Chess
Copyright
David Levy
In response to Ray Keene's recent request for comments and suggestions on copyrighting chess games, I thought [would pen a number of thoughts I have had on this subject over the past few years. Alas, these will not help FIDE to solve any problems; in fact they are rather more likely to make the Copyright Committee throw up its hands in horror. But such is the nature of the matter.
The first question to be decided, should chess games become copyright, is 'who owns the copyright?' Is it the winner of the game; or should the winner own (say) 60 per cent and the loser 40 per cent? If the winner were deemed to deserve the lion's share of the royalties, what would FIDE do in the case of an astounding brilliancy, involving an array of sacrifices, in which the perpetrator of the brilliancy lost on time when about to deliver the coup de grace? Would the person who won on time really deserve the larger share of the cake?
Another important point to consider is the question of originality, which, after all, is the thing which copyright is designed to protect. If two players reproduce the first twenty moves of a Closed Ruy Lopez, all well-known theory, and then play five more moves before someone resigns, only 20 per cent of the game will have been original. Should this affect the players' royalties in any way? To make matters even more complicated, what happens if Ray or I were to recommend a new move in some opening variation, and then Karpov (or John Smith) used this move to good effect and extracted a neat win? Would our innovation be rewarded whenever the game was published, and if so, how could we combat an argument by its protagonist that he had discovered the new move independently?
Let us suppose that all these (and other) problems are overcome, and that chess games do acquire the protection of copyright. How should the system be administered? This question is akin to that of public lending right, and I have long been convinced that unless PLR is to be run in a time-saving manner the additional income collected for the authors will be considerably less than the cost of administering the scheme. Here then are my suggestions for solving both problems.
I think it reasonable to work on the assumption that a chess player should be reimbursed in proportion to the number of times his games appear in print. If every chess magazine and publishing company were to pay a royalty on a per copy basis, and some central organisation were to be given the task of computing how often and where each game had been printed, then the whole scheme would very quickly grind to a halt as expenditure fast outstripped income. A far simpler scheme would be to have each publisher pay a royalty on each book (the royalty depending on the number of games in the book, as well as the retail price and the number of copies sold) and for each chess magazine or newspaper column to pay on a similar basis: royalty rate x number of games x average number of copies sold. To determine how these royalties should be apportioned, the International Chess Journalists Association could vote on the ten or twenty best games of the year, and the spoils could then be divided amongst the players whose games received the most votes.
I think that the matter of public lending rights could well be managed in a similar way. Each library could pay a certain sum every year, the sum depending on the number of readers registered at that library. The total income could be divided amongst authors on the basis of which book actually sold the most copies, since it is not unreasonable to argue that those which sell well w,ill also be those most frequently borrowed. Agreed there is a certain unfairness in the system, inasmuch as some books would sell badly and be remaindered but over a period of years the same books might be borrowed hundreds of times, But in life very few things are completely fair, and my suggestions do at least have the merit of being extremely simple and inexpensive to operate.
Returning to the subject of chess games, there is another side of the coin. If the cost of publishing chess material were to rise by more than a very small percentage, many chess magazines and newspaper columns would cease to function. This would prevent many players' greatest creative achievements from reaching print, and if no one sees your games then no one knows what a great player you are — you do not get any invitations to tournaments and it becomes impossible to make a living as a professional chess player. Thus the whole question of copyright may turn out to be self-defeating, since chess is still largely an economic desert with perhaps a handful of oases.
This week's game is taken (without copy right fee) from issue number 2 of International Chess. I reviewed this excellent new magazine earlier in the year but I am sad to say that it seems to have encountered serious problems, and the third issue has yet to appear (let alone the next nine which subscribers are expecting).
Miles-Tlnunan: Wijk aan Zee 1979, Queens Indian DeJence 1 13-Q4 N-KB3 2 P-QB4 P-K3 3 N-KB3 P-QN3 4 B-B4 This is Tony Milests speciality, with which he defeated Spassky twice last year. 4. . B-N2 P-K3 B-N5ch 6 KN-Q21 So as not to gum up the works with QN-Q2, The white ON belongs on QB3 6. . 0-0 7 P-QR3 B-K2 8 N-QB3 P-B471 Miles recommends 8 . P-04, although White retains a slight plus after 9 PxP NxP 10 NxN BxN 11 R-Bl . 9 P-Q51 PO 10 PxP BxP Not 10 NxP? 11 Q-B3, winning material, while 10 P-Q3 11 P-K4 leaves Black very cramped. 11 Nxli NxN 12 Q-B3 N-B2 13 Q-N71 Taking complete command of the Q-side. 13 . . P-Q3 14 N-K4 0-122 If 14 P-B4 15 B-B4ch K-R1 16 NxQP BxN 17 0-0-0, winning back the piece with an. overwhelming position, 15 0-0-0 Q-B3 16 NxQP1 QxQ 17 NxQ N-K3 18 B-N3 P-QR3 19 B-Q114 R-R2 20 B-Q$ R-111 21 N-Q6 BxN 22 BxN PxB 23 RxB K-B2 24 RxNP With an extra pawn and a positional superiority the win is 'a matter of technique', 24 N-Q2 25 R-Q6 P-115 26 KR-Ql N-B4 27 K-82 K-B3 28 R(1)-Q4 N-Q6 29 R-K4 R-K2 30 RxRP K-114 31 MD R-N2 32. R-R5ch K-113 33 B-K5ch NxB 34 R(R5)xN R(B)-QN1 35 RxKPch K-B2 36 K-B3 R-N6ch 37 KO RxNP 36 P-N4 R-QB7ch 39 K-Q3 RxP 40 R-K7ch K-B1 41 R-R7 R-R7 42 R-Q/14 R-N6ch 43 K-K4 Black resigns.
This was Miles's first win over Timman in 16 games.
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