still
in their size of profit. Even when CA starts to sell 520.000 games for
only 100deutchmarks (with a CA-light-vesion). The main program is still
compareable if you look at the prize. But now you come with an also
100deutchmarks-cd-rom, but not with 500.000 games, you deliver more than
1million games.
That brings you in advantage of them. If CB had a database with >1 million
games, they wouldn't sell it for as we say in German "fuer ein Appel und
ein Ei" (for an apple and an egg).
Remember they sell only their update(!)-database from megabase95/96 to
megabase97 for lots of money!

ESd> But then ChessBase started (behind our back!) a campaign to our
ESd> retailers asking them not to buy these CD-Roms from us because it
ESd> contains stolen data, threatening they were taken risk to be legally
ESd> persecuted etc.
ESd> This is not fair competition anymore!

Did you expect this? ;-)

ESd> ChessBase: do you have any public reaction on your behavior except of
ESd> course that you don't like so many games to be sold by an other company?
ESd> - Ed Schroder -

If you would sell them for 600 deutchmarks they may have been quiet...

Harald
--

Harald Faber

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Hello whoever,


m> From: "mig" <m...@satlink.com>
m> Subject: Re: Open letter to ChessBase
m> Organization: Elite Consulting


m> What can they copyright? The players' names? Their Elo? The location,

I think the comments/commentators and variations. I don't know how justice
is exactly hadling this in Germany or the Netherlands.

Harald
--

Rolf Czedzak

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Hi Matthias, hi Ed,

ChessBase GmbH wrote: <5b3sdv$p...@news00.btx.dtag.de>

CG> My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in
CG> this matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the
CG> opinion of New In Chess in Alkmaar.
CG>
CG> I think every question will be answered from the correspondence
CG> between Schroder BV and us on their web page.

... very optimistic point of view. ;-)

CG> To sum it up:
CG>
CG> 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply
CG> copied from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and
CG> ChessBase.

Yet an unproven statement, I think. But without proving "simply
copied" You don't even have a case, because a single game can not
be copyrighted -no need to argue about this point (?) - only
annotations can make it copyrightable. The process of collecting and
ordering is no intelectual effort in time of databases. Even without
a database it should not take more than an hour to code some
resorter when you know the data structure. The actual resorting is
left as a 'mechanical' work.

CG> 2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on
CG> chess games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by
CG> other publishers and sell it as their own.

I'm sure, they didn't say/admit that Schroeder BV actually did so.

CG> 3. Our view is that this is not a matter of copyrighting chess games.
CG> Chess games are free. Everybody can enter and sell them.
CG> However in preparing data collections, honest publishers invest the
CG> following:

[]

CG> Points 3b)-3e) are expensive ...

I see Your point and it's an understandable desire to protect Your
investment as well as Your market share. But _maybe_ modern information
technology has (or is going to) closed markets of shere collections
of whatsoever. Maybe the only sellable goods in Your area are
_annotated_ games. (Again I've to put a '?' here.)

You obviously are in a situation similar to Deutsche Telekom vs. Topware
which dealt (and are doing so AFAIK) with telephone dictionaries. They
claimed that they didn't copy the CD-ROMs sold by Deutsche Telekom but
had a bunch of chinese typists typing in the content of printed
dictionaries using hundreds of terminals. Don't ask me for court
references, I'm sure Your lawyer already knows.

CG> ... and worldwide many people are making a
CG> living out of this working for the major publishers.

Won't give You a dime. See what happened to professions like tinker
(Kesselflicker) or knife-grinder (Scherenschleifer) when there was a
no longer a market for their goods. Most of them hadn't joined a union
to establish firemen on electric driven trains.

CG> In case of 3a)
CG> rare historical bulletins can cost you up to hundreds of dollars.

Meaningless, as this doesn't make You owner of the game itself.

CG> 4. Competitors of ours have for many years worked in the same way.
CG> Chess Assistant and New In Chess have always paid people for entering
CG> and editing their data. TascBase have bought their games properly
CG> from FIDE-Chess.

Once again, it's of no importance what others do or have done, as You
are claiming incorrect behaviour of Schroeder BV.

CG> It is our opinion that simply copying this data
CG> means to make profit through the work of others.

Take a breath. Making profit through the work of others is (at least
part of) the base of so-called western society. It brought man to the moon
and 12 km under the sea surface. They/we/it will not give it up because
of chess games. Although chess is be a good reason for giving up anything.
;-)

CG> Thats the reason why
CG> we are going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they show their hand and
CG> get the thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has
CG> written ("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the
CG> situation.

Did Your lawyers really write about _stolen_ games as Ed stated?
Normally these guys make their living by terms of -let's say- 'not
legally aquired'.

CG> Matthias Wuellenweber

Rolf

Anders Thulin

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Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

In article <01bbfe67$6d8f1200$0100...@mig.satlink.com>,
mig <m...@satlink.com> wrote:

>What can they copyright? The players' names? Their Elo? The location,

>maybe? Ridiculous. [...]

Don't forget that a threat is often stronger than its execution.
Threatening legal consequences can stop practically anyone from doing
anything, as long as they don't investigate the threat.

It should also be noted that ChessBase is a German company, and may
very well chose to prosecute a dealer in Germany, rather than go to
the trouble of attempting international prosecution. Prosecuting a
dealer could be just as effective as prosecuting the publisher of the
CD's -- if they win, many other dealers would drop the product
immediately.


It should be noted, though, that as long as game scores don't carry
source reference information, it will be close to impossible to
demonstrate if a game isn't pirated.

For instance, if CB's games carried the source reference
'ChessBase', and the games they claimed to be pirated *also* carried
that reference, they could argue that the games had indeed been
copied.

If the games did not, but instead said things like 'Chess Life 1995,
p. 12', 'Pope: Pillsbury, p. 99', 'Informator 1989:32' etc, it would
probably be more difficult to claim piracy, or to convince a court of
law that piracy had taken place.


--
Anders Thulin Anders...@lejonet.se 013 - 23 55 32
Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden

Anders Thulin

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

In article <5b9kli$p...@news-central.tiac.net>,
James Garner <da...@laraby.tiac.net> wrote:

> So unless you can somehow copyright the individual moves of the
>game, there is no way that you still have a copyright in a compilation
>which is essentially not yours.

There is: the anthology copyright.

The question of how to decide if two anthologies are sufficiently
similar for one to infringe on the rights of the other is
... interesting, to say the least.

There's also the added complication of completeness: there is no way
I know of to copyright an anthology of, say, all game secores for
St. Petersburg 1914, except by adding copyrightable material, like
annotations.

> P.S. Not even if you seeded in some fake games, like some people
>try to do with telephone directories. If you have some copyright in those
>games, and someone who publishes games in general asks you to tell him
>which are yours so that he can remove them, and you refuse to assist, then
>I say you are shit oput of luck, ChessBase.

It is really the business of a publisher to determine if any work he
publishes is covered by copyright, and if so obtain permission to
republish it. It's part of the job as a publisher.

If the publisher has to ask an an assumed copyright owner if a
collection of games contains copyrighted material, it might be argued
that the publisher cannot verify his sources, or knows or suspects
that the material has been copied. I suspect that might be what CB
are doing.

Whether that argument is valid or not will be up to a court of law
to decide.

Anders Thulin

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

In article <5b47p1$9...@gazette.loc3.tandem.com>,

Peter L. McKone <mckone...@tandem.com> wrote:

>Is it possible that ChessBase has some mistakes in their database?
>Perhaps one of their data entry clerks entered some extra moves
>or changed the name of the city where the tournament was played?
>Maybe even on purpose? If those same mistakes appeared in
>someone else's database they could be pretty certain that the

>games were stolen. [...]

A serious company would not stop at making mere mistakes. They
would probably invent a number of tournaments, with players and games,
and supply a number of games from that tournament (Bombay, 1975, say,
or Archangelsk, 1934) in each database collection they sold. That
could probably be argued as creative work, in which case, the games
would certainly be copyrighted.

If this has been put into actual practice, it wouldn't take to much
work to trace down tournaments that can't be found in contemporary
literature. For that reason, it would probably be easiest to invent
local tournaments in out-of-the-way places, as they would be difficult
to verify. Or, as correspondence chess is fairly unkown by many OTB
players, and not too well publicized, invent a couple of corr games.

Anders Thulin

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

In article <5bak6k$6...@news-central.tiac.net>,
James Garner <da...@laraby.tiac.net> wrote:

> I will be creating fake chess games with "creative ideas" and
>distributing them. Of course, I retain a copyright in them. And while I
>grant permission freely for anyone else in the universe to use them in
>their databases, or sell them, I hereby expressly forbid ChessBase from
>including them in THEIR databses.

You probably needn't worry.

A serious database publisher won't include material that can't be
traced, just to avoid those risks. Even more, if they themselves are
doing the same thing to catch copy-makers, they will know they will
have to be very careful with sources themselves.

Personally, I would not include any game I couldn't find printed or
that I didn't get from known tournament arrangers from whom I've
bought the right to publish the material on CD. Copying games from
the Internet would be totally out of the question.

Harald Faber

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Hello Thorsten,


TH> From: a224...@smail.rrz.uni-koeln.de (Thorsten Heedt)
TH> Subject: Re: Open letter to ChessBase
TH> Organization: Regional Computing Center, University of Cologne

TH> I regret the following remark is in German ...

OK, wenn Du kein englisch verstehst..:

TH> Wenn Herr Schroeder sich so sicher ist, dass er Recht hat und er keine
TH> Datenpiraterie betreibt, wieso schreibt er denn dann tausende von
TH> Rechtfertigungsbriefen ? Das ist doch irgendwie verdEchtig...

Er rechtfertigt sich nicht.

TH> Wenn ich so ein Produkt erstellt haette und sicher waere, dass es
TH> vollkommen 'koscher' ist, dann haette ich mich durch ChessBase'
TH> Warnungen nicht einschuechtern lassen und es einfach VEROEFFENTLICHT !

Du vielleicht, Ed will aber auf Nummer sicher gehen.

TH> Wenn Herr Schroeder allerdings ueble Piraterie betrieben haben sollte,
TH> sollte er seine CD lieber einstampfen lassen !

Haette er dann die CD an CB geschickt und wuerde hier einen solchen Wirbel
machen, wenn CB ihm mit wenigen Partien, die in Ed's und deren Base
auftauchen, den Garaus machen koennte? Warum zeigt CB nicht eine einzige
Partie auf, die identisch auf Ed's als auch auf ner CB-Datenbank ist?


