Bulgarian organizers take Chessbase to court
2 June 2010, 13.00 CET Last modified: 22:22 By Peter Doggers
The Bulgarian organizers of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match take Chessbase to court for “violating copyright rules”. Chessbase transmitted the moves of the match live on their Playchess server, against the will of the Bulgarians.
During the Anand-Topalov World Championship match it already became clear that the organizer were planning to take legal action against Chessbase for transmitting the moves of the match live on Playchess. On May 27th the Bulgarians filed a case at a court in Berlin, and Chessdom has now quoted Silvio Danailov on the matter:
Before the start of the World Chess Championship we explicitly stated that no company can use the moves without the official site’s staff permission. And this was violated by Chessbase, they put themselves above the law in Europe, above the general FIDE ethical rules. (…) I believe in European law and in our Attorney who is presenting the case – Mr. Rainer Polzin. What’s more, I am candidate for President of the ECU and as such I have to stand behind the rights of professional chess. Such actions, as the one by the German company Chessbase, affect the sponsors of events negatively, which damages sponsorship, from there future organization and level of events. In the long run the biggest damage is made on the chess fans, who are the most important part of the game – they certainly deserve to enjoy high level events and have chess sponsorship on all levels. Thus, by defending our rights through European law, we will be defending all fans and the future of chess.”
Interestingly, the Bulgarian organizers first attacked ICC, but in recent years they only seem to point their attack to the German company Chessbase. It’s well known that the relationship between the Bulgarians and Chessbase has become very bad, especially after a video was embedded by Chessbase on February 11th, 2007 that was claimed to show “assistance given to the world’s top-rated player Veselin Topalov during his games”.
Why only Chessbase?
We asked Silvio Danailov why other media, like ICC, Chessdom, Susan Polgar and Crestbook (Sergey Shipov) were not taken to court. He answered:
“With Chessdom we have commercial agreement signed. Susan Polgar and Sergey Shipov I respect very much. Both are excellent professionals, doing a lot for chess, making it more popular. They are not commercial and don’t resell the games. Having in mind all this, they had our permission.
With ICC I have long collaboration with mutual interest for both sides. But I explained [them] already before that this is the last time; next time they should paid like everybody else.”
Here is the full report by Peter Doggers of Chessvibes.
This is a very complex case. Will they settle before trial?
Susan,
(if you please) how and from where did you get the moves you posted here?
She got the moves from the glove of Michael Jackson! *Ow!!* *THRILLER!!!*
It alayss heppens:Danailov and Topalov are always trying to call the attention and it does not matter by what way.
I hope the next match these guys are not present and other chess playes make what really is of interest: chess
Danailov is right. All other servers and companies followed the rules of the organizer except Chessbase. They shouldn’t be above the law. At the very least, they should have given the organizer the professional courtesy.
Anyone knows why Chessbase didn’t seek permission?
Because Chessbase thinks they own the world. They are just euro-trash thinking they are above the law.
This dude (Danailov) is “Batshit crazy!” haha…
Was this a public event? If yes how could the moves be copyrighted? If public the moves are facts and not content that can be copyrighted.
Even if the event was private copyright would not apply since the moves are still just facts, maybe some sort of provacy breach but this sounds like a nuisance lawsuit.
Well, good for the organizers. If there’s anything the world needs, it’s more lawsuits. Can you imagine a world *without* lawsuits??
As Jorg Lueke has already pointed out, what happened at a historical event not something that is usually subject to copyright.
On another forum, a user gave a link to a case in the United States that makes it very clear how the case would be resolved if it was tried under U.S. law. Obviously European law might be different. Basically Major League Baseball was defeated in court by a fantasy baseball operator over the use of baseball stats.
I went to chessbase and purchased Rybka 4 from them just to add my support.
I support Kirsan for FIDE president!