Re: Legal status of chess game collections
David Starner wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2002 at 07:20:52PM +0200, Lukas Geyer wrote:
> > However, the gnuchess book consists of raw game scores, so my conclusion
> > is that it is not subject to copyright and it is in the public domain. (As
> > far as I know, the gnuchess book was not put together with some "unique
> > criteria", was it, Simon?) Any objections?
>
> Of course it was put together with unique criteria. He made some
> choices, and unless they were very simple, they would qualify as unique
> criteria. It shouldn't matter, unless the compilers can't be found or
> are no longer interested in releasing it under a free license.
As I just told Lukas.
I've contacted my comaintainer who will have history information
for the file in question.
As far as I am aware the book is no different to other code in
the GNU Chess distribution and is covered by the GPL on GNU
Chess, the decision to make it a seperate file is purely
technical (I have (and others) a 64kbps Internet connection, and
am not going to release 30MB+ copies of GNU Chess when 150Kb is
ample).
I'll be adding specific information on Chess book copyright
issues with the next version of the GNU Chess FAQ as this is now
a FAQ, and add a licence to the book file if appropriate. So if
Debian legal has any legal comment they think useful to share
please e-mail them to me directly.
If to cover your own position you want a GNU licence file added
to the book file, I am happy to do this.
I think it is the kind of thing the FSF legal department will be
interested in from a general perspective, even if they aren't so
interested in Chess, it is after all knowledge that can be used
to improve the human condition if only marginally.
regards,
Simon
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