Harald
--

ChessBase GmbH

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

Hi Ed,

if I understand it correctly, your argumentation can now be ZIPped to
the following:

"Schroder BV didn't take a single game from the data of New In Chess,
Chess Informant and ChessBase."

Some time ago we traded a copy of ChessBase 6.0 against Rebel 8.0:

1. Please use this to convert the data and generate an annotator index
on the pre-release CD you sent to us. There you will find the whole
editorial board of ChessBase Magazine. The annotations have been
stripped out by some utility. But the annotator names have been left in
the tournament line.

2. Please scan the 'source' index for the publisher information which
has been stored in the games. How do you interpret titles like "INF 48"?

Matthias

PS: I don't think that you act intentionally in this matter. You have
been tricked by your supplier in an ugly way. It is so obvious that you
probably haven't even looked at the material yourself.

ChessBase GmbH

unread,
Jan 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/13/97
to

> Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
> much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
> who sees that you can make 'easy' money?

This thread is not the place to settle scores with old enemies. Please
stay away. I don't mind the usual anti-ChessBase-parrots chiming in
here. But Ed has said clearly in the past that he does not like the
r.g.c.c psychowars. I understand that. Please leave us alone.

--
Matthias Wuellenweber

mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

tor...@ifi.uio.no (Tord Kallqvist Romstad) wrote:

>Ed Schröder (rebc...@xs4all.nl) wrote:
><snipped>

>Stolen games???
>Since when are chess games copyrighted?

>Tord

Why not ? Here we have a fine idea of helping poor chess-players.
No grandmaster would have ever again to prostetute himself.

I think that is a nice idea!

I would pay Bobby Fischer for his games. Why not.
Also I would pay Tal. But I would not buy games from Fritz4.01.
Maybe from Hiarcs5. ... :-)


mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

"Ed Schröder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

>: My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
>: matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of


>: New In Chess in Alkmaar.

>: I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
>: Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:

>: 1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied


>: from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.

>As soon as we heard from Mr. Andriessen that he (NicBase) and you
>(ChessBase) accused us from illegal copying games (while the product
>wasn't even released!) we against the advice of our lawyer immediately
>have sent you a pre-copy of our MillionBase on Cdrom with the request
>to show us proof.

>Since October 1996 we have asked you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen of
>NicBase to come up with proof instead of statements. Till now (January
>11, 1997) you and Nicbase have refused to show us one single game.

>Now should I withdraw 2 attractive products because of a statement?

>Have you ever heard of proof before you start threatening me and some
>of my dealers?

>Well, your threats have been succesful till now. One major german dealer
>already informed me that he will not sell MillionBase and Rebel Million
>because he wants no problems with ChessBase!

Is it SCHACH NIGGEMANN ?!

>: 2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess
>: games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by other


>: publishers and sell it as their own.

>You twist my words here Matthias.

>We have told you *many* times in the past 2 months that *no single* game

>on our 1,100,000 chess games Cdroms was taken from any CHESSBASE or
>NICBASE diskette or Cdrom!

>If you want to know how the 1,100,000 games were collected you should
>take a look at:

>http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm

>: Thats the reason why we are going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they
>: show their hand and get the thing published.

>Well that sounds much better than threatening innocent chess dealers
>behind my back! "the thing" is published so I am awaiting to receive
>evidence of your public accusation:

Threatening DEALERS BEHIND the scene is very famous.
It is done. It was done. They (all big companies) will do it again
in future.

Customers believe we live in a free-market society here in germany,
but this is NOT TRUE. Big companies can thread all the distributors if
they want. That is the MANIPULATION I am always talking about.

Because I am informed about these threads I do not believe in a
democratic society that is neither democratic nor having a
free-market, but is more a monarchic and communistic system.

I always here: Communism is dead.

In germany we have more PLANWIRTSCHAFT than you can imagine.
It is done by the big companies that control anything like the
communistic political parties in UdSSR have done before.


> "Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply

> copied from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and

> ChessBase".

>which I think you can't because it is not true!

>I think you have to come up with proof or apologize.

>- Ed Schroder -


He - Matthias is invited to post the games in examples HERE!
Nothing is easier than showing us his ideas.

We will consider about it.

And then see.


Isn't it nice to have a forum where NOBODY can manipulate ....

mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

hy...@cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt) wrote:


>Personally, I think the entire concept of a law suit is not only foolish
>but stupid. Just take a PC to the trial, with an RF modem, and show the
>judge and jury that there are millions of games stored on public FTP
>sites. And all are absolutely free. I'd be willing to bet that every
>database company out there has trolled the net and sucked in these games,
>but of course they don't want anyone to steal them after they stole them,
>right?

That is exactly my point. But I go one ITERATION backwards:
They are STOLEN from the players who invented the game!

They have - in my opinion - the copyright.
So - give the players the money you would spent in a law-suit.

I think law-suit against people selling databases is a relict of days
where there was no INTERNET at all.

But of course ChessBase tries to survive. Nothing against this.
But it should be done with the right etiquette.
Etiquette for capitalism:
KILL YOUR OPPONENTS!

It IS a problem. ChessBase is a big company and now the internet and
concurrent database-sellers disturb their peace.
Matthias - you have to be used to the fact that we will change into
next century in a few years. We are not in the eighties. I think you
idea of threatening Ed or other companies will not work.

BTW: If really SCHACH NIGGEMANN said to ED:
we can't sell your database Ed, we would get problems with ChessBase,
I would not take this too serious. Because SCHACH NIGGEMANN sells much
units of chessBase products themselves.
Maybe they used the law-suit between CB and Ed as an alibi , just to
tell Ed deiplomatically that THEY don't want to sell it.


>The way games are stored on the internet, I doubt any suit would ever
>succeed, because there are so many "Fischer's games", "Alekhine's games"
>"the Alapin opening", etc... proving that a collection came from a database
>rather than the public ftp archives would be nearly impossible. And it would
>be stupid to try.

Right!

>The database companies ought to be working on making the engines better and
>faster and have more features, and not worry about trying to sell the "data"
>as well. It sounds greedy. It smells bad. And it encourages me to never
>buy one of their products nor recommend than anyone else do so.

Right.

>When's the last time you purchased Oracle and had it come with a database
>of data? You buy the package, and supply the data.. As someone pointed out,
>the copyrightable part of this is the "intellectual contribution" you make
>by annotating the games. Not the drudgery work you do in ftping the games in
>and cleaning up a few errors. You can get over 1/4 million games from my
>ftp site for Crafty's book. Others have books with > 1M games, all from the
>public archives. Come on Nicbase... seems stupid...

Nicbase ?!


mclane

unread,
Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

a224...@smail.rrz.uni-koeln.de (Thorsten Heedt) wrote:

>"
>>
>I regret the following remark is in German ...

>Wenn Herr Schroeder sich so sicher ist, dass er Recht hat und er keine


>Datenpiraterie betreibt, wieso schreibt er denn dann tausende von

>Rechtfertigungsbriefen ? Das ist doch irgendwie verdächtig...

Because he wants to show the DARK AND HIDDEN METHODS of companies
fighting with law-suits behind the scene!

This is not known to many people.
In my opinon ED is right to use USENET for showing HOW BUSINESS in our
society works.

Verdaechtig ?! Why is it suspicious ?!
Publish something in the internet is not suspicious, it is fair (and
clever!) !

>Wenn ich so ein Produkt erstellt haette und sicher waere, dass es

>vollkommen 'koscher' ist, dann haette ich mich durch ChessBase'

>Warnungen nicht einschuechtern lassen und es einfach VEROEFFENTLICHT !

Not ED is intimidated, but e.g. other distributors and companies that
would maybe wish to sell Ed's product are threatened the way:

If YOU sell Ed's product we don't give you our products anymore !

You can decide yourself IF THIS IS BLACKMAIL OR THEAT OR CAPITALISM!!

In my opinon it is unfair.

My cousin once said to me:
I will fire you out of my work. If you try to do something against it,
I will also fire you out of your appartment.

When he resigned his firing because his lawyer told him that he will
have no chances in court because I am right, he said:
Because you have fought against me, I will now fire you out of your/my
appartment/house.

He sent me 3 time a notice.
I always have cut them into pieces Or have thrown them as a paper-ball
into his face.


I am still living into his house. He was unable to fire me.

>Denn dann muesste ich ja ueberzeugt sein, auch vor Gericht Recht zu
>bekommen !

Recht haben heisst nicht immer Recht bekommen.
Dies ist ein Rechtsstaat meint eigentlich nur: dies ist ein rechter
Staat (soll Erich Honnecker gesagt haben!).


>Also raus mit dem Produkt und die Sache vor Gericht geklaert !


Vor Gericht klaeren. HAHAHA ! Gerichte sind nicht dazu da etwas zu
klaeren.

>Denn die Sache scheint ja ohnehin so verfahren, dass ein anderer Weg
>nicht denkbar scheint.

>Wenn Herr Schroeder allerdings ueble Piraterie betrieben haben sollte,

>sollte er seine CD lieber einstampfen lassen !

Again : how will YOU know without having seen this product.

Isn't that a prejudice ?!


mclane

unread,
Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to


>These threats have been emanating from Chessbase sources from the very
>beginning.

>I note that Chessbase has never yet carried them out.

>Personally, I doubt that Chessbase would risk it. Losing would be fairly
>catastrophic for you, no ?

They HAVE done law-suit in different cases I know about (I collect all
that stuff into my communistic archive! We have many STASI
folders/files/Akten), and they lost some cases.

>Emitting threats has kept the monopoly situation under control for some
>time now. Why
>ruin a good thing, eh ?

>Maybe you should just accept that times have changed.

You know WHEN the catholic church ACCEPTED that Galileo Galilei was
RIGHT with his claims that earth is a ball.... :-)
Some power-forces live in old times and have problems to change into
state-of-the-art FACTS.
Paradigm will change. But they will not register early.

>Just about every game
>there ever has
>been is now floating around the Internet. Maybe Friedel and co served some
>useful
>purpose in the days of limited communication facilities, with monopolistic
>'control' over
>the data, but these days are gone, and you know it.

It is time to play shuffle chess. Than all that game-material is
SENSELESS !!!!!

>Any more of these provocations and I (and others too, no doubt) will be
>sorely tempted
>to collect up all these PUBLIC DOMAIN games and bust your monopoly forever.


