Morals and Ethics In Chess The Chess Equipment Business

Haven't we been here before with the Piatigorsky and the Tal set just to name some? I feel very ambiguous about the issue myself since you can look at it from the Indian worker's perspective as well and say why should they make dirt pay on sets that are just resold in the west for many times their material value and labour costs? That is not to say that I'm defending them. I just like to believe that the world is not black and white.

Jacques of London used to make their sets in England until the labor and material cost were so high due to regulations. That it forced them to move their production to India. The number one responsibility for a business is to look after its financial welfare. If it can't compete. It closes its doors for good. Jobs that go overseas has more to do with governmental regulations and taxes.

Actually I don't think Jaques manufactured a set in the UK after their Hatton Garden factory was destroyed in the blitz in 1940. (Can anyone confirm?) I think the only thing that survived was some papers kept in a safe, which included some of the pattern book. This is shown, complete with scorched corners in some photos on the web.

That is a very good point. Obviously it doesn't excuse blatant IP infringement, if that is taking place. But it does beg the question as to why Indian manufacturers (all of them?) decided to sell direct to customers. It must be a real pain in the backside dealing with so many individual customers/shipments/endless complaints etc. The only reason I can think of for a company going direct from a different continent to it's customers is that the profits must be significantly better than those from dealing with resellers. It's funny that some of the sets made in Europe are comparatively priced to the Indian sets and some are extraordinarily expensive. Obviously anyone in business tries to maximise profits but the market will always move to eliminate excess profit in one way or another. 

@Audioq: That's not the only issue I have with this, but it's the main one I can think of. I haven't been to India myself but I know many people from there and people who have been there and it's as rife with poverty as anything.

When it comes to IP infringement, I like the point made before that Jaques sets are basically all copies of the Cooke design in some way, shape or form. Derivatives, in short. Also the 25 years point made before, if true, is an important factor. I've also read through the Tal set topic when that was going on, and I'm inclined to believe that it is morally much 'worse' to copy another company's set when that company has spent money, time and resources on the accurate reproduction of something that had been lost. In the case of the Tal set, some chess.com members got together and commissioned Noj to work with them to reproduce the set from photos from Tal's time. This took significant work and effort to achieve, however does the same process of rigorous investment apply to the 'creation' of all designs of sets out there? I doubt it somehow.

p.s. And what then does that mean for the buyer? Should we always not just consider the product and the price but also try to figure out whether other companies are offering the same set and who was first and therefore most legitimately entitled to exclusively sell that set, before we make the decision to purchase something? I think HoS, OS, Kate from Etsy and Noj are offering Tal sets. Where does that leave me if I didn't know about Noj's rigorous production process and I were interested in buying that design?

Morals are not just personal.  And no one has said any small group should have a monopoly here.  It reads as a justification for these guys to do what is wrong. That is an off topic comment of yours.

You are a perfect example of a person opting for #3 of my above listed options.  Note that I am not saying you are right or wrong.  I am simply pointing out where you stand on this.

What is legal is not always ethical or moral.

Been waiting for Shelby (American Chess Equipment) and Dennis (Legend Product) to chime in. 

@Audioq Oh man! That would be so nice! I really thought about getting that without the framed board. The framed board would be super nice thought. I like the early 1849 better than the 1849 set though. I think that one looks more like the 1849 Crumiller set.

Is really moral and legal play 4. b4 (after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5) invented by William Davis Evans ??

A great post Ron. I agree with you and would choose point no. 2 (will not buy a copy but still buy their originals). Still there are many people who would carried away with the sheer price difference. For example, a brilliant Craftsman from HOS and chessbazaar in ebony or blood rosewood has a substantial price difference. NOTE that CB always run 25 or 30 and sometimes 35% off on most of their chess sets.

I'd definitely will never buy anything from staunton castle, and the chess empire since their only purpose to enter the retail business is revenge. They were not been able to fulfill their commitments to Frank/Shawn and wanted him to teach a lesson. Royal chess is trying hard to become another chessbazaar but some friend from India(not chessbazaar) had told me that this guy is using child labor and is not paying taxes to the Indian Govt, which means that the cost he's saving from not paying his taxes is helping him to compete in the market by offering lower prices. He's using his father's other wood business as a shield. Heck, why on the earth are we supporting these business. Simple unethical.

I was not aware of the revenge thing.  This is good to know.  The thing is that both Chess Empire and Staunton Castle make nice products.

Chess Bazaar really is competitive in quality as well as being lower priced.

I heard about the child labor problem in India, but I didn’t realize it happened here.  The RCM sets have been made cheaper anyway.  But with these child labor and not paying taxes things, RCM really is a place to not buy from.  Thank you for sharing this information.

Well, Camaratta relied on the artisans that are now Chess Empire and Staunton Chess, not these other, lower priced places.

Part of the problem with OS website (and others) is that the pictures aren't great. I would love to see the early 1849, 1849 and 1851 together in the same photo to really tell the differences.

Well, they do know who made the first Dubrovnik set.  In fact they know where they all were made.

Noj has a license.

From Noj.si

”Our production is based on original drawings and samples owned by »Šahovska naklada» (Croatia).  They gave us exclusive permission to use copyrighted plans to recreate this timeless chess set. Now you can own this important, historical chess set.””

Ask them for the paper.

Difficult to sue a company in another country/continent when you may only end up getting a pittance after years of legal nonsense. You do raise an interesting point about IP and Yugoslavia in the 50s. Under communism there was no IP in anything (unless the state had IP in them). Maybe IP was allowed for Communist era items retrospectively(?).