Is it illegal to share SGF file that extracted from Go book?

HermanHiddema · #1

Sharing SGF files made from books is not acceptable.

Not only is it illegal, but you're directly hurting authors in a very small market. If authors of go books cannot earn money on selling them, they will stop writing them, and the community as a whole will suffer.

Please remove the link from your post (I'm sure mods will do it anyway, otherwise)

HermanHiddema · #2

Yes, such an application which works with and pays authors would be fine, and in fact there is already something like it called SmartGo Books.

It is always a struggle for authors. You want to reach as wide an audience as possible and make it as easy and pleasant as possible for them to enjoy what you wrote, but you also want to make sure you get adequate remuneration for your efforts. I'm sure most go book authors will welcome any new product or service that achieves that.

HermanHiddema · #3

I'm not personally familiar with the go publishing world, but several authors of go books also post on this forum, so perhaps some of them can give their opinion and/or advice.

RobertJasiek · #4

1) Distinguish copyrighted from not copyrighted material. E.g., not copyrighted is books 70+ years after death and last publication of author / copyright owner.

2) Distinguish common contents (commonly known joseki sequences) to copyrighted contents (particular compilation of josekis or comments on e.g. commonly known joseki sequences).

3) Copying litte (read: very little) of one book is possible and requires proper citation. Copying more requires prior agreement of author / copyright owner.

4) While many books mostly repeat commonly known problems, e.g., by far most of my problems have been created by me. IOW, just because something is a problem etc., do not automatically assume it would be commonly known. There are also serious creators, whose work is highly creative!

HermanHiddema · #5

Marcel Grünauer wrote:

Many problem books are in large parts themselves just compilations of widely published problems. For example, problems in the Graded Go Problems for Beginners are given in many other books, magazines and digital collections.

Problems in the "Dictionary of Basic Tesuji" series are often taken from classical sources such as the Gengen Gokyo.

Given that the authors did not invent these problems themselves, here are some considerations:

1) Verbatim explanations given in copyrighted books are not ok, but mere variations should be ok.

2) Presenting the problems in the same order is not ok, but some random order and orientation (rotation, mirroring, color swaps) should be ok.

If you could select problems that you want to study using some sort of hashtag query, you would not end up with any collection coming out of any one specific source.

3) Joseki sequences and variations derived from them can be turned into problems, as book authors did not singlehandedly invent those sequences; rather they were taken from real games and from study groups.

What do you think?

Ultimately, the question is if you are reproducing creative work that the author.

If an author is selecting known problems from classical (non-copyrighted) sources to fit a certain theme (e.g. shortage of liberties) or level (e.g 3-5 kyu), the act of selecting is creative work, and presenting the exact same set of problems, even randomized and rotated/mirrored/swapped, is a copyright violation.

If an author takes an existing problem and presents a selection of success/failure variations, the choice of which variations to present is creative work, and providing the exact same set of variations is a copyright violation.

HermanHiddema · #6

@Marcel: Yes, I agree. Your original comment said (paraphrased) "same order is not ok, random order/orientation is ok", and the words "same order" made it seem to me like you were talking about a single collection. Hence the confusion. If you're using many sources of non-copyrighted problems mixed together, then there is no problem IMO.

Is it illegal to share SGF file that extracted from Go book?

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