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Kifu copyright discussion
   

Copying game records by hand is not regarded as a copyright violation (an argument for using offshore labor to copy games at 0.05 USD/game?). And a professional player that I know regards his own games as a works to which he and the other player hold copyright. Velobici


Charles Matthews I moved this here, as the author suggested. Using the word kifu does imply here Japanese records. Given the references below to law in the USA, I think I'm going to have to read the 20 page article on Japanese copyright law I've had in my second-tier in-tray for half a year.


Fhayashi: What exactly are the legal rulings on this. Obviously, commentary on a game record should be subject to copyright, but the moves themselves can't possibly be copyrightable, can it? I imagine there must be legal precedent in chess.


Velobici: From conversations that I have had with several people the legal rulings in the United States run as follows:

  • The sequence of moves that comprise a game are not copyrightable.
  • The commentary on that sequence of moves; however, extensive or minimal is copyrightable.
  • A collection of games is copyrightable. (made so by the ordering, the formatting, the selection of which games to include and which to exclude, etc.)
  • One may "copy out" the sequence of moves from a game or collection of games for commercial or private use.

These are based upon case law that has developed over a number of decades, if not a couple (2) centuries.

The items that strike me as inconsistent are:

  • The composer can copyright the musical score. A musician(s) can copyright a performance of a musical score. Yet a Go/Chess player can not copyright either the sequence of moves.
  • The "copy out" referred to above may be done by hand. It may not be done by digital replication of the game database or part of the game database. What is the basis of this distinction? A game (sequence of moves) in SGF format is identical to any other verison of that same game in SGF format (minus the headers that may differ based upon the SGF editor used). Hand copying takes longer for each game. Machine copying takes longer for the first game and each one after that presumably goes much more quickly. The cost of hand copies varies greatly depending upon where the copy is made (offshore hand copies can be very inexpensive indeed). Creating a copy by hand or machine results in an identical copy of the original. The hand copy and the machine copy are indistinguishable from each other and indistinguishable from the original. The set of laws/ruling appear untenable, striving to create a legal distinction where none exists in the physical world. Indeed, how would a court distinguish between hand copies of a game (legal) and machine copies (presumably illegal)?

BobMcGuigan: There was quite a long series of posts on this topic on rec.games.go some time ago, but I don't remember for sure what the conclusion was. I think it was that comments are subject to copyright but the game record is not. Or maybe that is simply current practice in Japan. However there is precedent in another field. I'm thinking of copyright practice in music. A tune in music is simply a sequence of notes. The notes themselves aren't subject to copyright, but the sequence is. Analogously, a single move in go would not be subject to copyright but a sequence of them might be. That would lead to some real messes since we might see copyrighted fuseki, joseki or tesuji which could not be used without paying the copyright holder a royalty. This seems absurd, so probably the sequence of moves in a game cannot be copyrighted. On the other hand, the behavior of the sponsoring newspapers for title tournaments in Japan might give some insight. They used to release game records a few moves at a time, serialized in the newspaper, only allowing the full game record to be released after they were finished with the serialized version. If the game record could be copyrighted there would be no need for this withholding until the serialization was finished.


I don't think an uncommented game can be copyrighted, just the commentary about the game.-TimBrent


BobMcGuigan: Re Velobici's comments above, copyright of go game records seems to be an issue for international copyright law, not just U.S. law. I imagine the prohibition of machine copies is a (feeble?) attempt to preserve the integrity of collections as a whole since it would be very time-consuming to copy them game by game by hand.


Well, I guess it depends on what your perception of the game is. If itīs just a game then copyrighting would be useless. If itīs more like a form of art, then i think that introducing copyrights would be justified.

Trouble is, that, while some matches definitely feel like works of art (even some of my own, even though iīm relatively new to the game, which would suggest that it isn't skill that makes the difference between art and "just-a-game"), others dont seem to qualify. When i play against a computer program for example that feeling somehow doesnt kick in.

But I guess i got a bit sidetracked here... Timber

Icepick: For what it's worth: "Legally the actual moves of any game as played are considered to be in the public domain and not subject to any copyright laws." [ext] British Chess Magazine

And according to [ext] this thread on misc.legal, factual information reguarding games can not be copyrighted.

Please note: as the thread indicates, the score of a baseball game is "factual information" that can not be copyrighted. A video recording of the play on the field is not "factual information" and therefore can be copyrighted. The explanation given is that to remove copyright from the video recording would interfere livelihood of the players. Certainly, the same should apply to Professional Go players, some of whom make their living solely by tournament play. In addition, the copyright and patent system in the United States is a concession granted by the People of the Republic for a limited period of time to the copyright holder for the purpose of encouraging the development of works and art.

Icepick: Well, a copyrighted video recording is not an exclusive record of a baseball game. A fan with a camcorder can certianally claim that their recording is copyrighted and owned by them, not the team or the players. After all, they fixed the work-in-progress, and it is different than the "offical" broadcast of the event.

Now, the results, either "Cubs win, 5-1 over the Yankees", or "Yoda beat Cho by 3.5", are substantially different than a play-by-play or a complete game record. But both are very different from a video recording. It's an interesting problem.

Speaking of which...are go (or chess for that matter) problems copyrightable? Something like the [ext] Heart Shaped Ladder Problem. I'd be inclined to say that they would be.

Charles The link to the BCM interests me more for its insight into the way people are systematically collecting records (is anyone collecting OTB amateur go records?) than as a legal authority.



This is a copy of the living page "Kifu copyright discussion" at Sensei's Library.
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