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Our lawsuit against ChessBase

stockfishchess.org

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Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#171

Post by noxvilleza »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #169
qwertox wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be easily won against ChessBase. They F'd up. German court does care way too much for the "Urheberrecht" -- copyright -- and this is clearly a violation of it. If they would let this go through, nobody would take the German court serious again, and there is too much interest in not letting that happen. In any case, they also sell a music software called "Ludwig 3" [1]. I now wouldn't be surprised if it also…

I don’t think it will be so easily won: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900683 Note that it’s legal to sell stockfish as long as you’re compliant with GPLv3. ChessBase seems to be compliant. Stockfish argues that ChessBase isn’t compliant because they refuse to release the weights. But this makes no sense; the weights are distributed with every copy of Fat Fritz 2. (Otherwise, how would the program run? It’s n…

They probably intend to apply this clause (under Termination) to terminate ChessBase's license: "Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11)."

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#172

Post by JJMcJ »

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?

A number of companies have been nailed over OSS licenses, especially GPL.

The losers probably thought the license terms were just some of Stallman's psychodrama and not actual enforceable obligations.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#173

Post by gpm »

elmo2you wrote: post #83
wiz21c wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockfish has an opportunity to make money here. No?

I'm definitely not a lawyer/expert on this, even less about Germany specifically, but isn't actual financial damage required for financial compensation? While Stockfish might have suffered damage from ChessBase's behavior, if it can't be clearly specified as monetary damage, I don't really see how they could make money from this. On the other hand, if ChessBase is found (and ruled) to have distributed software illega…

Not a lawyer, but I think there's a weak argument for actual financial damages here.

There was only one legal way for ChessBase to do what it did (rebrand stockfish without attribution), and that was to acquire a (non-gpl) license from all the stockfish developers. That was almost certainly possible, for enough money. Stockfish developers could arguably sue for those lost licensing fees.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#174

Post by krick »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #169
qwertox wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be easily won against ChessBase. They F'd up. German court does care way too much for the "Urheberrecht" -- copyright -- and this is clearly a violation of it. If they would let this go through, nobody would take the German court serious again, and there is too much interest in not letting that happen. In any case, they also sell a music software called "Ludwig 3" [1]. I now wouldn't be surprised if it also…

I don’t think it will be so easily won: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900683 Note that it’s legal to sell stockfish as long as you’re compliant with GPLv3. ChessBase seems to be compliant. Stockfish argues that ChessBase isn’t compliant because they refuse to release the weights. But this makes no sense; the weights are distributed with every copy of Fat Fritz 2. (Otherwise, how would the program run? It’s n…

I have no clue about all these copyright litigations and most make no sense to me anyway, but when you put it that way, yeah, that sounds like a weak claim. Again, no idea if a court would see it that way, but if you take it a step further you can almost claim that software is not GPL-3 compliant, because it's being developed using non open-source IDE. Oh, we cannot prove it? But then, we also cannot prove these NN weights are not crafted by hand, I guess.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#175

Post by lights0123 »

SahAssar wrote: post #121
Hello71 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the CC0 Public Domain Dedication is GPL-compatible and acceptable for software.

The link I provided from the authors of the license also says "We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software." They say it's compatible, but not recommended.

CC0 doesn't count as a typical CC license. The FSF and OSI both recommend using CC0 for software.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#176

Post by mr_toad »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #169
qwertox wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be easily won against ChessBase. They F'd up. German court does care way too much for the "Urheberrecht" -- copyright -- and this is clearly a violation of it. If they would let this go through, nobody would take the German court serious again, and there is too much interest in not letting that happen. In any case, they also sell a music software called "Ludwig 3" [1]. I now wouldn't be surprised if it also…

I don’t think it will be so easily won: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900683 Note that it’s legal to sell stockfish as long as you’re compliant with GPLv3. ChessBase seems to be compliant. Stockfish argues that ChessBase isn’t compliant because they refuse to release the weights. But this makes no sense; the weights are distributed with every copy of Fat Fritz 2. (Otherwise, how would the program run? It’s n…

They also allege that ChessBase didn’t inform users of their rights under the GPL, which would definitely be a license violation.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#177

Post by rhizome »

tzs wrote: post #163
rhizome wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Statutory damages are per work infringed, not per infringement. They are normally from $750-30000 per work infringed. The lower limit can be lowered to $200 if the defendant can prove that they were an innocent infringer (they were not aware and had no reason to believe they were infringing). The defendant has the burden of proof for this. The upper limit can be raised to $150000 if the infringement is "willful". The…

Ugh, TIL "per work." I'm sure I've read past that 100 times.

Too late to delete, but thanks for the tuneup.

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#178

Post by pksebben »

sellyme wrote: post #170
mimsee wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a game gets DMCA’d, can the players who bought it still continue playing?

Yes. I have several hundred Steam games that have been removed from the store (dozens due to DMCAs), and the only game I'm aware of having ever been removed from user's libraries was The Culling 2.

appropriately named, it seems

Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

#179

Post by dralley »

kragen wrote: post #115
mehrdada wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From GNU GPL v3: 8. Termination. You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11). However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular…

GPLv2 has the termination provision but doesn't have the automatic-reinstatement provisions.

The GPL Cooperation Committment is basically an addendum to GPLv2 licenses that adds this clause.

https://gplcc.github.io/gplcc/

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