YES - this is a nice idea ! We should not always try to argue here and
there. We should strike back.

We could collect all data and put it on an internet server so that
anybody can get it FOR FREE.

Fire should be fought with fire. Threats with threats.
Auge um Auge - Zahn um Zahn! - Game against game.

>> as soon as they show their hand and get the
>> thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has written
>> ("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the situation.

>I seem to recollect something similar when New In Chess broke the Chessbase
>monopoly.

>You didn't have the guts (or bad sense) to sue then either.

>Go jump in a lake, Chessbase.

>Chris Whittington

How agressive. Make love/peace not war ! :-)


mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

n...@xnet.com (Peter Stein) wrote:

>I do hope
>this matter can be peacefully resolved without any blood.

>Peter Stein
>n...@xnet.com

Survial of the fittest can sometimes bring us back into
cannibalism-times.


mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

"Ed Schröder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

>Hold on Matthias, you are going much too fast!

>Let's start with the very beginning...
>Ok?

>When we announced our 2 new Cdrom's to our dealers we got an angry phone
>call from Mr. Andriessen of Interchess (Nicbase). He told us that we
>should STAY OUT of his business (the database market).

Brilliant !
How sensible and polite these business-man are !!
Sometimes even apes are cleverer !

>Well at least Mr. Andriessen is an honest guy telling me the real truth.
>However we do not share his opinion, it's a free world you know.

Some FORCES try to make it unfree !
You know what happened to jesus, gandhi, martin-luther-king jun., rosa
luxemburg, Kennedy, Che, Ulrike Marie Meinhof, Petra Kelly, Olaf
Palme, ...

they were killed because they wanted a FREE (and peaceful) WORLD !

>After that you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen (NicBase) informed me that
>our 2 announced Cdrom's with 1,100,000 chess games were illegal WITHOUT
>even having seen the 2 products because they were NOT yet released.

>Yet you and Mr. Andriessen already threatened us with a juridical case on
>beforehand.

>To me this looks like trying to eliminate a competitor even before he
>actually has become one!

>Is it true that you (ChessBase) like Mr. Andriessen of NicBase does not
>want us to sell databases at all thus depriving many people the pleasure
>of huge databases?

Right.

>- Ed Schroder -

>On behalf of the Schroder BV, the company who believes in sharp prices for
>their customers.

>Wuelle...@t-online.de (ChessBase GmbH) wrote:
>>My name is Matthias Wuellenweber. I am talking for ChessBase and in this
>>matter for Chess Informant in Belgrade. My views reflect the opinion of
>>New In Chess in Alkmaar.
>>
>>I think every question will be answered from the correspondence between
>>Schroder BV and us on their web page. To sum it up:
>>
>>1. Major parts of Schroder BV's Millionbase CD have been simply copied
>>from data prepared by Chess Informant, New In Chess and ChessBase.
>>

>>2. The lawyers of Schroder BV argue that there is no copyright on chess
>>games and conclude that Schroder BV may copy data prepared by other
>>publishers and sell it as their own.
>>

>>3. Our view is that this is not a matter of copyrighting chess games.

>>Chess games are free. Everybody can enter and sell them.

>>However in preparing data collections, honest publishers invest the

>>following:
>>
>>a) Games are entered from score sheets, bulletins or received directly
>>as data from the organizers. The latter are usually published public
>>domain on the Internet at this stage.
>>b) Missing games are located by contacting organizers and players.
>>c) Name spelling and tournament titles are unified to international
>>standards. We often have cases like historical soviet or recent chinese
>>bulletins where we are the first to define transcriptions for the names
>>of unknown players.
>>d) Historically correct Elo numbers are added.
>>e) Editorial boards play through the games. In the case of ChessBase
>>Magazine, about 100 grand masters and masters see the games before they
>>are published. At this stage errors in score sheets/bulletins or public
>>domain data are detected. There are many cases where the whole game is
>>stored under a wrong result with wrong players names. The olympiad
>>usually gives us nightmares.
>>

>>Points 3b)-3e) are expensive and worldwide many people are making a
>>living out of this working for the major publishers. In case of 3a) rare


>>historical bulletins can cost you up to hundreds of dollars.
>>

>>4. Competitors of ours have for many years worked in the same way. Chess
>>Assistant and New In Chess have always paid people for entering and
>>editing their data. TascBase have bought their games properly from
>>FIDE-Chess. It is our opinion that simply copying this data means to
>>make profit through the work of others. Thats the reason why we are
>>going to sue Schroder BV as soon as they show their hand and get the


>>thing published. And thats the reason why New In Chess has written
>>("threatening") letters to the major dealers explaining the situation.
>>

mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

pet...@mckone.loc3.tandem.com (Peter L. McKone) wrote:


>Is it possible that ChessBase has some mistakes in their database?
>Perhaps one of their data entry clerks entered some extra moves
>or changed the name of the city where the tournament was played?
>Maybe even on purpose? If those same mistakes appeared in
>someone else's database they could be pretty certain that the

>games were stolen. This would not be a copywright issue, but still
>the law doesn't seem clear.

Yes. It is said that THIS is the way they MARK their data by making
errors into the material.

>Since only the people who actually played the game have the
>original scoresheets, I bet that most games are actually stolen,
>in the sense that someone else did the data entry.

That is another question, if the players have the unique right about
the notation. I think this is not to realize. Consider a soccer-player
would say to the television-station: you have to cut me out of the
whole 90' game or you pay me for each time I am seen on the screen !!
Imagine if this would be the normal law, the soccer-players would not
run to the goal, they would run wherever a TV-camera is placed and try
to get as much money instead of shooting goals!

>It does seem reasonable that the person or company that enters
>the moves by hand into its database ought to get some commission
>from people who sell copies of the games later.
>Of course it would be nice if the masters who spent five hours
>playing the game could get a few pennies too!

That would be a nice idea, and ChessBase has to pay any player of
their 1 million database a fee for putting them in, for the whole time
from 1985 until now. Ough, maybe somebody else can calculate how much
money ChessBase would have to pay for selling data that is "stolen
from the chess-players" !! :-)


>Regards,
>Peter McKone


mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

ra...@ark.franken.de (Ralf W. Stephan) wrote:

>I think it is a similar situation to the work being done on digitizing
>old books. Only that none of the CDROM publishers claim they have
>rights on the Etexts. Why would they, that's silly! The same goes
>with CDROMs full of free/PD soft.


Again: The Karl May Verlag invented a nice idea to stop copieing out
of Karl May books by CHANGING the whole books and having copyrights on
the changed-books then.

They call their books original editions although the books are pretty
worthless books, because Karl May has not written them, but the
Karl-May-Verlag. But who is interested in a book that was changed by
stupid people ?!

Any try of people to PUBLISH a historical-critical edition of Karl-May
books was instantly stopped by Karl-May Verlag with various methods
(legal and illegal!).

This is another case that shows: we are not living in a democratic
society and not having a soical-free-market here in germany.
It is (un/a)sozial, unfree and corrupt- time for another revolution.

>My question to ChessBase is therefore: What rights do you think you
>have on something that has been created by other people (the players),
>most of which you probably didn't ask for the right to copy their work?


Brillian! Let us collect money that Bobby can play against Kasparov
and smash him away!

>AFAIU, you can only claim rights on your whole compilation, and the
>additional tools you provide with it, respectively.


>Sincerely,
>ralf
>--
>Lynx-enhanced pages at <http://www.bayreuth-online.de/~stephan>

Vincent Diepeveen

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

In <5bdl4p$v...@juniper.cis.uab.edu> hy...@cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt) writes:

>Personally, I think the entire concept of a law suit is not only foolish
>but stupid. Just take a PC to the trial, with an RF modem, and show the
>judge and jury that there are millions of games stored on public FTP
>sites. And all are absolutely free. I'd be willing to bet that every
>database company out there has trolled the net and sucked in these games,
>but of course they don't want anyone to steal them after they stole them,
>right?

Yes and no

yes: the current concept definitely sucks, that is true.

no: there are no millions of games. If we forget the blitzgames
played at ICS, and the computer-computer games played, then take
out the doubles, and use ALL games EVER inserted into the computer,
i would be very surprised if you have over 1.1 million games then.

Of course one can create millions of games, but we are talking about
games at a certain level. So at Internet one will not find more than
about 800,000 games of these games. This is no estimate. This is the
size of my database... :)

>The way games are stored on the internet, I doubt any suit would ever
>succeed, because there are so many "Fischer's games", "Alekhine's games"
>"the Alapin opening", etc... proving that a collection came from a database
>rather than the public ftp archives would be nearly impossible. And it would
>be stupid to try.

>The database companies ought to be working on making the engines better and


>faster and have more features, and not worry about trying to sell the "data"
>as well. It sounds greedy. It smells bad. And it encourages me to never
>buy one of their products nor recommend than anyone else do so.
>

>When's the last time you purchased Oracle and had it come with a database
>of data? You buy the package, and supply the data.. As someone pointed out,
>the copyrightable part of this is the "intellectual contribution" you make
>by annotating the games. Not the drudgery work you do in ftping the games in
>and cleaning up a few errors. You can get over 1/4 million games from my
>ftp site for Crafty's book. Others have books with > 1M games, all from the
>public archives. Come on Nicbase... seems stupid...
>

Vincent Diepeveen

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

In <01bc0180$978d6900$849a...@10.0.1.1> "Enrique Irazoqui" <en...@lix.intercom.es> writes:

>Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote
><5bdp1t$7...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>...

><snip>

>
>> Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
>> much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
>

>By the way, Vincent, a long time ago you claimed to have found a killer
>line in the opening book of Rebel 8. Several people asked you to post it
>and you never did.
>
>Enrique
>

Why should i, it is clear not?

Whole book is full of it. Just play a game Rebel8-Genius 3, and you
know.

Rebel is bad in making positional choices and making strategical choices.
The book simply prevents these choices, after which in a tricky line
Genius 3 gets crucified.

Are you so stupid?

Vincent

Vincent Diepeveen

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

In this case the ape-cannibalists try to eat from the same starved monkey.

