From owner-freebsd-chat Sat May 20 22:53:27 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mail.ptd.net (mail1.ha-net.ptd.net [207.44.96.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id E0A5237B6A0 for ; Sat, 20 May 2000 22:53:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tms2@mail.ptd.net) Received: (qmail 19773 invoked from network); 21 May 2000 05:53:26 -0000 Received: from du23.cli.ptd.net (HELO mail.ptd.net) (204.186.33.23) by mail.ptd.net with SMTP; 21 May 2000 05:53:26 -0000 Message-ID: <39270B29.D09AA59D@mail.ptd.net> Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 18:01:13 -0400 From: "Thomas M. Sommers" Organization: No X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 3.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? References: <20000513205610.A22103@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <3.0.6.32.20000513143506.00895650@mail85.pair.com> <20000514010614.A16058@happy.checkpoint.com> <3.0.6.32.20000513180213.00894400@mail85.pair.com> <20000514023000.A16663@happy.checkpoint.com> <3.0.6.32.20000513192827.00895a10@mail85.pair.com> <20000514040731.B17455@happy.checkpoint.com> <391E27DD.320D4BBF@mail.ptd.net> <20000514024308.A57423@sasami.jurai.net> <392475F3.513EE781@mail.ptd.net> <20000520185544.A47143@happy.checkpoint.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Anatoly Vorobey wrote: > > On Thu, May 18, 2000 at 07:00:03PM -0400, Thomas M. Sommers wrote: > > > Sorry, no citation. I am less willing to stake my life on the crosswords > > > issue than on the chess games issue, though, where the fact that individual > > > games can't be copyrighted is used every day by thousands of papers all > > > over the world in their news section, and is well-known inside the > > > community of chess fans and writers, etc. > > > > A chess game is an event, not a literary or artistic work of any sort. > > Sorry, but millions of chess fans who enjoy studying famous and brilliant > games and compositions won't agree. Your claim is as sensible as claiming > that a symphony can't be copyrighted. Not at all. Copyright of music is specifically provided for by the statute. A chess game, however, is not a literary or artistic work of any sort, *as defined by the statute*. > Indeed: > > - both a symphony and a chess game is a sequence of moves coming from a > limited repertoire; > - either is potentially infinite, but in reality finite; > - either is capable of giving intense joy to great many people; > - a good specimen of either kind takes wit, skill and hard work to > create; > - and so on. > > Obviously I'm simplifying, but the difference is one of degree. That > there is immense creativity in chess, just as in music, is obvious to > any knowledgable player. All this may be true, but it is irrelevant. What matters, *all* that matters, is the wording of the statute. A symphony is copyrightable because it falls in one of the categories of works that the statute says are copyrightable. A game of chess is not, because it isn't. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message