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Go Seigen 1/ Discussion
Sub-page of GoSeigen1
As far as I know, the copyright position on this game analysis was never resolved. PurpleHaze: Games are historical events, therefore game records are public domain. This has been litigated to death: Robert James Fischer vs everbody in the 60's, Evgeny Sveshnikov and FIDE vs everybody late 90's.
It does not matter whether the game took place in public or in private, if the players were playing to win it is an historical event.
Ideas can not be copyrighted.[1] Copyright covers only "literary and artistic works". See article 2 of the Translation are copyrighted (article 8). However, there are none on these pages, I read no Chinese and this book contains nothing else. Maps, paintings, phographs, and sketches are covered (article 2). None such are reproduced here. Use of quotations are allowed for education or critical evaluation as long as the author is credited (article 10). If that does not describe Sensei's Library then why are we here? That's pretty helpful. On a separate issue: I think GoSeigen1 etc. is not a good naming scheme for these pages. Unless we plan to have only the one game. Maybe PlayerWhiteName?-PlayerBlackName?-YYYY-MM-DD, or something like that would be better. Charles I'd like to point out, firstly, that these pages are reproducing not just a game record, but variation diagrams from a book. Secondly, it is certainly an open question to what extent chess practice is acceptable, or accepted in the go world.
Bob McGuigan: I think most of the discussion of copyright issues and game records on r.g.g. tended toward the conclusion that the sequence of moves in the actual game is not subject to copyright but analysis is. However, in monkey wrench mode, a "record" is some kind of written document and was produced by someone so wouldn't whoever first recorded the game have copyright?
Cheyenne "IANAL" -- I believe from what I have been reading about copyright (I was looking into some issues for my wife and knitting patterns). You cannot copyright facts. What you can copyright is how the facts themselves are presented. For example, one cannot copyright a receipe, which is a list of ingredients and the process for combining them. What you can copyright however is how you present that list, the "story" on how your great grandmother handed down the receipe, etc. The straight game record itself is a fact. Any commentary added to the game record, any analysis, variations, etc. could be copyrighted however. How the game record is presented in a tangable form could be copyrighted (i.e. the presentation itself is copyrightable)
Here is the Bill: My impression, from various discussions on rec.games.go, is that Japanese law extends copyright to go and shogi game records. I do not think that that binds us, however. Diagrams in commentary raise an interesting question. They are plainly expressions of ideas. OTOH, there seems to be only one way (or an equivalent, such as listing coordinates) to express those ideas. So are they copyrightable or not? A musical score seems like a good analogy. Harpreet: If copyright extends to the game record itself then how do gobase and GoGOD exist? Are we really supposed to believe that they get copyright clearance for every game in there? It doesn't suffice if they're copying from secondary sources that do not hold the copyright, that would still be infringement. It makes sense for the commentary to have copyright protection since that is someone's work much like a research manuscript. But I doubt the game record itself has any real protection. I doubt it thoroughly if we're not talking about Japan. It seems to me that if people are posting someone's commentary on a game in large parts that is not likely to defensible from a complaint of copyright infringement. I doubt that SL has to worry about just game records until gobase is shut down. Charles That's much too legalistic a way to look at it. Since there is essentially no money in go in the West, there is not going to be any litigation anyway. The Japanese attitude simply doesn't start from matters being settled in law courts. This may be hard to understand - doesn't mean there is nothing to understand here. In this particular case, we know exactly where the variation diagrams are copied from, I believe. ilanpi There is a clear case in which analysis is priviledged information. In particular, after an adjourned move, if one side of the analysis team finds a subtle trap, and if one of these members of this teams reveals this to the opponent, then this would seem to be a breach of ethics. This seems to indicate that one has to decide whether analysis retains a special status if the person doing the analysis reveals it publicly. I argue that it cannot be copyrighted for the following reason: If it were protected, then it would follow that you could be sued if you played someone's analysis in an actual game. I don't think anyone would support that, therefore it cannot be given special status if made public.
Harpreet: And I think you're right that posting someone's commentary is pretty dubious. My point was also much smaller, just a different name for the page. Stefan: From SL Copyright: 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. Apart from the arguments and discussion on this page, which have appeared here before, can the original author who took the variations from a copyrighted work please confirm that these conditions are complied with? This is a very complicated field - despite being careful I have erred, corrected mistakes and apologized in the past, so I know what I'm talking about - but SL has a policy of staying on the safe side as outlined on that page and in my opinion it's a good idea to continue to stick to it. Calvin: I think there's a better way to post professional games on SL than copying variations and/or commentary from an existing book: namely, to have the deshis comment on them for the benefit of amateur players. This avoids most legal issues and adds unique value. I suggest SL should remove all the variations and other copyrightable content from Go Seigen's games and just post the games themselves, a few moves at a time, with space for Q&A from SL users. I'd love to see the differences between the way, say, a 5k sees these games vs. the way a 5d sees them. Just let us poor sots ask dumb questions inline with the game record and strong players can answer them. If you don't mind my dirtying these pages this way, I'd be happy to start. More precisely, I think these games should be treated like the others in the Commented Professional Games page of SL, and perhaps moved there. [1] Bill: What ideas? This is a copy of the living page "Go Seigen 1/ Discussion" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |