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Our lawsuit against ChessBase

stockfishchess.org

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Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#101

Post by whocares2345 »

lights0123 wrote: post #70
whocares2345 wrote: post #66

I bet it’s next to impossible to prove copyright in this case. You would need to track down every last contributor and create a legally valid authorship evidence that is recognized under German legal doctrine. I would bet that having a email or even full name in a git repository is certainly not enough. This is exactly why for serious open-source projects that big companies depend on, they always creat a legal body,…

Other way around. Just a single contributor who licensed their changes under the GPL can sue. The fact that it's a larger work doesn't matter, because each contributor's rights were infringed, so they have the right to sue.

Come to think of it - I agree. Anyone whose rights where violated can sue. The challenge of proving authorship and copyright still remains. Honestly not sure what if any available options (git commits, file headers) are really recognized. Basically I can claim that it is I that committed the code under a pseudonym that matches someones real name. Also you can find someone’s namesake etc.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#102

Post by chaosmachine »

jeremyjh wrote: post #89
camjohnson26 wrote: post #75

FYI if anybody’s looking for a chessbase alternative I use a combination of SCID vs. PC, Caissabase, and Stockfish to roughly clone it. I’m sure chessbase has a lot more features but these alternatives are good enough for an amateur like me. https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/ http://caissabase.co.uk/

I have desperately been looking for software where I can: Build an opening repertoire from PGNs. Drill that using spaced repetition (like Chessable) Import all my games from Lichess and Chess.com Tell me when I deviate from my repertoire in those games. Do you know of a software or combo that can achieve that?

I really like Listudy for drills, it imports from Lichess studies (which you can create from PGNs):

https://listudy.org/

Also Opening Tree for bulk analysis:

https://www.openingtree.com/

They're both free and open source.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#103

Post by subroutine »

DannyBee wrote: post #93
subroutine wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say I use GNU licensed software to train a neural net, using data I collected and labeled. I am completely transparent about the code I used, and cite/share any ad hoc code modifications... Should I be legally compelled to share the net weights of my trained NN?

There are long running disagreements about what this means under GPLv2 in various cases. Under GPLv3, the answer is explicitly clear: "The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work."

Sorry, but could you clarify whether the NN weights constitute a covered work? If so, why? If not, what sort of output would constitute a covered work?

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#104

Post by dheera »

dsiegel2275 wrote: post #6
apetresc wrote: post #2

If this goes to trial, I think this might be the cleanest and most straightforward test of the GPL in court we've had up to this point?

I agree. Likely a quick checkmate in court.

Hard to say, very often the sour-cream-and-onion-tiff* cannot afford the same quality of lawyers that the plain-tiff can.

* I don't know what the opposite of a plain-tiff is

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#105

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

yladiz wrote: post #79
indymike wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement can have large statutory damages that have nothing to do with the actual financial damage from the infringement.

Case in point, the awards given against people who pirate something like a movie which are completely detached from the actual damage caused by the piracy.

"Deterrent value", apparently.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#106

Post by bluGill »

colechristensen wrote: post #32
MattGaiser wrote: post #13

>Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. However, ChessBase is ignoring the fact that they no longer have the right to distribute Stockfish, modified or unmodified, as part of their products. Can they just do that? How can software really be considered free if the maker can later take away your permission to use it?

Has the GPL ever really been tested in a US court? My non-expert impression has been that open source licenses and "licenses" that aren't ... explicit contractual agreements between parties (i.e. not just click through or some text in a download) do not have a particularly strong backing with law or case law. Whether or not you "can or can't" do something with regards to effectively making up rules that will be enfor…

Most lawyers who read the GPL are not excited to go to court. They will advise you are settle without going to court. Lawyers generally want to feel like they have a chance at winning a case in court before bothering, it doesn't feel good to lose - even when you know in advance the case is lost.

Don't read that as lawyers never go to court unless they will win. This is obviously not true: there are many reasons to take a case to court knowing you will lose it. However if a case will be lost in court they will avoid court if possible.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#108

Post by rhizome »

yladiz wrote: post #79
indymike wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement can have large statutory damages that have nothing to do with the actual financial damage from the infringement.

Case in point, the awards given against people who pirate something like a movie which are completely detached from the actual damage caused by the piracy.

Yeah, that's what "statutory damages" means. In the US, if you have registered your copyright (distinct from the automatic copyright that attaches at creation), you are entitled to damages up to $150,000 per infringement. If 1,000 people can be proven to have downloaded that movie from you, that would be an unwelcome bill indeed. If 10,000, well then now you're starting to talk about real money.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#109

Post by Xylakant »

sneak wrote: post #100
hvdijk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CC0 and WTFPL are also copyright licenses. Works available under these licenses can be used with very few restrictions (basically, as few as permitted by law), but the works are still copyrighted.

I don't believe that this is accurate.

It’s simplified, but more or less accurate. CC0 is an attempt at making a public domain deed possible for jurisdictions that do not know public domain deeds like the US does. German Urheberrecht is not entirely like US copyright, some rights of the author are impossible to waive. So CC0 has a fallback for those jurisdictions, it grants a license to the fullest extend possible under the law. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#110

Post by jeremyjh »

chaosmachine wrote: post #102
jeremyjh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have desperately been looking for software where I can: Build an opening repertoire from PGNs. Drill that using spaced repetition (like Chessable) Import all my games from Lichess and Chess.com Tell me when I deviate from my repertoire in those games. Do you know of a software or combo that can achieve that?

I really like Listudy for drills, it imports from Lichess studies (which you can create from PGNs): https://listudy.org/ Also Opening Tree for bulk analysis: https://www.openingtree.com/ They're both free and open source.

Opening Tree is great and I use it a lot but it does not persist my games - I have to download them every time I use it. But I'd love an app with that interface that could persist the data and cross-check it with my repertoire. I guess it would not have to be same tool as the repertoire trainer, it just seems cleaner to have it all in one tool. But you are right Listudy can help with the spaced repetition, it just doesn't know anything about my games :)
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