Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 131 posts

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#31

Post by logicallee »

greglindahl wrote: post #25
slavik81 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not clear to me that playing chess is an uncreative task like compiling phone numbers. Though, perhaps I don't know enough about chess. This seems like an interesting case to me.

I'm not saying that playing chess is an uncreative task - it's very creative. Describing the chessboard position is an uncreative task. Evaluating the relative strength of the players' positions can be creative. But the position of the pieces? No.

You are not getting a very important distinction: no creative effort (not even a kernel of creativity[1]) is embodied in telephone numbers.

There is something though about the creative expression of chess board positions: they are EXTREMELY limited in terms of entropy. In coordinate notation 64*64 = 4096 choices would define either side's move, so given a dictionary of 4096 words, any typical chess game would be under a few hundred 'words': they're very very short creative expressions.

I would suggest that you compare them with musical melodies. they have about as much entropy. the database of existing melodies (or slight variations) is similar to the database of existing chess games.

in some cases melodies were held to be protected by copyright, so that you could not reproduce them in any form. I am not a lawyer, no. I researched many areas of intellectual property extensively. In general a basic melody might well be a "fact" about a song - yet a fact that you cannot use in your own song. (Similar to a patent.)

The judge, sensibly, chose not to extend the same protection to chess games. I agree with him! I just disagree with your reasoning. There's a reason the judge didn't advance it.

[1] https://copyright.uslegal.com/enumerated-categories-of-copyr...

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#32

Post by jlgaddis »

cheald wrote: post #6
csmajorfive wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they hold the rights to recounting what happened play-by-play without using any images or media from the event? That seems more comparable here.

They certainly claim to. The NFL loudly proclaims that "Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent, is prohibited."

I hereby prohibit you from commenting on Hacker News unless you send me $10 every time you access the front page.

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#33

Post by 1_2__3 »

Lordarminius wrote: post #14
freditup wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your analogy is wrong. Many websites broadcast live "play-by-play" info on MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL games. These are typically done, for example, by showing a graphic of a strike zone and where pitches are located as they are pitched. However, the actual game audio and video is not broadcasted. I don't believe you need any sort of license to display this information (correct me here if I'm wrong). As far as I c…

> I think the correct decision was made here. No it was not. It says in the article: Organizers ... failed to persuade a federal judge to block rival website operators from broadcasting chess moves ... The defendants also said that they would not simply be copying audiovisual content generated by World Chess, but displaying the moves on their own computerized chess board while adding commentary and analysis. The ruli…

You seem to think that business is the public interest. You are incorrect.

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#34

Post by primitivesuave »

logicallee wrote: post #15
ambirex wrote: post #7

The main difference between this and other sports/events is the moves are facts. They wouldn't be able to broadcast a live video feed. But you can copyright facts.

I agree with your conclusion but not your reasoning. (you accidentally wrote "can" for "can't" at the end though, maybe you have time to correct it.) So this is why I don't agree with your reasoning: The fact is that Ambirex's comment at 11:22 PM Friday, November 11, 2016 UTC began with a capital T as his first move. Though he could have left it at that and left his opponents to reply, this was not his complete comme…

Why was this downvoted? I found it to be a pretty interesting perspective, although I do think the equation of letters in a sentence to moves in a chess game is pretty weak. Moves made in a chess game are events that factually happened in the past - copyrighting them would be akin to copyrighting a certain historical event, such that only a copyright holder is given privilege to state information about it. Letters, words, and sentences are in a creative space of expression that has its own rules and regulations.

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#35

Post by onestone »

CalChris wrote: post #21
scott00 wrote: post #20

Anybody have a link to the complaint/application for a TRO? A lot of the comments here are talking about copyright law, but most protection or attempted protection of data is done with licensing agreements. I would guess FIDE could require the people viewing in person and on the FIDE website to agree to not disseminate accounts of the game as a condition of being allowed to watch. I'd be interested to learn if FIDE h…

I don't have that but the judge was pretty dismissive. From chessgames.com: In a hearing late in the day prior to the first game of the match, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero was not persuaded that organizers of the $1 million, 12-game tournament had a legal right to block the websites from disclosing the moves until after each game.(7) Rejecting virtually every argument that World Chess asserted, he said, "I know…

There are also more details mentioned in this Chess.com article: https://www.chess.com/news/carlsen-plays-white-in-round-one-...