Vincent Diepeveen

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

In <5bdva1$f...@news.xs4all.nl> "Ed Schredder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> writes:

(UNDER UNIX ONE CANNOT USE EXTENDED ASCI SUCH AS o with umlaut)

>From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)

>>We have told you *many* times in the past 2 months that *no single* game
>>on our 1,100,000 chess games Cdroms was taken from any CHESSBASE or
>>NICBASE diskette or Cdrom!
>
>: So you can show us 1,100,000 notations of games, which you put into
>: the computer by hand? Perhaps you can only show us a photo of 100,000
>: notations of games that were handed over to Ed Schroeder? Which last
>: 10 years has spent fulltime to put them in the computer?
>

>Vincent,
>
>Have you checked: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm ??
>I suppose not. Here you will find how MillionBase was created.

I did, and i still make the same conclusion. You copied it.

>: Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too

>: much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
>: who sees that you can make 'easy' money?
>

>Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
>greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
>you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for
>some time. Now you totally unfounded call me a big liar, do you have
>no manners?

You don't know your own book. That's Jeroen's task, i know.
Jeroen can very clearly tell you how to win from Genius. I also know
how to win from Genius without problems. The lines in Rebel proof this.

This doesn't take away of course that Rebel 8 is a very strong program.

Shall i post few killerlines of your book? People will complain, it is
about 2 megabyte of text. May i post it Ed? Just say yes, and i will post
over 2 megabyte of text in rec.games.chess.computer under the name:
Rebel8 Killerbook, and ask to verify for example few lines Genius3 plays.

I didn't check mcpro 3.5 or mcpro 4, but i guess i should have. (i don't
own mcpro 4, i can only test it at a friends house, but i wouldn't).

You don't know your own book too well. That's Jeroen's task, i know,
you said it repeatedly.

Who told you that your million base was legal? Clemens de Leeuw?
Jeroen Noomen? Someone else?

>You always speak so easily, you accused Fritz from cheating on the BT-test
>and the BK-test. Also here when I asked you for proof you could NOT! And

From which i posted proof.

I wasn't able to proof that Rebel cheats in standard testpositions,
so for this reason i didn't say a word about it, but others did,
where i did proof it for Fritz3, and only posted a decent word about it.

Now don't tell the public i didn't proof it for Fritz3. I will post
it again then, people having an elorating of above 1100-1300 should be able
to read it.

Don't you have over 1100-1300?

Did you put your head again in the sand, and just thought this a good
argument to use when answerring a msg that went about the possibility that
you entered 1.1 million games in your computer within few months?

>I don't believe a word of it.

You don't believe either that your database is legal?

> You must be much more careful with your
>words in public!

If you take all games in the world played by strong players and grandmasters,
i estimate that you then have about 1.1 million games.

I don't take into account computer-computer games,
random-games (games made by a random generator), and blitzgames.

>: No scanner in the world can read these notations.
>
>Please note that MillionBase and Rebel Million do not contain one single
>annotation. Just bare games.

So you admit you didn't scan them, you haven't said a word that you
were busy many tens of years with tens of volunteers to input the games,
so how did you get these games? Chessbase? KNSB? Jomanda?
Your homepage sucks in this respects. it says:

"This millionbase is the result of collecting and
entering chessgames for over a decade."

i guess this includes copying? So where did you get the notations of the
games when entering over the decades. In all magazines published in these
decades there are less than 100,000 games together.

>: They are all inserted into the computer by local volunteers, and

>: handed over in ascii to the national chess organisation. Perhaps
>: this organisation should speak the last word?
>
>: Perhaps they should ask money from Chessbase?
>: From Ed Schroeder?
>: From both?
>

>It would certainly solve the problem for good.

Why not starting negotiations with the KNSB?

Be ahead of your nearest concurrent: Chessbase.

I'll give you a hint: Max EuweCentrum is the Dutch chess federation's
residency in Amsterdam. About a 1-2 hour drive from Deventer i estimate.

Or do you mind entering chessmoves? How many seconds a game do you need Ed?
You don't know? Strange... :)

>I would have no problems with that and should be willing to pay for
>games from tournaments if things would be properly arranged (players
>should also receive their part) (no exclusivity on games) etc.

BTW i have about 500-1000 notations of games played by myself
you may enter for me. I ask nothing for the games, just want the notation
back and a free file with my games in it. How about that?
All games i play last years are already datafiled by others,
so you only need to enter my youth games and local games, about 750,
as i am too lazy to enter them (any of my games myself).

I'll take a stopwatch with me to see how fast you are and will report
this to the newsgroup.

Then i will divide 1.1 million games by the number of games you entered,
and will multiply this by the time needed. Great offer?

>: I guess all national organisations could use some money. To organize


>: some nice tournaments, support youth, support computerchess?
>

>I agree...

>- Ed Schroder -
>: Vincent Diepeveen

Vincent

Enrique Irazoqui

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote
<5bfu6h$4...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>...

> In <01bc0180$978d6900$849a...@10.0.1.1> "Enrique Irazoqui"
<en...@lix.intercom.es> writes:
>
> >Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote
> ><5bdp1t$7...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>...
> >> In <85306274...@gln01-12.dial.xs4all.nl> "Ed Schrder"
> ><rebc...@xs4all.nl> writes:
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >> Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
> >> much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
> >
> >By the way, Vincent, a long time ago you claimed to have found a killer
> >line in the opening book of Rebel 8. Several people asked you to post it
> >and you never did.
> >
> >Enrique
> >
>
> Why should i, it is clear not?

Why should you?

1- When you accuse someone you should be able to prove your accusation.

2- Because you said you would prove it. Let me refresh your memory. The 4th
of December of 1996 you posted the following:
__________
"In <01bbe111$a3c4d4e0$f3ec...@10.0.1.1> "Enrique Irazoqui"
<en...@lix.intercom.es> writes:

>> Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote
>
>> What is your opinion about the Rebel super killerbook.
>> I played a rapid-game Rebel-Genius3. Rebel in book: far over 20 moves.
>> Genius in book: around 10 moves.
>
>> After his book Genius3 played: ... Qd8-b6 followed by Qb6xb2??
>
>Dear Vincent,
>
>Could you post this game? I am looking for killer lines in programs and so
>far I did not find this one.

I aborted the game, but i'll look up the line for you this evening. "
_____________


"This evening" was over 2 months ago. You never proved the existence of
Rebel's killer line.

> Whole book is full of it. Just play a game Rebel8-Genius 3, and you
> know.
>
> Rebel is bad in making positional choices and making strategical choices.
> The book simply prevents these choices, after which in a tricky line
> Genius 3 gets crucified.
>
> Are you so stupid?

Stupid because I am waiting for the line you promised to post here? Stupid
SSDF because such a bad program is #1 in their list?

Maybe slightly dishonest from your part to accuse without a proof, to
promise without delivering, to insult as a your only resource?

Enrique

> Vincent


Bill Newton

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

In article <01bc00c7$0f9d7300$c308...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>, Cpsoft
<po...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> writes
>Do you own these games ?
>
>I think not.
>
>If (big if), you really meant business, you wouldn't be messing around with
>silly threats on
>r.g.c.c.

I hope you're wrong here Chris, see below for explanation!
>
>These Chessbase postings are mere noise, designed to protect your monopoly.
>Times have
>changed, Chessbase.

ChessBase are indeed flexing their muscles but I think they should be
allowed do so all the way to the Courthouse.

>The Public domain games are NOT your property.

In simple terms this seems to be a fair statement. However it is obvious
from the amount of correspondence generated in this group that we have a
very subjective issue here, the resolution of which is not straight
forward.

IMO The situation screams out for a definitive ruling.

Without repeating the arguments already stated by other folk it seems
evident to me that a LEGAL ruling is essential inasmuch as it
would/should point the way as to what can/cant be done with chess game
data.

In which case would it be such a bad thing to allow ChessBase to put
their legal boxing gloves on and proceed to the Courthouse without
hindrance?

>Chris Whittington

By the way I hope you enjoyed your holiday Chris, I'm pleased you've
decided to resume contributions to the group and I look forward to your
revitalized input, even though there's an off chance that I may not
agree with ALL you say! ;-)

Regards.

--
Bill Newton

Ed Schröder

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)

>Vincent,

>Have you checked: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm ??
>I suppose not. Here you will find how MillionBase was created.

: I did, and i still make the same conclusion. You copied it.

See my comment below, you are missing an important point.

>: Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
>: much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
>: who sees that you can make 'easy' money?

>Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
>greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
>you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for
>some time. Now you totally unfounded call me a big liar, do you have
>no manners?

: You don't know your own book. That's Jeroen's task, i know.
: Jeroen can very clearly tell you how to win from Genius. I also know
: how to win from Genius without problems. The lines in Rebel proof this.

: This doesn't take away of course that Rebel 8 is a very strong program.

: Shall i post few killerlines of your book? People will complain, it is
: about 2 megabyte of text. May i post it Ed? Just say yes, and i will
post
: over 2 megabyte of text in rec.games.chess.computer under the name:
: Rebel8 Killerbook, and ask to verify for example few lines Genius3
plays.

No 2 megabyte please...
But say 5-10 examples are just fine for me... :)
I am sure you have nothing, all Rebel8 opening moves comes from opening
books on paper and are common opening theory.

>Please note that MillionBase and Rebel Million do not contain one single
>annotation. Just bare games.

: So you admit you didn't scan them, you haven't said a word that you
: were busy many tens of years with tens of volunteers to input the games,
: so how did you get these games? Chessbase? KNSB? Jomanda?
: Your homepage sucks in this respects. it says:

: "This millionbase is the result of collecting and
: entering chessgames for over a decade."

You are overlooking one important point. The 1.1 million games were not
collected by myself but by somebody else who spent 10 years and thousand
of thousands of hours on it just for a hobby.

I bought his work.

For details read "Letters to ChessBase" on my home page.

Hope this will clearify your confusion.

- Ed Schroder -


: Vincent
: --

Rolf Czedzak

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

Enrique Irazoqui wrote: <01bc0180$978d6900$849a...@10.0.1.1>

EI> Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote
EI> <5bdp1t$7...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>...
EI> > In <85306274...@gln01-12.dial.xs4all.nl> "Ed Schrder"
EI> <rebc...@xs4all.nl> writes:
EI>
EI> <snip>
EI>
EI> > Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
EI> > much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
EI>
EI> By the way, Vincent, a long time ago you claimed to have found a
EI> killer line in the opening book of Rebel 8. Several people asked you
EI> to post it and you never did.

Looks like he is trying to 'tueschen' the thread.

EI> Enrique

Rolf

mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to


>: Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
>: much money for their games, and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,
>: who sees that you can make 'easy' money?

>Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
>greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
>you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for
>some time.

"Velen gunden hem deze afgang."


