Twitter and copyright how does this work?
#1
Posted 2010-November-19, 04:55
I mean, would the Bridge World sue somebody for using a problem/hand/idea they published in one of their magazines? How can Eddie Kantar know somebody's using one (or more) of his problems in their classes? Would Meckwell sue a pair for playing a convention/treatment they copied from their CC found in the internet (in ecats or the wbf site, for example)?
Information, or data in general, has so much power in the present time and yet it's so easy to exchange with the use of technology. I used to think that Facebook and Twitter could become great tools for teaching and training in bridge but I have somehow dismissed the former as it is more a hive of gossip than anything else. I'm giving Twitter a chance so I created an account and started sending out problems; I don't have many followers and those I have don't seem very interested in tweetting back answers but before I make it public (or more public) I'd like to know what are the rights of such published materials and whether I can use them with no fear of being a criminal.
wyman, on 2012-May-04, 09:48, said:
rbforster, on 2012-May-20, 21:04, said:
My YouTube Channel
#2
Posted 2010-November-19, 05:47
The idea of a pair suing for unauthorised use of their convention is farcical. Where might that end? "Sorry, you cannot play the cards in this order because it represents a squeeze type that I discovered." One of the hallmarks of sports and games is that all competitors must be allowed to compete on equal grounds. Not being allowed to play something that another pair is allowed to play is very much against this ethos.
#3
Posted 2010-November-19, 07:25
Hanoi5, on 2010-November-19, 04:55, said:
I mean, would the Bridge World sue somebody for using a problem/hand/idea they published in one of their magazines? How can Eddie Kantar know somebody's using one (or more) of his problems in their classes? Would Meckwell sue a pair for playing a convention/treatment they copied from their CC found in the internet (in ecats or the wbf site, for example)?
Information, or data in general, has so much power in the present time and yet it's so easy to exchange with the use of technology. I used to think that Facebook and Twitter could become great tools for teaching and training in bridge but I have somehow dismissed the former as it is more a hive of gossip than anything else. I'm giving Twitter a chance so I created an account and started sending out problems; I don't have many followers and those I have don't seem very interested in tweetting back answers but before I make it public (or more public) I'd like to know what are the rights of such published materials and whether I can use them with no fear of being a criminal.
Some stuff cannot be copyrighted, for example, if you extract a hand played by a wc player at a bbo vugraph to use for teaching, that is already in the public domain, and the actions of that wc player are also.
I have seen hands extracted from BBO being published in books, I doubt that BBO gets royalties from it. What the author in question has copyrighted is the layout presented in his book and the comments he created.
If yoiu have the book and post on the net one or two hands and document it, ie, joebridge says in page 20 blah blah blah, that is fair use. If you copy a whole chapter of his book and sell it, then that is copyright infirngement.
I think the rules of bridge should be copyrighted under the same conditions as cooking recipes are. The list of ingredients, and instructions, cannot be copyrighted.
So, if you use a hand from mollo's menagerie, the hand and bidding and play is not copyrighted. What is copyrighted is the Rabbit`s joke.
#4
Posted 2010-November-19, 07:32
My understanding was that if I wanted to photocopy some stuff on sort of a spur of the moment basis I could hand it out as long as it was not excessive. Handing out copies of copyrighted stuff as a regular part of the course was more iffy. Of course photocopying pages, or several pages, is not the same as using a problem hand with your own thoughts on that hand.
You might think of, say, calculus texts. I swear that with most of them only (perhaps) the authors can tell one from another. They all have someone swimming or canoeing or something across water at some speed and then walking through a field at another speed and asking for the path that minimizes the time. So very modest modification of standard stuff seems to pass muster.
In my more advanced classes, if I used examples from the literature I made it a point to be clear about the source. This seems to me to be a matter of courtesy and fairness, whatever the law might be. I never had any problems, but I can't say I ever became a legal expert on the subject.
#5
Posted 2010-November-19, 07:40
Regarding conventions. I think if you use a convention in a competition of any kind it is considered to be in the public domain. Same goes for chess openings, or a new way to hold your bat in table tennis etc.
