Author: Vine Smith
Date: 14:24:20 04/30/02
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On April 30, 2002 at 16:16:16, Dann Corbit wrote: >On April 30, 2002 at 16:01:33, Slater Wold wrote: >>I can understand your frustration. You've worked just as hard as Ed or >>Christophe on Rebel/Tiger. No doubt your books add a considerable amount of Elo >>to these programs, and I am sure Ed and Christophe are very appreciative of >>that. >> >>However, I must warn you that laying claim to a series of chess opening moves is >>not going to be easy to defend. You cannot copyright moves in chess, as you >>cannot copyright dance moves. While you can copyright a mvs book, you are >>actually only copyrighting the format. Again, you cannot copyright chess moves. >> >>I think anyone found 'hacking' a chess program, or its book, should face a >>severe punishment. Anyone claiming something is their, when in fact it is not, >>should be punished. >> >>I am not defending these people, I am simply stating the fact that it would be >>easier to encrypt the books, than to go after those stealing it. > >While you cannot copyright chess moves, you can copyright a particular >collection as a whole. (For example, a book of analysis about Bobby Fischer's >chess games can be copyrighted). > >I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what the repercussions are for an opening >book. But it is pretty clear that you should not simply use someone's work and >claim that it is yours. A similar problem exists in the field of cartography, where the information conveyed by a map is public domain, but its assemblage and presentation is not. One approach that has been used is to include trivial, but fictitious geographic elements in the map, such as small towns or lakes that don't actually exist -- if your map is substantially swiped, the inclusion of these fictitious elements in the copy is proof positive of plagiarism. Perhaps authors of chess program books should do the same. In each significant opening, a "false" line full of outrageously bad moves could be included, and the program would be "hard coded" not to use them (as opposed to marking them in some way in the book itself, which would be too obvious). Finding these lines in another book would constitute quick and conclusive proof of intellectual theft; whether this could be used for legal purposes is not clear to me, but certainly the offender could be dealt with by the ICCA and other organizations according to their rules.
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