Players copyrighting their moves

Hello. This is my first post.

I used to play club chess a decade ago but moved away and stopped playing. I remember back then a GM was trying to get copyright on his games so they couldn't be used in books and databases without a royalty. Was there ever a ruling on that?

Anyway, I seem to be re-kindling my interest in the game and the internet has really moved on since I last used it regarding chess. I'm enjoying playing games against the computer and playing through games on this site.

You can't copyright chess moves, that would be ridiculous.

That'd be a ridiculous slippery slope, then someone will buy a copyright on world champions' games, and I'd be sad if I had to pay a royalty on top of the expensive database price. 

Well, if a game "belongs" to someone, surely it belongs to both players.

What's he gonna do if his opponents decide they give their games away for free?

No, games don't have copyright as long as you're talking about the text notation. Video images and annotations of the players are a different story. 

Evgeni Sveshnikov is perhaps most famous for trying to control access to his game scores.  Joel Lautier also came out in support of Sveshnikov at one point, but in any case, most of Sveshnikov's games make it into TWIC and other media sources.

The FIDE was at one point trying to claim the rights to game scores played in their events.  Also, Topalov's manager demanded that Chessbase not post the scores of a couple of Topalov's title related matches while the matches were still in progress.  The first time Chessbase gave in, but the second time, the case went to court, and I believe Chessbase won.

nobody quote my forum posts. i own the copyrights for them and i will sue!

OK.

sued!

Okay okay...you win.

lol sued!

i'm just raking it in today!

There was some kind of attempt around 1989 for GM's to get their annotations copyrighted. In other words, if a GM published somewhere:

"In the Sicilian Najdorf 14. Kb1 stops the Black counterattack cold, and White proceeds with his attack on the g-file."

Then, if you won a game with this plan and published the game and said My 14th move stopped my opponents counterattack and my attack along the g-file won in 8 moves.... Well, then you would owe the original GM royalties.

This is totally impractical. At least give the GM's credit for trying.....

I'll agree for the most part especially given how copyright has been abused in recent (and not so recent as the whole steam engine fiasco attests.  Seriously, someone sued someone for making a superior steam engine whose design was nothing like the guy suing's design.  double vs. single pipe or something) history. 

WMG and other corporations are so relentless with their anti-pirating craze that they've targeted Youtube videos with music and even sued people with music playing on the radio in the background.  Yes, do legitimate things to stop piracy, but don't violate privacy or redefine legal definitions just so you can abuse it and take down videos just because you can.  Oh, and Happy Birthday is copyrighted now.  The world is becoming a plutocracy where only the top 1% owns anything, rendering the concept of private property not only meaningless, but outright harmful.  Good when everyone has some, bad when only a very few do. 

No sense. And if GM's opponent (it's his game too!) didn't want it copyrighted but wanted it public?

Robert Huebner was the IM which tried to get copyrighted his games.

I can go as fare as allowing copyright in terms of what we in computer software call beerware if you use the programm buy me a beer if you meet me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beerware

the same could be used in chess.

Your reasoning doesn't make sense. Why is an "artificial monopoly" "inherently evil"?

It's not inherently evil. The problem is that we gave the job to lawyers.

It is a strange situation. Highly admired for your skills, you need to work hard for it and can hardly make money allthough you are a professional.

The only value you have are your moves on the chess board. An artist is also selling (and owning) his products. On the other hand, there is no football player who has copyrighted his goals or special moves (Ronaldinho and his akka). But there is a lot of merchandise and commercials around football, (and even more spectators).

BTW, I thought Hübner was a GM.

Something like that.