Forum for Copyright And License Issues
tsumego copyright discussion (from Reddit Life And Death Tesuji Problems) [#2819]
tchan001: Are you sure it is really such a good idea to post so many problems on SL from that set of books along with the solutions? That set is not exactly ancient classical problems which have no copyright. It's one thing to sample several problems from the set and quite another to try to post a major portion of the set for people who might otherwise look to purchase them.
mw42: Can you copyright a problem? I'd think the copyright would protect the discussion of the solution which I do not reproduce.
tchan001: You are not merely reproducing a single problem from a book, you are reproducing a series of problems from two specific set of books.
You need to remember that SL copyright says the following "By submitting material to Sensei's Library you grant everyone the rights to copy, distribute, and modify the material under the terms of the Open Content License."
Furthermore: "If you have reason to believe that the original author(s) would object to quotations of their work being published on SL, then do not publish it until they have given permission. If permission is not given, or if you do not try to obtain this permission, do not publish the material on SL."
Do you actually believe that the authors of the original work would give you permission to quote a major number of their problems for publication on SL under the SL copyright?
Regarding whether you can copyright a series of go problems, I can tell you that the Japanese publisher (Tokyo Sogensha 東京創元社) of the Japanese version of the Kweon Kap-yong Baduk Academy Series's "Heavenly Dragon Diagrams" Vols 1-2 has stopped distribution of the said volumes as they were found to contain tsumego composed by the famous Japanese author Kada Katsuji 加田克司. Tokyo Sogensha then issued an official apology for this matter which can be read (in Japanese) at ext ![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
http://www.tsogen.co.jp/news/2010/07/10072210.html.
Furthermore, I quote from the SL Copyright Discussion: "material facts such as game records and game positions are not protectable. Composed go problems and positions, on the other hand, are creative, protectable works. Copyright protects an individual expression of an idea."
mw42: Right, thanks for the information. It would seem the relevant issue is if the problems themselves are original compositions. I do not have an answer to that, but, in any case, I stopped posting examples from my daily set.
'Whose problems and the threshold of originality'
I just took one conspicuous problem and looked at it... Honestly I doubt Yi Changho can claim copyright to Xuanxuan Qijing Problem 51 or to Xuanxuan Qijing Problem 347 or to Leather Scroll Problem 52. Anyone more used to tsumego would probably see more common problems in this series.
Out of personal experience I would say professionals were exposed to such a number of tsumego early on, that when they produce easy to mid-level tsumego a high percentage is in fact from the material they learned with (incl. classical collections). Usually they never even attribute it to its source - not because of bad will - but because they simply can't remember where they have seen it. Hell, even the classical collections already copy problems from each other.
And of course there are standard shapes (L groups, carpenter squares), that are so common, that in my opinion nobody can reasonably claim copyright. Where is the "threshold of originality" in tsumego?
'Copyright to solutions only? - origin of a misunderstanding'
The idea that only the solution is copyrighted probably has its origin in Sensei's Library. But here the praxis was started for historical (non-copyrighted) problem collections for which a recent professional supposedly provided solutions and comments (copyrighted). This never indicated that problems couldn't be copyrighted, but is a way to avoid copyright issues with recent editions of historical collections.
'Fair use'
Another question how much material you can lift from another source (with attribution) for it still to be considered fair use. When does it start to be a major portion and how long it is just some samples that function more as advertisement than as anything else. E.g. HitachiNumber703 was featured on the front page of SL (as part of the Hitachi Go Problems feature), obviously this wasn't a problem. Can you take a sample for a book review? Can you ask questions about a go problem? Is it possible to publish famous tsumego as Nakayama Ladder Problem - obviously an unique one? What is with all those other online sources that don't even try attribution but undoubtedly take a high number of problems from copyrighted sources? Be it wbaduks problem collection or user contributed goproblems.com or or - can such sources claim copyright themselves?
I am pretty sure that a lawyer-esque approach would result in abstaining from almost all tsumego related activity here (and pictures of professionals, and discussing professional games etc.) here, while all around copying would go on and people even would go around claiming copyright to material they lifted elsewhere.
'Japanese copyright law'
I find it quite telling that the Japanese publisher stopped distribution of a Japanese version of a Korean book in Japan because of the Kada Katsuji tsumego. But did this have any repercussions in Korea?
'Reddit problems'
I agree that to take a growing series of problems out of a copyrighted book (with no visible upper limit to amount lifted) crosses the line. But I don't think it would be the same if someone publishes a study collection with a dozen (out of hundreds) from there, together with some classical problems and some self-made problems.
There is also the idea that we cannot copy all problems from a single book, even if those problems are themselves individually not under copyright (because they are ancient). --Hyperpape
If this were the case for all of them (which likely isn't the case here anyway), I really don't see your point. You are the first to claim this, a similar argument is made for kifu collections but this is something different isn't it.
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Another question how much material you can lift from another source (with attribution) for it still to be considered fair use. When does it start to be a major portion and how long it is just some samples that function more as advertisement than as anything else. E.g. HitachiNumber703 was featured on the front page of SL (as part of the Hitachi Go Problems feature), obviously this wasn't a problem.
For Japanese books, the following seems to be applicable
http://www.cric.or.jp/cric_e/clj/
http://www.cric.or.jp/cric_e/clj/cl2_2.html#cl2_2+S4
Article 51.
(1) The duration of copyright shall begin with the creation of the work.
(2) Copyright shall continue to subsist until the end of a period of fifty years following the death of the author (or following the death of the last surviving co-author in the case of a joint work; the same shall apply in paragraph (1) of next Article), unless otherwise provided in this Section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan
Note that wikipedia has the following note, but uncited:
Japan is considering extending the duration of protection to seventy years to be more in line with the United States and other nations.
But this probably cannot be applied retrospectively.
Why is this important for the game of go?
Go has had a very very long history and there are many wonderful Japanese authors of the past who have died more than fifty years ago. So it would seem their works would now be copyright-free. This means that, not only do we not not need to worry about ancient problem collections, but also that of composers of tsumego problems who have died more than fifty years ago. However, this only applies to the tsumego problems presented as is when it was first published. It doesn't apply to more recent revisions or corrections of the problems by other authors who are still within the copyright protection period. And remember that some modern versions of ancient problems have had correction by more modern authors to mistakes that made the problems unsolvable or answer variations which overturned the thoughts of the ancient.
In the case of Kada Katsuji 加田克司, according to SL, he died in 1996 so his work still has plenty of time to be under the control of his heirs.
Why would I be so interested in the above?
Because there are at least two significant works of Japanese tsumego whose sole author have died prior to 1962 (thus more than fifty years ago). And I'm talking about works which were published after Honinbo Shusai's Shikatsu Myoki :)
So theoretically these works are now copyright free and anyone can legally translate the whole collection of these tsumego into English for publication and distribution. Of course if you do attempt to make use of such copyright-free collections, you should make sure you use the original work and not a modern reprint of the original work which may include revisions and additional writings by more modern authors as such would most likely still be within copyright protection period. Don't ask who and do your own research if you want to find those collections yourself.
I am not a lawyer though so don't take my statements above as the absolute final say.
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