Consultation on the Draft FIDE Live Moves Broadcasting Policy

[Alex Holowczak]

Given how much I know people on this Forum react warmly to the principle of consultation, I thought you might be interested in this:

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... olicy.html

There doesn't appear to be a deadline to reply by, but there is a FIDE Presidential Board Meeting is happening on 6-9 April in Minsk, so it would seem to be sensible for those who wish to reply to do so in time for that.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I love the smell of freshly pickled genies.

[David Robertson]

The consultation opens with the apocalyptic and risible:

In an effort to maintain the commercial viability of chess

What it really means is the commercial viability of FIDE. The document is a typical Soviet-era, command-and-control manifesto of bureaucratic procedures and threats. These guys really do inhabit a closed world in which they presume to possess all power. They hold none, not even the €1 fine for a first infraction. Idiots

[Alex Holowczak]

The consultation opens with the apocalyptic and risible:

In an effort to maintain the commercial viability of chess

What it really means is the commercial viability of FIDE. The document is a typical Soviet-era, command-and-control manifesto of bureaucratic procedures and threats. These guys really do inhabit a closed world in which they presume to possess all power. They hold none, not even the €1 fine for a first infraction. Idiots

There are a number of American English bents throughout the paper, "Tournament Director" being one term, amidst the Americanised spellings of a number of words. FIDE writes its papers in UK English. This is Agon's paper, a FIDE Draft Policy in name only.

[Roger de Coverly]

There doesn't appear to be a deadline to reply by, but there is a FIDE Presidential Board Meeting is happening on 6-9 April in Minsk, so it would seem to be sensible for those who wish to reply to do so in time for that.

Is the ECF intending to reply in any other manner than that it believes the long established legal precedents are that chess moves are a historic record and therefore not anyone's intellectual property?

Live (text) broadcasting of games goes back at least 40 years, for example to the 1978 match being covered live (almost) on Teletext.

[Alex Holowczak]

There doesn't appear to be a deadline to reply by, but there is a FIDE Presidential Board Meeting is happening on 6-9 April in Minsk, so it would seem to be sensible for those who wish to reply to do so in time for that.

Is the ECF intending to reply in any other manner than that it believes the long established legal precedents are that chess moves are a historic record and therefore not anyone's intellectual property?

Live (text) broadcasting of games goes back at least 40 years, for example to the 1978 match being covered live (almost) on Teletext.

The ECF Board does get accused of not leaping into action in times of urgency, but you'll forgive us if we haven't quite got around to agreeing on the intended reply and sending it off since I spotted it at 10pm tonight.

[Chris Goodall]

"prohibition on taking part in a chess competition, or in any chess-related activity"

Now I want to violate these rules twice, just to find out whose army is going to be guarding Starbucks in case I pull out a chessboard.

[NickFaulks]

What it really means is the commercial viability of FIDE.

Not FIDE, Agon. Other FIDE events are free to broadcast.

[Nick Grey]

I usually do not post concerning these matters but the implication is on all transmissions of live boards so organisers have a view too.
Alex = great to bring to our attention. Of course not expecting an immediate response.

[Roger de Coverly]

Not FIDE, Agon. Other FIDE events are free to broadcast.

Perhaps true in practice, but not a distinction made in the proposal.

[Richard Bates]

Leaving to one side the principle the policy is trying to establish, it is a very strange document. Whilst the list of potential “violators” are “including but not limited to”, they are presumably chosen because they are groups/individuals over which FIDE are felt to be able to exert some influence. However I am struggling to think of many, if any, situations where the identified groups/individuals are likely to be in violation - given that the actual target “offenders” are almost solely limited to the broadcasting websites such as chess24, ICC etc.

It then goes on to state the rather poorly defined potential sanctions, which includes an addendum that in the case of violation by organisations, the sanction (which includes something/a limitation not stated in the previous list - participation in “official” tournaments) will only apply to the head of said organisation. Which seems to me to be a sanction toothless in the extreme, since it is unlikely to actually have a material impact on anybody. Who is, for example, the head of chess24 who is going to have a problem with being banned from official positions in FIDE or partipating in official FIDE tournaments?

[JustinHorton]

Live (text) broadcasting of games goes back at least 40 years, for example to the 1978 match being covered live (almost) on Teletext.

Can't say I remember that (or 1981, though Doug Griffin does).

[JustinHorton]

There doesn't appear to be a deadline to reply by

Doesn't it say "Comments and feedback can be sent by 31 May 2018"?

[Alex Holowczak]

Leaving to one side the principle the policy is trying to establish, it is a very strange document. Whilst the list of potential “violators” are “including but not limited to”, they are presumably chosen because they are groups/individuals over which FIDE are felt to be able to exert some influence. However I am struggling to think of many, if any, situations where the identified groups/individuals are likely to be in violation - given that the actual target “offenders” are almost solely limited to the broadcasting websites such as chess24, ICC etc.

It then goes on to state the rather poorly defined potential sanctions, which includes an addendum that in the case of violation by organisations, the sanction (which includes something/a limitation not stated in the previous list - participation in “official” tournaments) will only apply to the head of said organisation. Which seems to me to be a sanction toothless in the extreme, since it is unlikely to actually have a material impact on anybody. Who is, for example, the head of chess24 who is going to have a problem with being banned from official positions in FIDE or partipating in official FIDE tournaments?

Your points occurred to me last night.

To add some information. Chess24 broadcasts the 4NCL's live games. This happens through co-operation; we create a JSON file, upload it, and after a few conversations on Skype to fix the things I've messed up, it works. I expect pretty much every tournament around the world that broadcasts via Chess24 does this. However, clearly Agon are not working with Chess24 this time around, but they seem able to broadcast the Candidates Tournament regardless without any help.

[Alex Holowczak]

There doesn't appear to be a deadline to reply by

Doesn't it say "Comments and feedback can be sent by 31 May 2018"?

It does now. It didn't last night. I hadn't closed the tab on my browser or my computer down overnight, so fortunately I can provide a screenshot to prove it.

FIDE Live Moves Screenshot.jpg (96.35 KiB) Viewed 2332 times