7 ms·

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 see

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.

greglindahl 10y ago
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.
- kzrdude 10y ago
  Filming a football field is also uncreative, isn't it?
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    That's a well-settled issue. Are you really claiming that writing down the positions of chess pieces is similar to operating a video camera looking at 3D objects? On the other hand, you might want to check out Corel v. Bridgeman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....
    - epmatsw 10y ago
      From a position of total legal ignorance, I don't see a meaningful distinction. In both scenarios, you're recording an account of someone else's performance with enough fidelity for someone to know what's happening in the game. In the linked case, the issue seemed to be the the recorded content had no copyright, so I don't get why that's relevant? Very interested in a more detailed answer though :)
- logicallee 10y ago
  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-copyrightable-works/creativity-requirement/ https://copyright.uslegal.com/enumerated-categories-of-copyr...
  - Retric 10y ago
    Chess is far more constrained than that. Pawns generally have 0 or 1 move with the maximum possible of 3 moves followed by piece selection which is knight or queen as bishops and rooks have the subset of a queens moves. There are a maximum of 8 pawns. Thus (8 * 3 * 2) = 48 Kings have a maximum of 8 moves. 2 Rooks a maximum of 14 = 28, 2 bishops 12 = 24, and 2 knights 8 = 16, queen = 36. And this is individually on an actual board there is often less then 50 legal choices (ex: 20 for opening) and the average game is 40 move (pairs). Thus you could encode most chess matches as a tweet.
    - logicallee 10y ago
      I appreciate your analysis - however you need to compare it not with the length of a Tweet but rather with the entropy in a melody: whereas there are typically "less than 50 legal choices" and an average game is "40 moves", a melody that has been held to be protected by copyright has fewer than 50 legal choices for each note, and requires fewer than 40 notes (by far) to be protected by copyright. I'd like to have you come back and compare chess games as actually played, with what has been held to be copyrighted simple melodies. I'd like to see that comparison and think you're good to go to make it.
- slavik81 10y ago
  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?
  - Retric 10y ago
    Events that happens are facts, creative representation of facts is copywritable but not mechanical translations. Thus you can't get a copywrite on the S&P's closing value, but you can on a story about it. Further, a program has multiple possible representations, you can copywrite the code in one of them, but not gain a separate one for the compiled code. PS: There are also many ways to generate code that don't create a copywrite.
    - matt4077 10y ago
      You're talking past each other. I think everyone agrees with the decision, but it is indeed a gray area. The S&P closing value isn't comparable because it's the product of a stochastic process. But even if there's a smart legal doctrine defining the difference between a chess game and two musicians writing a score, lets not pretend that such legal doctrines aren't created to arrive at the result that seems right. Not that there's anything wrong with that – look no further than the "smart contracts" fiasco to see the folly of trying to define rules in a "completely objective" framework. PS: "copyright", not "copywrite".
      - logicallee 10y ago
        Thank you.

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.

greglindahl 10y ago

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.

kzrdude 10y ago
Filming a football field is also uncreative, isn't it?
- greglindahl 10y ago
  That's a well-settled issue. Are you really claiming that writing down the positions of chess pieces is similar to operating a video camera looking at 3D objects? On the other hand, you might want to check out Corel v. Bridgeman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....
  - epmatsw 10y ago
    From a position of total legal ignorance, I don't see a meaningful distinction. In both scenarios, you're recording an account of someone else's performance with enough fidelity for someone to know what's happening in the game. In the linked case, the issue seemed to be the the recorded content had no copyright, so I don't get why that's relevant? Very interested in a more detailed answer though :)
logicallee 10y ago
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-copyrightable-works/creativity-requirement/ https://copyright.uslegal.com/enumerated-categories-of-copyr...
- Retric 10y ago
  Chess is far more constrained than that. Pawns generally have 0 or 1 move with the maximum possible of 3 moves followed by piece selection which is knight or queen as bishops and rooks have the subset of a queens moves. There are a maximum of 8 pawns. Thus (8 * 3 * 2) = 48 Kings have a maximum of 8 moves. 2 Rooks a maximum of 14 = 28, 2 bishops 12 = 24, and 2 knights 8 = 16, queen = 36. And this is individually on an actual board there is often less then 50 legal choices (ex: 20 for opening) and the average game is 40 move (pairs). Thus you could encode most chess matches as a tweet.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    I appreciate your analysis - however you need to compare it not with the length of a Tweet but rather with the entropy in a melody: whereas there are typically "less than 50 legal choices" and an average game is "40 moves", a melody that has been held to be protected by copyright has fewer than 50 legal choices for each note, and requires fewer than 40 notes (by far) to be protected by copyright. I'd like to have you come back and compare chess games as actually played, with what has been held to be copyrighted simple melodies. I'd like to see that comparison and think you're good to go to make it.
slavik81 10y ago
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?
- Retric 10y ago
  Events that happens are facts, creative representation of facts is copywritable but not mechanical translations. Thus you can't get a copywrite on the S&P's closing value, but you can on a story about it. Further, a program has multiple possible representations, you can copywrite the code in one of them, but not gain a separate one for the compiled code. PS: There are also many ways to generate code that don't create a copywrite.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    You're talking past each other. I think everyone agrees with the decision, but it is indeed a gray area. The S&P closing value isn't comparable because it's the product of a stochastic process. But even if there's a smart legal doctrine defining the difference between a chess game and two musicians writing a score, lets not pretend that such legal doctrines aren't created to arrive at the result that seems right. Not that there's anything wrong with that – look no further than the "smart contracts" fiasco to see the folly of trying to define rules in a "completely objective" framework. PS: "copyright", not "copywrite".
    - logicallee 10y ago
      Thank you.