>Now you totally unfounded call me a big liar, do you have
>no manners?

I would say about Vincent what Jan Louwmann once said about another
guy I know:

"De programmeur van dit programma heeft een niet zo'n beste
reputatie..."


mclane

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Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

cab...@gtii.com (Phil Hildenbrandt) wrote:

>On 9 Jan 1997 19:25:04 GMT, in rec.games.chess.analysis you wrote:

>>Open letter to ChessBase
>If any of my games are found in ChessBase should I sue? I give written
>permission for Schroeder BV to include any and all of my games in
>thier database. ChessBase, I am checking yoour database now. I never
>recall giving you permission. If I did, please foward a copy of such.
>If I didn't, I expect a royalty check from you promptly.

>Phil "Paul Morphy" Hildenbrandt

Woudln't it a nice idea if all chess-players who find themselves in
some databases sue the companies that have published THEIR games into
these files ?!

Maybe all chess players should try to get money out of the selling of
THEIR data.


Anders Thulin

unread,
Jan 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/14/97
to

In article <5bd693$9...@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de>,
Jochen Schoof <sch...@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote:

>This in fact sounds like hard and maybe expensive work, but all this
>does not change one thing: It does not make you the copyright holder
>for all games in a collection in which you have corrected these errors.
>To show you an analogy: If I buy a book and correct all the typos in it,
>is the result something I'm holding the copyright for?

It could very well be so. If a book has been edited, that edition
is a new work of art, and thus protected by copyright under the usual
restrictions.

Merely correcting typos does probably not create a protected work,
but 'unifying' a work by ensuring consistent spelling, consistent
transcriptions etc could very well do so.

Robert Hyatt

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

Vincent Diepeveen (vdie...@cs.ruu.nl) wrote:

: In <5bdl4p$v...@juniper.cis.uab.edu> hy...@cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt) writes:

: >Personally, I think the entire concept of a law suit is not only foolish
: >but stupid. Just take a PC to the trial, with an RF modem, and show the
: >judge and jury that there are millions of games stored on public FTP
: >sites. And all are absolutely free. I'd be willing to bet that every
: >database company out there has trolled the net and sucked in these games,
: >but of course they don't want anyone to steal them after they stole them,
: >right?

: Yes and no

: yes: the current concept definitely sucks, that is true.

: no: there are no millions of games. If we forget the blitzgames
: played at ICS, and the computer-computer games played, then take
: out the doubles, and use ALL games EVER inserted into the computer,
: i would be very surprised if you have over 1.1 million games then.

Your numbers are way low. Ken Thompson had a million games 15 years
ago, as he was helping typeset the books by David Levy...

"Computer" on ICC has an opening database of > 1,000,000 games. I have
collected large blocks of games I have not yet put into my opening book,
but 1M is not difficult at all to obtain... No doubles because they can
be weeded out with a <gasp> database program... however, there are lots
of IM, GM, but even more master and expert games... that is a problem,
although when simply counting games it's not...

: Of course one can create millions of games, but we are talking about

: games at a certain level. So at Internet one will not find more than
: about 800,000 games of these games. This is no estimate. This is the
: size of my database... :)

: >The way games are stored on the internet, I doubt any suit would ever
: >succeed, because there are so many "Fischer's games", "Alekhine's games"
: >"the Alapin opening", etc... proving that a collection came from a database
: >rather than the public ftp archives would be nearly impossible. And it would
: >be stupid to try.

: >The database companies ought to be working on making the engines better and
: >faster and have more features, and not worry about trying to sell the "data"
: >as well. It sounds greedy. It smells bad. And it encourages me to never
: >buy one of their products nor recommend than anyone else do so.
: >
: >When's the last time you purchased Oracle and had it come with a database
: >of data? You buy the package, and supply the data.. As someone pointed out,
: >the copyrightable part of this is the "intellectual contribution" you make
: >by annotating the games. Not the drudgery work you do in ftping the games in
: >and cleaning up a few errors. You can get over 1/4 million games from my
: >ftp site for Crafty's book. Others have books with > 1M games, all from the
: >public archives. Come on Nicbase... seems stupid...

: >
: --

Stefan Hahndel

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

In article <5bftva$3...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>, vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen) writes:
|> In <5bdl4p$v...@juniper.cis.uab.edu> hy...@cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt) writes:
|>

[...]


|> no: there are no millions of games. If we forget the blitzgames
|> played at ICS, and the computer-computer games played, then take
|> out the doubles, and use ALL games EVER inserted into the computer,
|> i would be very surprised if you have over 1.1 million games then.
|>

|> Of course one can create millions of games, but we are talking about
|> games at a certain level. So at Internet one will not find more than
|> about 800,000 games of these games. This is no estimate. This is the
|> size of my database... :)


Are you sure? I also collected games on the internet from many sites
and burned CDROM's with it for myself. Most of this games are grandmaster
or master level. I would estimate that this are far more than a million games
when eliminating doubles.

Why I am so sure ? Well, there are several thousand smaller
data bases containing only several hundred or thousands of games with
a certain opening or only games from one player and so on ...
For this reason one could easily estimate the number of doubles in several
data bases.


S. Hahndel

--
Technische Universitaet Muenchen Phone: +49-89-48095-257
Institut fuer Informatik Fax: +49-89-48095-250
Orleansstr.34, D-81667 Muenchen, Germany; Room: 252 IRC: Hast
http://www6.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~hahndel/

lensp...@aol.com

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

In article <672_970...@shadow.franken.de>,
Harald...@p21.f2.n1.z1001.fidonet.org (Harald Faber) writes:

>
>m> What can they copyright? The players' names? Their Elo? The location,
>
>I think the comments/commentators and variations. I don't know how
justice
>is exactly hadling this in Germany or the Netherlands.

BONUS QUESTION (which NOBODY has asked yet):

Where did CHESSBASE get the annotations?


Francesco Di Tolla

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

Peter Stein wrote:
> =

> In article <5b49ov$m...@gyda.ifi.uio.no>,
> Tord Kallqvist Romstad <tor...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:


> >Ed Schr=F6der (rebc...@xs4all.nl) wrote:
> ><snipped>
> >
> >Stolen games???
> >Since when are chess games copyrighted?
> >
> >Tord

> =

> Individual games cannot be. However, value added material can be.
> The value added material can consist of annotations and the
> packaging of games into collections. Examples of collections might
> be all Olympiad games or master games where one of the masters fell
> into an obvious combination (such as the ChessBase "Patzer" database).

I simply think that there should be no problem if the same games
appear in a larger database, and the comments are removed.
If I write a book about facts happening in my town, can I be
prosecuted because I copy the names of the people involved
in the facts from the newspapers? Of course not!
Names, places, and moves of the games do not belong to ChessBase.
The value added of the selection of the games does not exsist any
more if they are a fragment o a generic collection of games.
Or should we stop having book on Sicilian opening because somebody
once wrote already a book on Sicilian opening?

regards
Franz
-- =

Francesco Di Tolla, Center for Atomic-scale Materials Physics
Physics Departement, Build. 307, Technical Univesity of Denmark, =

DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark, Tel.: (+45) 4525 3208 Fax: (+45) 4593 2399
mailto:dit...@fysik.dtu.dk http://www.fysik.dtu.dk/persons/ditolla.html

brucemo

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

This whole huge argument is really unfortunate.

In a more perfect world you guys would be arguing over who had the
better database SOFTWARE rather than attempting to put copyrights on
unannotated game scores.

My own wish is that all of you guys would put less restricted PGN
exporters in your database system. This would allow anyone who has
any database that can be read by your system to export all of the
games in bare-bones PGN format. You still get to keep your "?" and
"!" and other more extensive annotations, but perhaps you could admit
that the game score, where it was played, and the names of the players
don't belong to anyone. Attempting to copyright a spelling of
someone's name, or some particular abbreviation of the place name, is
completely absurd.

This would best serve your customers. If they don't like your
features, your service, or your price, or decide they like someone
else's better, they would be free to take their data and leave you.

I hope that if I wrote a database program I would be unafraid of this,
since I would hope that my features, service, and price would cause
people to want my product, not cause people to want to escape.

bruce

Peter Stein

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

In article <32DCE2...@fysik.dtu.dk>,

Actually I wasn't sufficiently clear. The patzer database actually
contains the starting positions and moves of the combinations along
with annotations. Sure, you can probably find the games in their
entirety elsewhere, but not this specific coverage of a theme.

So if one of your local newspapers published an analysis of events
in your town and you lifted the analysis or parts thereof into your
book, then yes, you could possibly be prosecuted. But just reporting
the events is obviously ok.

Peter Stein
n...@xnet.com


mclane

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen) wrote:


>>By the way, Vincent, a long time ago you claimed to have found a killer
>>line in the opening book of Rebel 8. Several people asked you to post it
>>and you never did.
>>
>>Enrique
>>

>Why should i, it is clear not?

No - it is not clear to us !


>Whole book is full of it. Just play a game Rebel8-Genius 3, and you
>know.

Show us the games and we would study and see.

>Rebel is bad in making positional choices and making strategical choices.

Bad enough to be the leader of the ssdf-list.
Maybe even bad enough to kill DIEP.

>The book simply prevents these choices, after which in a tricky line
>Genius 3 gets crucified.

Aha.

>Are you so stupid?

I don't think that Enrique is stupid, but what about you !

>Vincent

mclane

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen) wrote:

>In <5bdva1$f...@news.xs4all.nl> "Ed Schredder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> writes:


>(UNDER UNIX ONE CANNOT USE EXTENDED ASCI SUCH AS o with umlaut)


Umlaut or not Umlaut, there are two D's and that gives us a new nick
name for Ed:

Ed Shredder !!

I hope Stefan-Meyer-Kahlen will not sue the author for copyrights on
shredder !!

>>From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)


>>Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
>>greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
>>you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for
>>some time. Now you totally unfounded call me a big liar, do you have
>>no manners?

>You don't know your own book. That's Jeroen's task, i know.
>Jeroen can very clearly tell you how to win from Genius. I also know
>how to win from Genius without problems. The lines in Rebel proof this.

>This doesn't take away of course that Rebel 8 is a very strong program.

>Shall i post few killerlines of your book?

Please show them !!! Post them here.

> People will complain, it is
>about 2 megabyte of text. May i post it Ed? Just say yes, and i will post
>over 2 megabyte of text in rec.games.chess.computer under the name:
>Rebel8 Killerbook, and ask to verify for example few lines Genius3 plays.

