The Agon ban of live broadcasting of Candidates games except on its own website

[Jonathan Bryant]

They own the material so it's up to them by whom and how it can be accessed. The points made about sponsorship are interesting and should be considered carefully.

I am sorry Mark but I have to file that under tosh.

Under V for vacuous tosh would be more appropriate, I feel.

[Mark Jordan]

You aim to provide the best coverage possible and the best site by far so any third party broadcast is just an advert for the main event.

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with their action, and I haven't seen the contract, but I suspect it empowers them to do what they are doing at least within the jurisdiction where the contract was signed. I'm not at all sure it can be enforced across jurisdictions but they must think it can be or why bother? I'm interested in the claim that such a restriction is beneficial to a sponsor and would be attractive to others. Does their argument have any merit?

[Carl Hibbard]

You aim to provide the best coverage possible and the best site by far so any third party broadcast is just an advert for the main event.

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with their action, and I haven't seen the contract, but I suspect it empowers them to do what they are doing at least within the jurisdiction where the contract was signed. I'm not at all sure it can be enforced across jurisdictions but they must think it can be or why bother? I'm interested in the claim that such a restriction is beneficial to a sponsor and would be attractive to others. Does their argument have any merit?

The more traffic the better sponsor wise I agree but generally the internet doesn't work that way.

[MartinCarpenter]

Definitely. I mean, say they wanted to do adverts? Who on earth would choose to sit through adverts in an online chess stream?!

A less intruisive sort of presence might be possible to make happen, but you could probably get the other sites to cater for that to some extent.

[JustinHorton]

An argument that has very little merit is that what is deemed good for sponsors is necessarily what is good for chess.

[Richard Bates]

Definitely. I mean, say they wanted to do adverts? Who on earth would choose to sit through adverts in an online chess stream?!

A less intruisive sort of presence might be possible to make happen, but you could probably get the other sites to cater for that to some extent.

The only consistently noticeable exposure i saw on the official site for the main sponsor was its logo on the wall behind the players at the venue. Which could just as easily, (indeed probably more successfully!) be achieved by making the video stream widely available.

[Brian Towers]

I suspect it empowers them to do what they are doing at least within the jurisdiction where the contract was signed. I'm not at all sure it can be enforced across jurisdictions but they must think it can be or why bother?

From several decades experience as a freelance software engineer I can tell you that their lawyers know the extent to which anything meaningful can be enforced (hint: not very far) and why they bother: fear!

For getting on for half my time as a freelancer I worked through agencies and there was a binary divide between bad and very good. For instance my first contract at DEC in Reading came 3 years into my freelancing career and contained a "clickwrap-style" restrictive clause saying I could not work through another agency for DEC anywhere in the world (DEC was the 3rd or 4th largest computer manufacturer in the world at the time) for a period of 2 years after the end of my contract. I signed with alacrity since I knew it was an unenforceable piece of fear-generating hogwash. A more sensible clause restricting me to not working at the same site for 6 months would have been much more problematic for me as it would probably have been enforceable. My next contract was at the same site through another agency.

In contrast the several excellent agencies I worked through adopted a very different approach. No restrictive clauses. Instead a policy of making it clear that I should stay with them because of the excellence of their service. "We take x% off the top. Agency A takes 2x% and greedy agency B takes 3x%! Don't believe us? We'll show you our invoices." being one example approach.

Rather than threaten to prosecute its customers an intelligent chess broadcasting provider would try and sell itself and win over its customers by the excellence of its service. There are examples out there who understand this approach.

[NickFaulks]

I'm not at all sure it can be enforced across jurisdictions but they must think it can be or why bother?

It doesn't look to me as though much actual thinking has been involved. They just took some legal boilerplate and hoped that it would frighten everyone.

[JustinHorton]

Have any of the sites concerned commented on the temporary but simultaneous shutdown yesterday?

[JustinHorton]

Answering my question

[Andrew Bak]

A legal opinion of AGON's actions, also posted on Tarjei's twitter feed.

[Ray Sayers]

My daughters are heavily into youtube videos and my attention was drawn to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35459805

Which was basically some guys trying to copyright 'reaction' videos on youtube and failing due to the backlash. The internet community doesn't take well to anyone trying to take sole ownership of something which was previous widely available. In this case, it had a pretty bad result for the Fine Brothers - subscriber numbers fell off a cliff, bad news for such 'youtubers'.

I think Agon have underestimated the anger out there. What is worse is that their offering doesn't stand up to other sites. OK, they have the video feed, but I have tried watching it. The commentators are 'so-so', but the feed is often interrupted by ads, dumb 'quizzes' (basically who can google the answer fastest) and not following the games properly because even the commentators don't seem to know what is going on because the moves are treated as a heavily guarded secret!

If the official site was any good, I wouldn't look at the other sites, basically. But it's not. So I do. Improve the quality rather than trying to enforce the unenforceable.

[Adam Raoof]

A legal opinion of AGON's actions, also posted on Tarjei's twitter feed.

Thank you for posting this Andrew - the language is wonderful! If anyone wants to find out how lawyers make their money - read this.

[JustinHorton]

If the official site was any good, I wouldn't look at the other sites, basically.

Unless I am missing something, though, there is an unresolvable problem here, because AGON do not want to make the gamescore available and no site without a gamescore available can be any good.

[Mick Norris]

A legal opinion of AGON's actions, also posted on Tarjei's twitter feed.

Andy

Thanks for that - couldn't be much clearer