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#36

Post by slavik81 »

greglindahl wrote: post #25
slavik81 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not clear to me that playing chess is an uncreative task like compiling phone numbers. Though, perhaps I don't know enough about chess. This seems like an interesting case to me.

I'm not saying that playing chess is an uncreative task - it's very creative. Describing the chessboard position is an uncreative task. Evaluating the relative strength of the players' positions can be creative. But the position of the pieces? No.

Sure, but if choosing your moves is a creative task, then why wouldn't the moves be jointly copyrighted by the two players?

What's the difference between:

    1. e4 e5
    2. Qh5 Nc6
    3. Bc4 Nf6??
    4. Qxf7#
and:

    fmt:    .string "Hello World!\n"
        .balign 4
        .global main
    main:
        stp    x29, x30, [sp, -16]!
        mov    x29, sp
        adrp   x0, fmt
        add    x0, x0, :lo12:fmt
        bl     printf
        ldp    x29, x30, [sp], 16
        ret
if both are the result of a creative process?

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#37

Post by 123jay7 »

freditup wrote: post #5
Lordarminius wrote: post #2

There is a glaring inconsistency in this ruling when compared to the status quo for other sports. In baseball, football the Olympics etc the sponsors hold the broadcast rights and do with it as they deem fit. Why is this same right denied to the organizers of the World Chess Championship?

I think your analogy is wrong. Many websites broadcast live "play-by-play" info on MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL games. These are typically done, for example, by showing a graphic of a strike zone and where pitches are located as they are pitched. However, the actual game audio and video is not broadcasted. I don't believe you need any sort of license to display this information (correct me here if I'm wrong). As far as I c…

The sports apis I think you need a licence or they're very expensive for some other reason. This one is $1200+ /month. https://fantasydata.com/pricing/mlb-data-api.aspx

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#38

Post by gnicholas »

freditup wrote: post #5
Lordarminius wrote: post #2

There is a glaring inconsistency in this ruling when compared to the status quo for other sports. In baseball, football the Olympics etc the sponsors hold the broadcast rights and do with it as they deem fit. Why is this same right denied to the organizers of the World Chess Championship?

I think your analogy is wrong. Many websites broadcast live "play-by-play" info on MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL games. These are typically done, for example, by showing a graphic of a strike zone and where pitches are located as they are pitched. However, the actual game audio and video is not broadcasted. I don't believe you need any sort of license to display this information (correct me here if I'm wrong). As far as I c…

When I watch MLB games streamed from mlb.tv, there is a warning at the end that says you may not reproduce or transmit the game or descriptions thereof (or something like that). I don't remember the exact language, but I do remember being struck by the fact that it extended beyond the game itself.

I would imagine that the websites that give play-by-play info may have paid for the right to publish information about the game, or they may be able to just watch it on TV (or live) and update their info that way. As another commenter noted, the organizers could have set up the competition to forbid the audience from disseminating info, but they didn't for whatever reason.

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#39

Post by njharman »

ambirex wrote: post #7

The main difference between this and other sports/events is the moves are facts. They wouldn't be able to broadcast a live video feed. But you can copyright facts.

You can copyright a particular arrangement of facts (or other non-copyright protected content) where that arrangement required creative thought (even if "arrangement" is just layout as simple as page numbers/breaks).

Notes are facts, but sheet music (and other representations) of sequence of notes, aka a song, are copyrightable. Why are a sequence of moves not the same?

This ruling seems more about biases people have about art (music) and sport/game (chess) than about copyright law.

So what is the difference between two people playing chess and two people jamming (musical improv)? Both have limited moves, rules, structure, the creative input from two people. The chess moves are not copyrightable but the song notes are?

I actually think neither should be.

Re: U.S. judge rejects World Chess bid to block websites from airing moves

#40

Post by DrScump »

In broadcast and print media, there are "facts" which are routinely embargoed (they cannot be released before a certain date/time). Financial results from publicly-traded companies are similarly embargoed, even though they be simple facts. Why can't this mechanism be employed as a condition of being permitted to attend the event?
Post reply on HN