Do it. Let's put them on Ed's server that we can all download them !


>I didn't check mcpro 3.5 or mcpro 4, but i guess i should have. (i don't
>own mcpro 4, i can only test it at a friends house, but i wouldn't).

>You don't know your own book too well. That's Jeroen's task, i know,
>you said it repeatedly.

>Who told you that your million base was legal? Clemens de Leeuw?
>Jeroen Noomen? Someone else?

>>You always speak so easily, you accused Fritz from cheating on the BT-test
>>and the BK-test. Also here when I asked you for proof you could NOT! And

>From which i posted proof.

If Fritzs cheats in the BT-test, it is a big scandal !
Please post the positions were FRITZs cheats in the BT-Test and we
will applause.

Tell us !!


>I wasn't able to proof that Rebel cheats in standard testpositions,
>so for this reason i didn't say a word about it, but others did,
>where i did proof it for Fritz3, and only posted a decent word about it.

>Now don't tell the public i didn't proof it for Fritz3. I will post
>it again then, people having an elorating of above 1100-1300 should be able
>to read it.

>Don't you have over 1100-1300?

What has this to do with the BT-Test.

mclane

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

"Ed Schröder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

>From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)

>No 2 megabyte please...
>But say 5-10 examples are just fine for me... :)
>I am sure you have nothing, all Rebel8 opening moves comes from opening
>books on paper and are common opening theory.

We will see...


Harald Faber

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

Hello Vincent,


VD> From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)
VD> Subject: Re: Open letter to ChessBase
VD> Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University, The
VD> Netherlands


VD> >Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
VD> >greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
VD> >you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for

VD> Shall i post few killerlines of your book? People will complain, it is
VD> about 2 megabyte of text. May i post it Ed? Just say yes, and i will post
VD> over 2 megabyte of text in rec.games.chess.computer under the name:
VD> Rebel8 Killerbook, and ask to verify for example few lines Genius3 plays.

It is not necessairy to post 2MB (I don't believe you have such a large
text-file), just take out 10 lines or so to finally


*PROVE your claims*


THEN we take a look if these "killer-lines" are theory or not and where
Rebel leaves his book with a won position.

Finally we know (for you prove what you say and claim) that Rebel has
killer-lines against Genius3. That would be all.

I played several games with and against Rebel8, especially against other
programs like Fritz, Genius, MCP etc and I can tell you that you are
absolutely wrong.
Rebel HIMSELF finds strong moves (which are of course not in his book)
which make some variations in the Genius-book questionable. But Rebel
calculates them and doesn't take them out of any book.
I haven't found any kind of killer-line in any Rebel-book and I can look
at more than 50 Rebel-games against strong opponent programs.

Harald
--

Harald Faber

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

Hello mclane,

m> >Well, your threats have been succesful till now. One major german dealer
m> >already informed me that he will not sell MillionBase and Rebel Million
m> >because he wants no problems with ChessBase!
m>
m> Is it SCHACH NIGGEMANN ?!

Maybe, there are others, like Gambitsoft, HCC etc.

m> Threatening DEALERS BEHIND the scene is very famous.

In english it is better to write "behind the curtain". ;-)

I remember when I read in CSS or Rochade Europa an ad from HCC where Ossi
wants customers of eurochess to write him if they ordered programs at e.c.
(but were not available for weeks) and their exact experience. He wants to
appreciate with Richard-Lang-program/CD or so...
What the hell is going on in Germany???

m> Isn't it nice to have a forum where NOBODY can manipulate ....

Are you sure?


Harald
--

Harald Faber

unread,
Jan 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/15/97
to

Hello Vincent,


VD> From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)
VD> Subject: Re: Open letter to ChessBase
VD> Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University, The
VD> Netherlands


VD> >By the way, Vincent, a long time ago you claimed to have found a killer
VD> >line in the opening book of Rebel 8. Several people asked you to post it
VD> >and you never did.
VD> >Enrique

VD> Why should i, it is clear not?

No.

VD> Whole book is full of it. Just play a game Rebel8-Genius 3, and you
VD> know.

Show us.

VD> Rebel is bad in making positional choices and making strategical choices.
VD> The book simply prevents these choices, after which in a tricky line
VD> Genius 3 gets crucified.

Only Genius3? In one line?
Come on, bigmouth, we need proves to believe you.
But all you do is shout to the top.

VD> Are you so stupid?

Are you?

VD> Vincent


Harald
--

Chris Whittington

unread,
Jan 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/16/97
to


Bill Newton <not...@demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<m5j4pKA1...@demon.co.uk>...

Newton, you obviously just don't get the message.

Obviously you're as thick skinned as you're thick headed.

I really don't want any communication with you at all.

Its not possible to stop your posting, but don't imagine, for one moment,
that I could possibly be interested in dialog with you.

Your insincere bullshit interests me not.

Chris Whittington

>
> Regards.
>
>
>
> --
> Bill Newton
>

Stan

unread,
Jan 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/16/97
to

The argument about "how many games are there?" should be easy to settle,
or at least to give a ballpark figure. In the last 120 years, there have
been 43,830 days. For there to have been a million grandmaster games
played in that time period, there would have been approximately 22 such
games played per day. Prior to about 1950 I'm sure the average was much
smaller than that, but since then it might have been greater. However,
I'd be surprised if the overall average was a lot larger than 22 per day,
especially when you eliminate the years of the two world wars, and
consider the small number of both tournaments and chessmasters before
about 1930.

Of course, if we include strong amateur games, the number is anybody's
guess - especially since the word "strong" has no precise definition.

Stan

Ed Schroder

unread,
Jan 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/16/97
to

I don't think this is a fair discussion. If you want me to answer your
questions I think it's only fair that you answer mine too.

In my previous postings I have asked you some questions. You decided to
ignore them and simply started a new subject. That's annoying.

I will answer your questions, but I think in the between time you
should answer mine. So I repeat:

----------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTION ONE...
You (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen of Nicbase were able to tell me that
our announced 2 Cdroms with 1,100,000 chess games were illegal on
beforehand while they were not even released!

As a result of that you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen of NicBase:
- Threatened me with a juridical case;
- Threatened my German dealers not to sell my 2 new products;
without even seen one single game of the 2 Cdroms in question.

Are you clear-sighted or so?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTION TWO...
When we announced our 2 new Cdrom's to our dealers we got an angry phone
call from Mr. Andriessen of Interchess (Nicbase). He told us that we
should STAY OUT of his business (the database market).

Well at least Mr. Andriessen is an honest guy telling me the real truth.
However we do not share his opinion, it's a free world you know.

After that you (ChessBase) and Mr. Andriessen (NicBase) informed me that
our 2 announced Cdrom's with 1,100,000 chess games were illegal WITHOUT
even having seen the 2 products because they were NOT yet released.

Yet you and Mr. Andriessen already threatened us with a juridical case on
beforehand.

To me this looks like trying to eliminate a competitor even before he
actually has become one!

Is it true that you (ChessBase) like Mr. Andriessen of NicBase does not
want us to sell databases at all thus depriving many people the
pleasure of huge databases?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you refusing to answer my questions ChessBase?

Here are *MY* answers to *YOUR* questions...

: "Schroder BV didn't take a single game from the data of New In Chess,
: Chess Informant and ChessBase."

100% correct.

: 1. Please use this to convert the data and generate an annotator index
: on the pre-release CD you sent to us. There you will find the whole
: editorial board of ChessBase Magazine. The annotations have been
: stripped out by some utility. But the annotator names have been left in
: the tournament line.

: 2. Please scan the 'source' index for the publisher information which
: has been stored in the games. How do you interpret titles like "INF 48"?

: Matthias

As the big database expert yourself you must be aware of the fact of the
exchange circuit. Like it or not there are hundreds of people all over
the world active typing games from tournaments just for a hobby. They
exchange their games with friends, put them on bulletin boards or at the
Internet at Pitt.

People informed me that you now at Pitt can download more than 800,000
games since *1992* See:

ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/chess/CB/Events/

and

ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/chess/CB/

Is Pitt also illegal in your eyes?
Please answer this question!

Thanks to this thread I received information from people telling me that
you (ChessBase) buy collections from such people (entering games for a
hobby) for your own use. Nothing wrong with that but it proves the
exchange circuit exist.

See also:

http://www.cais.com/sunburst/chess/exchange.html#What kinds

and find the USA exchange circuit with more than 1 million games.

Also in Germany (your own country) you have the Chessbase database
exchange club for years where members exchange their games.

All illegal?

Thanks to this thread I also received information (should read as
complaint!) from people that on several commercial diskettes of yours
games of them can be found without their permission. They typed their
own games in their personal databases but for some reason they ended up
into your commercial data.

So your statement that you type every game is not true. I have the data
of the diskettes in question and also the original score sheets.


: PS: I don't think that you act intentionally in this matter. You have
: been tricked by your supplier in an ugly way. It is so obvious that you
: probably haven't even looked at the material yourself.

You keep on saying that in your emails to me.
Here is what I answered you at the time.

Come on Matthias I am a fair businessman, before I bought the
1.100.000 games for me one of the most important issues was *how*
he collected the games. He will swear before court that the 1.100.000
games were NOT TAKEN from ANY commercial diskette or Cdrom, not one
single game! Just take a look at my home page, I have added more info
about the Million Base. Perhaps you will understand better.

URL: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/milbase.htm

I don't think it's fair of you to accuse my supplier and I will defend
him and he will *not* be subject to any settlement. I have met him, I
have given him a hard time with all kind of nasty questions, he is 100%
reliable.

- Ed -

I have updated my home page.
The full correspondence can be found at:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rebchess/cbu.htm

ChessBase GmbH

unread,
Jan 16, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/16/97
to

> I collect all that stuff into my communistic archive! We have many > STASI folders/files/Akten.


Hi McLane,

More input for your files:
The Six Big Rumours - Official Response of ChessBase.

