Piracy in the Go industry.

[RobertJasiek]

A perfect case for "don't feed the troll".

Suppose it was a troll treatment. Then sooner or later advertisement for piracy would prevail because a climate of unopposed possibility were accepted.

[Joaz Banbeck]

..."don't feed the troll"...

I don't think that he is trolling. There is a serious argument in his posts. It may be presented in a more confrontational manner than is necessary, but that doesn't change the ideas presented.

*puts on admin hat*
[admin]
As always, speaking as an admin, I urge people to avoid pejorative or emotional arguments. And the more controversial the subject, the more I advocate this.
[/admin]

[badukJr]

First of all baduk is not a language from a legal point of view. this conversation isn't related to the other thread.

Secondly, what I really object to in your statement is the insinuation that it is easy to make money off of the game. people like Robert Jasiek put an incredible amount of work writting books and advancing knowledge in the west about go, it is not unreasonable that they want to get money from selling their books, instead of having their intellectual property stolen.

First, the legal point of view IS the point of view. If you don't follow, you might want to consider your place of residence or civil disobedience.

Second, I never said that in my post.

Also, people do work hard at creating problems yet those are constantly lifted from their books and placed onto goproblems and other L&D websites that are generally recommended to beginners around here. People don't seem to mind when that sort of theft takes place, so why is there anger about game compilations - i.e. not even board positions created originally by the author of the book?

[RobertJasiek]

People don't seem to mind when that sort of theft takes place

Please provide more details: are all the problems from some source copied or only a small part of all?

[speedchase]

insinuation

Second, I never said that in my post.

[palapiku]

Strongly agree that I don't see any rational argument about why a book should enjoy different legal treatment than a game record.

[badukJr]

People don't seem to mind when that sort of theft takes place

Please provide more details: are all the problems from some source copied or only a small part of all?

I'm trying to figure out what difference it makes. Fair use only applies to the very smallest reproduction of a work unless intended for educational use only, and only in the United States. It would have to go to court to really find out...

There is that infamous old cho chikun.pdf floating around, many people download that with the justification that the solutions aren't included so it is fair use, but that is probably not true. Its pretty clear that the solutions are easy to create, it is the problems that take a long time to formulate.

There are very few books that only use game records or are a collection of game records. The only one that I have in my collection is played by the the two authors for the express purpose of demonstrating their points. They originally created that game.

insinuation

Second, I never said that in my post.

If you want to argue semantics, please do so in PM with me, instead of crapping up the thread with posts like that.

[Bill Spight]

Also, people do work hard at creating problems yet those are constantly lifted from their books and placed onto goproblems and other L&D websites that are generally recommended to beginners around here. People don't seem to mind when that sort of theft takes place, so why is there anger about game compilations - i.e. not even board positions created originally by the author of the book?

Nearly all problems aimed at beginners are as old as the hills, and not under copyright. (And in the U. S. problems are not copyrightable.) There may be a question about compilation copyright, but, IMX, ordinary people do not care much about that kind of copyright.

[judicata]

There are sooo many interesting points in this thread that I would love to comment on. But I don't have time.

Until I do, I'll just point out something about "fair use": there are some fairly clear examples of what constitutes "fair use." But outside those clear situations, no one really knows exactly what constitutes "fair use." And, as badukjr suggested, a court would have to decide, which would involve litigation, which is expensive. Furthermore, because the boundaries of fair use aren't clear, if someone wants to litigate the issue (bring it to court), they run a significant risk of losing. So even parties that can afford to pay for litigation involving fair use arguments generally avoid doing so. And without court decisions (especially higher courts), and without further legislation, the issue remains unclear (which in turn means less litigation, and the cycle continues).

I'm not saying this supports or undermines any particular argument, but just noting a practical point.

[judicata]

Also, people do work hard at creating problems yet those are constantly lifted from their books and placed onto goproblems and other L&D websites that are generally recommended to beginners around here. People don't seem to mind when that sort of theft takes place, so why is there anger about game compilations - i.e. not even board positions created originally by the author of the book?

This is a widely discussed and debated topic. Much of the legal analysis on this issue in the U.S. is found in a lawsuit about a phone book - Feist v. Rural. The "work" that goes into creation is only part of the analysis. I believe compilations of go games are generally copyrightable under U.S. law, but I admit the issue probably isn't clear, and it also depends on what is included in the compilation. For example, GoGoD isn't just a collection of SGFs made by a bot crawling on the internet--there are some comments, historical notes, notes about the game record, players, etc. (and, yes, within the database portion of the collection itself, and not just the encyclopedia section). All of which makes it more likely subject to copyright.

I don't have time right now to explain whether I think this is right or wrong from a moral or policy standpoint.

[daal]

Strongly agree that I don't see any rational argument about why a book should enjoy different legal treatment than a game record.

A book is written with an expectation of income from future sales. This isn't the case with a game record.

[palapiku]

Strongly agree that I don't see any rational argument about why a book should enjoy different legal treatment than a game record.

A book is written with an expectation of income from future sales. This isn't the case with a game record.

