Is this potential copyright infringement?
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it's not questionable. it's definitely copyright infringement. copyright has very few grey areas. it always errs on the side of the creator.
The games alone would be ok, since chess games are not copyrighted, just so long as no text or commentary from the book is included. However if you wanted to make these PGN files and sell them you probably couldn't even mention the title of the book the games came from, so it would be difficult.
Personal use though? Great idea.
LeviAJones wrote: it's not questionable. it's definitely copyright infringement. copyright has very few grey areas. it always errs on the side of the creator.
I'll be honest, I don't know the law here. But let me ask a few simple questions and see where rational thought takes us in terms of gray area.
Let's say you buy a book with annotated games in it. If a friend sees the book on your book shelf and asks to borrow it, is it a copyright violation to loan him the book? Nothing's been copied, so how could this be a copyright violation? I think it's not.
Separate scenario. You buy the book and decide that you prefer to go through the games using your computer. So you enter the games into a database format with variations and annotation included. This is for your own personal use. It's been suggested that this is ok since it's for your own personal use.
Now let's say you've made the personal use translation as in the second scenario, and now your friend comes to borrow the book. If he borrows the book, you may both be using the material concurrently. He uses the original book and you use a copy. Is that a violation? I don't know, sounds like a gray area to me.
If the third scenario is ok, how about if you use the book and your friend borrows the database? This seems worse from the copyright perspective since you have distributed a copy of the work, but logically it's no different than the third scenario -- 2 people use the material, one the original, one a copy. An even grayer area it seems.
Maybe there are definitive answers to these that I don't know.
Thanks for all the responses -- I think my wife, three kids, and 40+ hour work weeks will keep me out of copyright infringement trouble for about - oh - 16 more years. 
Nice to hear what others think of it, however. I still think the original authors/owners of the material could "reprint" their books and sell them as spiffed-up PGN files and not do too badly.
Nice to hear what others think of it, however. I still think the original authors/owners of the material could "reprint" their books and sell them as spiffed-up PGN files and not do too badly. 
Dvoretsky released his endgame manual in chessbase format. Also pgn files of games from books exist on the internet, a google search turns up some of them.
With Polgar 5334 problems, a group of people collaborated to create an electronic copy of the book they could share amongst themselves. Every person was required to contribute 100 positions to receive an electronic copy, which was both their share of the work and proof that they had a physical copy, to address copyright concerns.
ok 15 years later now
you r being sued for copywrite infringement
May 6, 2023
0
#10
I'm not a lawyer and laws vary from country to country. Here are my thoughts and understanding:
- Events like chess (and other sports) cannot be copyrighted
- Thus, there is no copyright infringement in copying the moves of a game (not commentary or analysis) from a book into PGN format
- Audio or video broadcast of a game can be copyrighted
- Comments or analysis of a game can be copyrighted
- Fair use would allow you to cite the book where games appeared
- Fair use would allow you to make copies of a book you own for personal use (you may not distribute these copies)
- In the case of lending the book, I'd assume you would not be entitled to use your personal copy while the book was on loan
Here's a link to a Git Hub repository I created of PGNs. It includes a collection of games from Bobby Fischer's book, My Memorable 60. It does not include any game commentary, analysis or other content from the book. https://github.com/brianerdelyi/ChessPGN
I was looking through a couple of chess books the other day that contained a bunch of annotated games, like "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" (a great book, by the way, and not just for juniors!) and "Logical Chess: Move By Move" and thought, wouldn't it be great if they sold these books in PGN format (at possibly a lower price since there are no materials (e.g. paper, ink) sold), so that you could buy one huge PGN file with all the games, annotations, and variations, and then just pop it into Chessbase, etc. and follow the games! This leads me to the thought that if someone took the time to "translate" all these games from a book to a nice, healthy, annotation/variation-stocked PGN file, would that be copyright infringement? I guess the games themselves are public domain, but the author's comments is probably where it gets a little questionable. Or is it one of those situations where one can do this for him/herself, but don't give it away to all your buddies...thoughts?