On Mon, 24 Apr 2000, Bruce E. Hayden <bhayden[_at_]ieee.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 21 Apr 2000, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Henry McInulty <henry[_at_]mcinulty.greatxscape.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Are chess moves copyrighted or patented.
> >
> > Ideas cannot be copyrighted. The expression of ideas can be.
>
> Originally, I thought that the moves of a chess game would contain
> sufficient original expression to support copyright protection. But
> then I thought of the functionality argument, and realized that in
> particular in the case of grand masters, many of the moves might be
> considered functional. After all, if a move is the optimal move in
> a given situation, it should be filterable.
>
> Of course, I don't play that that level, so many of my moves are
> sub-optimal. The result I would think is that while my games are
> probably protected by copyright, those of a grand master may not
> be, or if so, at not nearly the same level.
>
> Does this make sense, ignoring the law? I don't think so.
It seems to me you also have a problem with the merger doctrine. A chess move itself is an unprotected idea or fact. Only the way it is described can be copyrighted. But aren't there only one or two ways to describe a chess move? This means it can't be copyrighted or the first person to record a move would have a copyright on the fact of the move itself.
Stephen Fishman
<sfish55[_at_]yahoo.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:39 GMT