Chess & Copyrights

Are chess problems (e.g. mate in two puzzles) copy-right-able?

good question, I haven't a clue, but if you were to stick in a useless pawn somewhere...
who's to say?

Originally posted by techsouth
Are chess problems (e.g. mate in two puzzles) copy-right-able?

Steve Lopez discussed this issue in his ChessBase workshop several weeks ago. You might take a look through their archives.

Originally posted by techsouth
Are chess problems (e.g. mate in two puzzles) copy-right-able?

If your intention is just to post them here, I don't think there would be any problem.

However if you took someone's puzzles and published them in a book or otherwise tried to sell them, then I assume that would be a breach of copyright. Although I'm not a lawyer.

Originally posted by techsouth
Are chess problems (e.g. mate in two puzzles) copy-right-able?

No, although it's convention to always include the composer's name (if it is known) with the problem, to give proper credit.

I somewhat doubt that a single chess puzzle is copy-rightable.

though, anotation, i should imagine is.

....but maybe its possible to copyright a collection of puzzles....

Originally posted by Shinidoki
I somewhat doubt that a single chess puzzle is copy-rightable.

though, anotation, i should imagine is.

....but maybe its possible to copyright a collection of puzzles....

Composed problems have stronger copyright protection (or should) than annotations. Nevertheless, if they are more than 75 years old, the protection has almost certainly expired.


(I am not a lawyer.)

A chess problem is a puzzle or brain teaser, which are not copyrightable. This comes from a mix of functionality and merger doctrines. Functional works, like forms or layouts are not copyrightable. Works which have only one way to express or only a few ways to express are not copyrightable. A chess problem is a layout of chess pieces, and there is only one or a few ways of expressing a particular problem, and hence would not be copyrightable. If the annotations to the problem merely describe what is going on in the puzzle they would probably not be copyrightable either, although if they added alot of language flourishes then they may be copyrightable. A collection of chess problems may be copyrightable as a compilation. A compilation of non-copyrightable works may be copyrightable in itself, but this copyright is very thin and would only be infringed by taking a large number of the problems out and republishing them (you might even have to republish them in sequence).

- All this only applies to U.S. copyright, and I'm not a lawyer, but I am in law school to become an intellectual property lawyer.

Originally posted by eertognam
A chess problem is a puzzle or brain teaser, which are not copyrightable. This comes from a mix of functionality and merger doctrines. Functional works, like forms or layouts are not copyrightable. Works which have only one way to express or only a few ways to express are not copyrightable. A chess problem is a layout of chess pieces, and there is onl ...[text shortened]... yright, and I'm not a lawyer, but I am in law school to become an intellectual property lawyer.

Thanks for all the replies. Not that I have anything in the works.

A lot of the chess puzzles I found are the same in different books. Same ones over and over again. They look like problems from real games.

Everyone is copying everyone, what can they do?

I remember reading about a GM saying that he would sue the tournament ppl if they posted his game, because he played it. He wanted some $ for them to post it. No one esle had a problem with them posting other players games. I don't remeber the rest, but he didn't get his way and couldn't do anything.

Also Scoresheets are the property of the tournament. After your game is over and they ask you for the scoresheet you have to give it to them.

RK