1. ChessBase secretly enters hundreds of thousands of chess games on
North Sea Oil platforms because used bulletins and score sheets can then
be simply dumped into the sea.
"TRUE"

2. ChessBase controls major news agencies and TV channels, has a mole
high up in the CIA and distributes huge quantities of Fritz3/DOS through
international weapons dealers to all Middle East countries.
"TRUE"

3. When the FIDE-Congress tried to abandon the silly En-Passant rule in
1992, ChessBase used all its lobbying power to suppress this motion. It
would have made years of investments in game data useless. It has been
whispered however that heavy internal conflicts within the company
ensued, since the ChessBase programming department, who never grasped
all implications of the E.P.-rule anyway, secretly supported the plan.
"TRUE"

4. ChessBase uses newsgroups to denounce competitors by emotional
manipulation.
"FALSE"

5. ChessBase uses newsgroups to negatively comment on the features, bugs
or properties of competing products.
"FALSE"

6. ChessBase clutters r.g.c.c. bandwidth with "[ANN]" advertisements and
other marketing tricks.
"FALSE"

Matthias

Steven Rix

unread,
Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

In article <E40oo...@news.prima.ruhr.de>, mcl...@prima.ruhr.de (mclane) writes:
->cab...@gtii.com (Phil Hildenbrandt) wrote:
->
->>If any of my games are found in ChessBase should I sue? I give written
->>permission for Schroeder BV to include any and all of my games in
->>thier database. ChessBase, I am checking yoour database now. I never
->>recall giving you permission. If I did, please foward a copy of such.
->>If I didn't, I expect a royalty check from you promptly.

->Woudln't it a nice idea if all chess-players who find themselves in
->some databases sue the companies that have published THEIR games into
->these files ?!
->
->Maybe all chess players should try to get money out of the selling of
->THEIR data.

One copy of the scoresheets used in competition must be returned
to the organisers. The organisers own the scoresheets. ChessBase
then buy the scoresheets from the organisers. Why is this a problem?

--
Steve Rix
S....@ed.ac.uk http://www.chemeng.ed.ac.uk/people/steve/


Chris Lott

unread,
Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

On 14 Jan 1997 13:09:03 GMT, vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)
wrote:


>Shall i post few killerlines of your book? People will complain, it is
>about 2 megabyte of text. May i post it Ed? Just say yes, and i will post
>over 2 megabyte of text in rec.games.chess.computer under the name:
>Rebel8 Killerbook, and ask to verify for example few lines Genius3 plays.

Stop making excuses. Either post it, or if that becomes an excuse,
upload it to the pittsburgh chess site or the Internet Chess Library
or one of the chess-related FTP sites.

It seems to me it is time to "put up or shut up."

Either you have the proof or you don't-- no amount of yapping will
change that.

c


--
Chris Lott
ecle...@polarnet.com

Eclectica Magazine! Best Lit and Book/Movie Reviews on the Web!
http://www2.polarnet.com/~eclectica

Play Chess!! Zazen on FICS/ICC Chess servers


Francesco Di Tolla

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

> Perhaps the real problem is that Chessbase asks too
> much money for their games,

That is their business.

> and that Ed Schroeder is a big liar,

Moderate your words.

> who sees that you can make 'easy' money?

If you could just once proove one of your statements
we would kind of appreciate it.


> No scanner in the world can read these notations.

It is clear you don't understand how a scanner works:
first a scanner can scan anything written on the paper
second if you can convert it to a gamefile depends from
the software you use. I have been able to scan chess
games with a handy scanner and a shareware OCR program.
With a flat one and a professional OCR (or better
a specific program) you can scan every book easely.
The only issue is: you cannot republish somebody's else
comments.

regards
Franz
--

Francesco Di Tolla, Center for Atomic-scale Materials Physics
Physics Departement, Build. 307, Technical Univesity of Denmark,

Peter W. Gillgasch

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:

> 1. The English have total copyright on all humour.

No way 8^)

-- Peter

May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to choke the living shit out of those who piss me off,
and wisdom to know where I should hide the bodies...

Ed Schröder

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
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Harald...@p21.f2.n1.z1001.fidonet.org (Harald Faber) wrote:
>Hello Vincent,
>
>
>VD> From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)
>VD> Subject: Re: Open letter to ChessBase
>VD> Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University, The
>VD> Netherlands
>
>
>VD> >Heavy words Vincent, I remember you once said that Rebel8 has the
>VD> >greatest "killer book" of all. When I (and several other readers) asked
>VD> >you for proof (just one single opening line) you suddenly disappeared for
>
>VD> Shall i post few killerlines of your book? People will complain, it is
>VD> about 2 megabyte of text. May i post it Ed? Just say yes, and i will post
>VD> over 2 megabyte of text in rec.games.chess.computer under the name:
>VD> Rebel8 Killerbook, and ask to verify for example few lines Genius3 plays.
>
>It is not necessairy to post 2MB (I don't believe you have such a large
>text-file), just take out 10 lines or so to finally
>
>
>*PROVE your claims*
>
>
>THEN we take a look if these "killer-lines" are theory or not and where
>Rebel leaves his book with a won position.
>
>Finally we know (for you prove what you say and claim) that Rebel has
>killer-lines against Genius3. That would be all.
>
>I played several games with and against Rebel8, especially against other


It will not happen!!

1.. Vincent likes to make announces without proof.
2.. After that he will vanish for a few months
3.. And then he returns saying the same
4.. and then he loops (go to) point 1

He can't help, he is a programmer.
Programmers always thinks in loops... :)

In C-code this would look like:

for (x=1; x<999999; x++)
{ printf ("Vincent likes to make announces without proof.\n");
printf ("After that he will vanish for a few months\n");
printf ("And then he returns saying the same\n\n");
}

- Ed -

Chris Whittington

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

--
http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft

Peter W. Gillgasch <gil...@ilk.de> wrote in article
<19970117203146581355@[194.121.104.144]>...


> Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > 1. The English have total copyright on all humour.
>
> No way 8^)

Leave it out, Gillgasch.

You get the Mercedes and the Bums Mal Weider (this is a car for any thought
policemen with german dictionaries); we get to make the jokes.

Seems fair no ?

Chris Whittington

Chris Whittington

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

--
http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft

Vincent Diepeveen <vdie...@cs.ruu.nl> wrote in article
<5bg0hf$4...@krant.cs.ruu.nl>...


> In <5bdva1$f...@news.xs4all.nl> "Ed Schredder" <rebc...@xs4all.nl>
writes:
>
> (UNDER UNIX ONE CANNOT USE EXTENDED ASCI SUCH AS o with umlaut)
>

> >From: vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)
>

Ok punk, just realise that messing with peoples names is a Chris
Whittington copyright.

As in van Droopevien and his program Droop.

1. The English have total copyright on all humour.

2. You're not English.

3. You Droop.

Chris Whittington


Anders Thulin

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

In article <32DD1D...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:

>My own wish is that all of you guys would put less restricted PGN

>exporters in your database system. [...]


>
>This would best serve your customers. If they don't like your
>features, your service, or your price, or decide they like someone
>else's better, they would be free to take their data and leave you.

You won't live to se it. Just because there *is* no legal
protection, you'll find that database contents providers will protect
their contents in other ways, probably by removing export features.
If they didn't, their customers would probably soon go away to copycat
competitors, and the company either wouldn't have any customers left,
or wouldn't be in a position to serve those remain.

ChessBase GmbH

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

Ed,

> 'Fair discussion':
Please publish our part of the previous correspondence on your site.
This is important for me since it contradicts the image you are trying
to project for us by appealing to readers emotions.

> Your questions:
Q1 - Are we clear-sighted?
You sent us a pre-release CD. Before that we did not comment on it.
Probably didn't even know about it. Its true that a bit of clairvoyance
was needed to find material on it. The material comes in 500 single
files (why?). A double-killer has destroyed the tournament coherence
(why?) so that rarely clean cross-tables can be generated.

Q2 - We try to suppress huge databases:
Chess for Less's Ultimate is the counter example. The German general
distributor Beyer-Verlag sent us a sample. We didn't see a problem. I
told you that.


> 'Schroder BV didn't take a single game from other publishers':
S1: A takes from B.
S2: B takes from C.
S3: A knows S2.
=> 'A didn't take from C' is invalid.

> Pitt.edu
Pitt.edu is a fantastic site. Thanks for pointing this out to me. Until
now I found only one file which is not public domain: CBGERMAG. The vast
majority looks like great public domain material. It should make a good
product to download and sell it all for price of $10-$15 (reflecting the
low editorial costs) so that people without Internet access can benefit.

> We taking games without permission
Tell us a sample tournament and/or our product in question so that we
can investigate and apologize.

Matthias

Ed Schröder

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to

ecle...@polarnet.com (Chris Lott) wrote:
>On 14 Jan 1997 13:09:03 GMT, vdie...@cs.ruu.nl (Vincent Diepeveen)
>wrote:

>Stop making excuses. Either post it, or if that becomes an excuse,
>upload it to the pittsburgh chess site or the Internet Chess Library
>or one of the chess-related FTP sites.

>It seems to me it is time to "put up or shut up."

>Either you have the proof or you don't-- no amount of yapping will
>change that.

It will not happen!!

1.. Vincent likes to make announces without proof.
2.. After that he will vanish for a few months
3.. And then he returns saying the same
4.. and then he loops (go to) point 1

He can't help, he is a programmer.
Programmers always thinks in loops... :)

In C-code this would look like:

for (x=1; x<999999; x++)
{ printf ("Vincent likes to make announces without proof.\n");
printf ("After that he will vanish for a few months\n");
printf ("And then he returns saying the same\n\n");
}

- Ed -


Ed Schröder

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Jan 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/17/97
to Wuelle...@t-online.de

[ This the second time I post this message since the first posting (as
well as some other postings of mine) seems to be lost in cyber space.
However I like to apologize on beforehand (especially to Chessbase)
if this lost message still will show up. ]

Peter W. Gillgasch

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Jan 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/18/97
to

Ed Schröder <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> In C-code this would look like:
>
> for (x=1; x<999999; x++)
> { printf ("Vincent likes to make announces without proof.\n");
> printf ("After that he will vanish for a few months\n");
> printf ("And then he returns saying the same\n\n");
> }

The interesting question is what happens after the 999998 iterations ?
And why are you sucking the floating point lib into this needlessly ?

8^)

-- Peter

Peter W. Gillgasch

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Jan 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/18/97
to

Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:

> --
> http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft
>
> Peter W. Gillgasch <gil...@ilk.de> wrote in article
> <19970117203146581355@[194.121.104.144]>...
> > Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >

> > > 1. The English have total copyright on all humour.
> >

> > No way 8^)
>
> Leave it out, Gillgasch.
>
> You get the Mercedes

I don't believe that. I am still waiting for the black (!!!) Porsche
Carrera of Thorsten's relative.

> and the Bums Mal Weider

You have to know that German children are reading this newsgroup
and hence k^Hcould learn wrong spelling. A very bad thing to do.