I think if you are doing classes, you should try to avoid using problems from books, partly because it feels unethical, and partly because it means that your students will recognise the hands if they should read the books. There are plenty of problems that will appear in the normal course of playing bridge, and if you make a determined effort to spot them you can amass a large collection in a short time.
#6
Posted 2010-November-19, 09:22
"Oh it showed a good raise of hearts with 4+ spades as well, it's completely artificial"
"Oh, that's a cool convention, I'll try it sometime"
"Sorry, we came up with it, it's copyrighted and only we can use it"
East4Evil ♥ sohcahtoa 4ever!!!!!1
#7
Posted 2010-November-19, 10:43
kayin801, on 2010-November-19, 09:22, said:
"Sorry, we came up with it, it's copyrighted and only we can use it"
Sorry, that's ridiculous. If you want to prevent other people from using your convention you need to apply for a patent.
-- Bertrand Russell
#8
Posted 2010-November-19, 12:14
phil_20686, on 2010-November-19, 07:40, said:
This last part isn't true, at least in the USA. Anything you write automatically has copyright, even in a public forum. Recently a cooking magazine shut down after getting caught using verbatim writing from web pages. (See here for some details.)
#9
Posted 2010-November-19, 12:57
kayin801, on 2010-November-19, 09:22, said:
"Oh it showed a good raise of hearts with 4+ spades as well, it's completely artificial"
"Oh, that's a cool convention, I'll try it sometime"
"Sorry, we came up with it, it's copyrighted and only we can use it"
Well the only patented bid is the redouble.
It has been patented and only people who pay royalties use it at bbo, the royalty is about $1100 per board.
sorry they take no new members there.
#10
Posted 2010-November-19, 13:41
Zelandakh, on 2010-November-19, 05:47, said:
I don't think that this is true, unless by "you should be able to ..." you mean "it would be more desirable if it were legal to ..." on which I pass no comment.
But if you mean that the laws generally permit such actions, those to re-distribute without charge copyrighted music and videos via peer-to-peer torrents are not making money from the material, but they are most definitely infringing copyright.
Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mstr-mnding) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.
"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"
"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
#11
Posted 2010-November-19, 14:00
So using bridge problems on Twitter for non-monetary purposes is ok providing that you only use a small proportion of the material from any one source. Distributing music, film, or large chunks of written material is not ok. Ideally you would also change 5 or 6 small cards from the problem to satisfy the 10% rule. I think all of this was reasonably clear from my first post although I felt it better not to go into details.
#12
Posted 2010-November-19, 14:06
#13
Posted 2010-November-19, 14:11
I've never had anybody say no when I've asked about reusing small amounts of material for a local class. I am not sure you'd get the same reaction if you're making a series of problems freely available on the internet. At some point they'll have a case that people can read your blog instead of buying a book.
Really, it's not that hard to properly cite things, or to properly create new material. (And if it really IS hard for you to create a hand that illustrates a point you want to make... well... that's a good clue that someone else put a lot of work into creating the hand in his book and you shouldn't steal his intellectual property.) Twitter a particularly dangerous format, in this regard, because there's a temptation to skip over giving credit to save space.
#14
Posted 2010-November-20, 02:02
It's conceivable that someone could patent their bidding system as a "process". But this seems like a remote possibility, I think it may be too subjective. I expect patentable processes are more mechanical, something you could put in an instruction manual for a clerk to follow (the classic example is double-entry bookkeeping).
Regarding articles in bridge publications, I think it depends on how much you copy, and where it came from. Only creative works are subject to copyright, not simple facts. So if Bridge World is reporting on the results of a tournament, the hands in the tournament are safe for you to copy, since they're historical facts; but you can't copy the text of the report, since that came from the reporter's mind. And a hand from a Menagerie or Cthulhu story is a creative work of the author, so it gets more protection. And the surrounding story is definitely protected (and the authors could probably have trademarked Cthulhu, Hideous Hog, Rueful Rabbit, etc. if they wanted, but I think it may be too late now).
#15
Posted 2010-November-20, 05:30
barmar, on 2010-November-20, 02:02, said:
Only 84 years too late.
-- Bertrand Russell