Not sure if that's a reason for different legal treatment or merely its consequence. Why shouldn't professional go players except income from reproductions of their games?

[FlyingAxe]

What is the fundamental difference between these kinds of information that makes some of them property and others not?

Their different treatment by law.

No bearing on morality of the action. Kidnapping a West African and kidnapping a West Virginian at one point was treated differently by the law. Both actions were equally immoral. On the other hand, criticizing the king at one point was illegal, while criticizing your neighbor was not. Yet, neither action was immoral (on the other hand, jailing or fining a person for criticizing a king was).

More than that is applied. People in civilisations under law create work under those conditions so that they can maintain their living. If there were civilisations with different law, then people would work differently or even work in entirely different areas to enable themselves to maintaing their living under those different circumstances. Which is theoretically entertaining but irrelevant under current international etc. copyright law.

No, this is erroneous.

Improvement (and maintenance) in living can happen without the law, as long as nobody is interfering with anybody’s rights. When one does, the law interferes. But it is erroneous to say that the law itself drives the civilization forward.

Furthermore, the law does not create rights, it recognizes them. When it recognizes the rights that do not exist, the particular law is not a real law, it is a legal fiction. Legal fiction leads to violation of other people’s rights when it is enforced. (For instance, right of a husband to relations with his wife is a legal fiction that has been in place in most civilized countries until very recently. In the UK, until early 90s. In the US, until 70s, I think. Its enforcement led to marital rape.)

Force is a strong word. Copyright law usually issues fines rather than imprisonment. It requires being the manager of Rapidshare or whatever together with particularly aggressive behavioru to risk imprisonment.

First, I suppose the US government will forgive me the fine if I refuse to pay it? At no point will there be any men in uniform coming and enforcing the fine one way or another?
Second, so, when the owners of Rapidshare are imprisoned because of a legal fiction, that is not a case of force being applied to someone immorally?

That you want to see?:)

Yes, protection from violence is the only reason I want to see for violence being applied to another human being. Call me old-fashioned.

Indeed. Have fun opening a book store in a street full of book stores!:)

Well, if I am good, I will have good sales. But my point is: I am violating nobody’s rights if I do that.

There is a distinction between property and intellectual property. Information in general is not intellectual property but specific kinds of information (such as most commercial go books' contents) is.

A statement you have not justified in any way. Intellectual property is the physical property on which information is stored. You certainly can own that. And I certainly may not steal that. But once I copy information onto my storage device (be it my brain or my hard drive), you cannot own that information, since you cannot own that device.

Unless you believe that "information" exists in some imaginary Platonic realm. In that case, a) you have to prove its existence, b) you still cannot justify my restriction to its use, since it is non-scarce.

Not transactions are possessed but the money once the transaction will have been completed.

Huh? You own the money in your customers’ pockets that they may pay you in future if they decide to buy your product? Doesn’t this contradict their own ownership of that money before the sale has happened? In case you are wondering, yes, I am serious. I don’t think you can own other people’s money before they gave it to you willingly.

Advocating copyright is not robbing organs. Be serious.

No, but justifying violating individuals’ rights for the "improvement of society" (utilitarian approach to morality) leads to gross violation of human rights seen in Germany, US, Japan, USSR, and other countries in the 1930s.

[FlyingAxe]

Strongly agree that I don't see any rational argument about why a book should enjoy different legal treatment than a game record.

A book is written with an expectation of income from future sales. This isn't the case with a game record.

I wrote this message with an expectation that you will pay me money for it. Can I PM you my Paypal account?

Seriously, as I said, you cannot have a claim on somebody else’s future custom. If I do something that will reduce or eliminate the custom you receive (e.g., by opening a store next to yours, or even online), I have no violated your rights.

[FlyingAxe]

A perfect case for "don't feed the troll". Even if my view on IP laws may not be as close to the law as it should, Go book writers deserve their money.

First, there is no call for ad hominem attacks. I have not insulted anyone. I know my ideas may sound alien to people who are used to the concept of copyright, but that does not mean they are wrong. Abolitionism, rights to abortion, rights to free speech, rights not to recognize a certain person as a propher were (and are, in some places) considered crazy and alien at some point.

Second, I don’t disagree that book writers deserve to be paid for their work. They are free to sell their work to whomever will buy it and get payment. I am arguing that once information has been bought (in a form of a book, pdf, epub, whatever), its owner owns it completely and may put it up online for free distribution. He is not violating the original writers’ rights, since they do not own the information. Information is not something that can be owned, since it is not divorceable from the object that contains it (or the object whose emergent property it is), since it is the object that "creates" it. If you believe that information is a platonic object, a) you have to prove that platonic objects exist, b) you have to justify protection of access to them. (I can justify the protection of access to my pencil by its scarcity. But that does not apply to platonic objects.)

Otherwise, what you have is the system of goblin property ownership described in Harry Potter: even after a goblin sold something, he still owned it on some level. The concept of complete transfer of property did not exist in the goblin culture, just like complete transfer of intellectual property after a sale does not exist in the Western legal system.