> (this is a car for any thought policemen with german dictionaries);

Uh oh. Newt will buy one... Maybe I should send him one :) Dictionary
that is...

> we get to make the jokes.

Hold it. Major ain't funny. "When our back is against the wall we turn
around and start to fight" is the only good joke he ever made. Now look
at his German counterpart 8^) Clearly Helmut is more funny.

> Seems fair no ?

English definition of fairness is odd. First they claim that chess games
can't be copyrighted, now they claim copyright on humour...

-- Peter


Ed Schröder

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Jan 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/18/97
to Wuelle...@t-online.de

From: Wuelle...@t-online.de (ChessBase GmbH)

Subject: Re: Open letter to ChessBase

: Ed,

: 'Fair discussion':

: Please publish our part of the previous correspondence on your site.
: This is important for me since it contradicts the image you are trying
: to project for us by appealing to readers emotions.

I told you I don't like the idea.

If I would include your and your lawyers correspondence on my home page
(despite of the fact I would inform people that this is done with your
permission) this would look very ugly showing confidential information.
It's simply not good.

But if you think different simply put the whole correspondence (including
mine) on your own home page. It will be my pleasure to email you my
correspondence to you and to your lawyer and I hereby give you permission
to put my correspondence on your own home page.

: Your questions:

: Q1 - Are we clear-sighted?

: You sent us a pre-release CD.

: Before that we did not comment on it.

Not true!!

Mr. Andriessen (Nicbase) in a phone call informed me on 2 points:

1.. To stay out of his business (the database market).

2.. That he and you would sue me for my planned Cdroms without even
seeing the products (they were not released yet, only announced).

Do you deny this?

Or maybe Mr. Andriessen was misinforming me?

He said he spoke on your behalf too!

Also in his correspondence to me Mr. Andriessen spoke on your behalf
and announced the threats on paper. And that all before the both of
you had seen one single byte of the product.

So I am still wondering because your above statement is not true.

Why don't you give Mr. Andriessen a call and ask him if I am allowed to
fax you a copy of this (dutch) letter? It will be my pleasure to sent
you my proof concerning this matter.

: Probably didn't even know about it. Its true that a bit of clairvoyance


: was needed to find material on it. The material comes in 500 single
: files (why?).

The 500 files are representing the 500 ECO categories just to present the
1.1 million games in a *readable* form to the audience, ready to import
in peoples databases. It was just a choice.

The alternative is Rebel Million, here we have put the same 500 ECO files
on a Cdrom but also converted them to one big database of 1.1 million
games all in Rebel format.

This (unfortunately) could not be done for MillionBase since the 1.1
million games in CB, NIC and CA format already covered about 550 Mb
of the Cdrom. No space left!

We already received questions from people who wants us to release
MillionBase-II, 3 big databaes of the 1.1 million games in CB, NIC and
CA format. I will think about it, however no promises!

: A double-killer has destroyed the tournament coherence


: (why?) so that rarely clean cross-tables can be generated.

I did not understand a word of this.
Perhaps you can explain it more precisely to me?
What is a "double-killer" (removing double games?)
What is the "tournament coherence"?
Puzzled...

: Q2 - We try to suppress huge databases:


: Chess for Less's Ultimate is the counter example. The German general
: distributor Beyer-Verlag sent us a sample. We didn't see a problem. I
: told you that.

Mr. Andriessen told me something different: "Chess for Less" contains
(like MillionBase) 50-60% stolen games. Mr. Andriessen also (also on
behalf of you) informed me that NicBase as well as ChessBase will
tolerate privately Cdrom databases such as "Chess for Less", but now
that a serious publisher (the Schroder BV) would enter the database
market this would *not* be tolerated and that the both of you Nicbase and
ChessBase mutually would take legal action against the Schroder BV.

Do you also deny this?

My complaint to you (Nicbase and Chessbase) is that you already announced
this threats while you haven't even seen the product at that time. Now how
on earth could you know that MillionBase was illegal?

I immediately after these initial accusations have sent you both
2 pre-releases of MillionBase:
- One to Mr. Andriessen in Nicbase format
- One to Chessbase in Chessbase format
with the question to come up with proof.
This was end October 1996.

: 'Schroder BV didn't take a single game from other publishers':


S1: A takes from B.
S2: B takes from C.
S3: A knows S2.
=> 'A didn't take from C' is invalid.

There are many other possibilities!
I miss the argument of the "exchange circuit" on this point.

Like it or not, as soon as the Informator (or any other magazine) comes
out there are hundreds of people who (for a hobby) type over the whole
magazine since they do not want to pay for it!

They share these "hand typed" databases with friends (nice exchange
material) and put their databases on bulletin boards or at the Internet.

So if you find some games on MillionBase who looks similar to other
publishers they most probably come from such sources. There are hundreds
of little Chessbase's and Nicbase's who do all the typing work for free!

I know you sometimes buy such collections from the "hobby typers".
Nothing wrong with that, but if my supplier already had downloaded such
collections from bulletin boards or the Internet or got them from a
friend (the exchange circuit) and I have put them in MillionBase this
will cause similar collections (games) on my Cdrom as in your collection.

Also if you look at Pitt, the games you have published for instance could
be downloaded at Pitt (and from other Internet sources!) months before
they were available from ChessBase and others publishers.

As you see there are many other possibilities.

Now do I accuse you from publishing games from Pitt?
Do I accuse you from publishing games from tourmanents that came from
the exchange circuit?
Do I accuse you that you steal games from the "hobby typers"?
Do I accuse you that you steal games from Compuserve?
Do I acuuse you if you take games from TWIC?

No!

Then don't accuse me.

: Pitt.edu


: Pitt.edu is a fantastic site. Thanks for pointing this out to me. Until
: now I found only one file which is not public domain: CBGERMAG. The vast
: majority looks like great public domain material. It should make a good
: product to download and sell it all for price of $10-$15 (reflecting the
: low editorial costs) so that people without Internet access can benefit.

: We taking games without permission
: Tell us a sample tournament and/or our product in question so that we
: can investigate and apologize.

Best way is that people will contact you, they informed me privately.
One reason I mentioned this subject was to show you that mistakes can
be easily made. We both have to deal with huge numbers of games, an
incredible job. You make mistakes and I can make them too.

No need to sue immediately when a mistake is made.

That's why I offered you in the beginning to come up with games and if
it was reasonable to think (remember the exchange circuit, the Internet
etc.) that a mistake has been made we would mutually agree on that and I
would remove the games in question.

Fair enough?

Your choice was *not* to take that opportunity.
Too bad, both Cdroms are printed so it's too late now.

I offered you this possibilty to keep the peace between our 2 companies
despite of the fact I was not obliged to do that, just as a token of
of my good will and respect for your company because you were so upset.

Remember your own words in your previous posting:

"There is no copyright on unannotated games"

and my answer to you:

"So why are we having this whole discussion?
I always have said this!!

My MillionBase does not contain one single annotated game!
Just 1.1 million unannotated games."

Can we close the discussion about MillionBase Matthias?

- Ed -

: Matthias

PS, thanks for all your answers in the other thread.

Chris Whittington

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Jan 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/18/97
to

--
http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft

Peter W. Gillgasch <gil...@ilk.de> wrote in article

<19970118160619112641@[194.121.104.140]>...


> Ed Schröder <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> > In C-code this would look like:
> >
> > for (x=1; x<999999; x++)
> > { printf ("Vincent likes to make announces without proof.\n");
> > printf ("After that he will vanish for a few months\n");
> > printf ("And then he returns saying the same\n\n");
> > }
>
> The interesting question is what happens after the 999998 iterations ?

Hopefully he (Droop) falls off the end of the world .....

Chris Whittington

Chris Whittington

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Jan 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/18/97
to

--
http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft

Peter W. Gillgasch <gil...@ilk.de> wrote in article

<19970118160612112211@[194.121.104.140]>...


> Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > --
> > http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft
> >
> > Peter W. Gillgasch <gil...@ilk.de> wrote in article

> > <19970117203146581355@[194.121.104.144]>...
> > > Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > > 1. The English have total copyright on all humour.
> > >
> > > No way 8^)
> >
> > Leave it out, Gillgasch.
> >
> > You get the Mercedes
>
> I don't believe that. I am still waiting for the black (!!!) Porsche
> Carrera of Thorsten's relative.
>
> > and the Bums Mal Weider
>
> You have to know that German children are reading this newsgroup
> and hence k^Hcould learn wrong spelling. A very bad thing to do.
>
> > (this is a car for any thought policemen with german dictionaries);
>
> Uh oh. Newt will buy one... Maybe I should send him one :) Dictionary
> that is...
>
> > we get to make the jokes.
>
> Hold it. Major ain't funny. "When our back is against the wall we turn
> around and start to fight" is the only good joke he ever made.

Yeah, well we won WWII with this joke, no ? :)

> Now look
> at his German counterpart 8^) Clearly Helmut is more funny.

The only funny thing about Helmut is the Sauermagen.

Agreed, Major didn't eat it.

>
> > Seems fair no ?
>
> English definition of fairness is odd. First they claim that chess games
> can't be copyrighted, now they claim copyright on humour...

Ok, this is where I play dirty:

Any nation (and its the entire nation) that watches 'same procedure as last
year, your ladyship' six times every Sylvester for the last 30 years, and
thinks this is the greatest joke of all time, has got to have:

a) no sense of humour at all
b) zero ability to generate humour.

Any nation that can provide an unknown seaside music-hall comic and an old
lady and a tiger-skin rug, and totally immobilise the wunderwirtschaft for
one day a year for thirty years; and even have a kraut minister use it as a
punch line in the Bundestag, just has to have the total copyright on all
humour :)

Come on, Peter, admit it, we English are both funny and clever. The krauts
are still laughing at waiter there's a fly in my soup type jokes (and even
then, we don't believe you understand those either).

Besides you all love us for our jokes (even those at your expense) :)

Chris Whittington

>
> -- Peter
>
>

mclane

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Jan 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/18/97
to

gil...@ilk.de (Peter W. Gillgasch) wrote:

>Chris Whittington <chr...@demon.co.uk> wrote:

>> 1. The English have total copyright on all humour.

>No way 8^)

>-- Peter

>May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
>courage to choke the living shit out of those who piss me off,
>and wisdom to know where I should hide the bodies...

I remember Shinnead O'Connor has quoted this sentence different, but
your change has it's quality too.


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