ECU General Assembly accepts anti-draw and dress code rules
From January 1st, 2012 a draw offer before move 40 will be forbidden during official ECU events, and there will be a dress code. This was the main result of the ECU General Assembly, held in Porto Carras, Greece on November 5th, 2011 on the occasion of the 18th European Team Championship. ECU President Silvio Danailov and ECU Board members as well as delegates from 48 countries (members of the European Chess Union) were present at the meeting.
The ECU Board, L-R: Honorary President Boris Kutin, Deputy President Tomasz Sielicki, President Silvio Danailov and Secretary General Sava Stoisavljevic | Photo © ECU
According to the decision made at the extraordinary General Assembly in Aix-les-Bains in March 2011, ECU President Silvio Danailov established committees for the 'Sofia rule', a 'dress code for participants and officials in the ECU competitions' and for 'copyrights on the use of chess games from the ECU competitions'. According to a report on the ECU website,
The important decisions were made concerning the Dress code as well as the rule which states that in the official ECU competitions it will not be possible to offer a draw before the 40th move. The decisions will come into effect starting from January 01, 2012.
The copyrights issue doesn't get further mention in the ECU report, because it wasn't accepted by the General Assembly. Further details were given by Evgeny Bareev at the website of the Russian Chess Federation. Here's a bit of what Colin McGourty translated at WhyChess:
An ECU Commission had prepared suggestions for copyrighting games, but ultimately came to the conclusion that the issue still needs to be worked out by lawyers, as each European country has its own laws that often differ greatly. It was mentioned that another 2-3 years would be needed for that.
Here's our archive for articles about copyright:
- Bulgarian Chess Federation vs. Chessbase: 0-1 (April 15, 2011)
- Bulgarian organizers take Chessbase to court (June 2, 2010)
- Copyright on chess moves – shadows on the wall? (March 3, 2009)
- Copyright on chess games? (April 13, 2007 - in both Dutch and English)
The most recent article reported about the court case won by Chessbase, and lost by, well, Danailov. In May 2010 the Bulgarian Chess Federation, after organizing the Anand-Topalov World Championship match, took Chessbase to court for "violating copyright rules". Chessbase had transmitted the moves of the match live on their Playchess server, without permission of the Bulgarians. However, a court in Berlin rejected all demands of the Bulgarian Chess Federation.
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