Legal aspects of tsumego and tsumego books ?

General conversations about Go belong here.
Post Reply
User avatar
otenki
Lives in gote
Posts: 415
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 9:41 am
Rank: EGF 2k
GD Posts: 0
Universal go server handle: tygempanda
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Has thanked: 43 times
Been thanked: 32 times

Legal aspects of tsumego and tsumego books ?

Post by otenki »

Hey guys,

I want to do a video series on tesuji, mainly for myself but at the same time also for other people.
Howhever because I'm not a pro and I don't want to make mistakes in diagrams and examples I want to base my videos upon some books and work by other people.

For example dictionary of basic tesuji, some clasic tsumego books etc.

On what is the copyright? Will I be doing something illegal?

Cheers,
Otenki
User avatar
tchan001
Gosei
Posts: 1582
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:44 pm
GD Posts: 1292
Location: Hong Kong
Has thanked: 54 times
Been thanked: 534 times
Contact:

Re: Legal aspects of tsumego and tsumego books ?

Post by tchan001 »

Fortunate for you go is an ancient game and there are ancient go manuals which are not protected by copyright.
http://senseis.xmp.net/?ClassicalGoProblemBooks
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.
logan
Lives in gote
Posts: 641
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 11:52 am
GD Posts: 9
Has thanked: 141 times
Been thanked: 437 times

Re: Legal aspects of tsumego and tsumego books ?

Post by logan »

For your Japanese sources:
Law number: Act No. 48 of 1970, Art. 51 wrote:(2) Copyright shall continue to subsist until the end of a period of fifty years following the death of the author (or following the death of the last surviving co-author in the case of a joint work; the same shall apply in paragraph (1) of next Article), unless otherwise provided in this Section.
tapir
Lives in sente
Posts: 774
Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2010 5:52 pm
GD Posts: 0
Has thanked: 137 times
Been thanked: 155 times
Contact:

Re: Legal aspects of tsumego and tsumego books ?

Post by tapir »

otenki wrote:Hey guys,

I want to do a video series on tesuji, mainly for myself but at the same time also for other people.
Howhever because I'm not a pro and I don't want to make mistakes in diagrams and examples I want to base my videos upon some books and work by other people.

For example dictionary of basic tesuji, some clasic tsumego books etc.

On what is the copyright? Will I be doing something illegal?

Cheers,
Otenki
1st) You probably don't have to worry regardless.

2nd) If you use diagrams / examples attribute it - regardless of copyright.

3rd) There is something like fair use / educational purpose especially for your project. This doesn't work for e.g. Sensei's Library as it claims copyright to everything published on it under Open Content License, but should be fine for educational videos.

4th) Even the copyright enthusiasts never argue against sharing game records on L19 although afaik professional organisations claim copyright on those. Examples from actual games are a good idea not only for copyright purposes.
User avatar
leichtloeslich
Lives in gote
Posts: 314
Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:16 pm
Rank: KGS 4k
GD Posts: 0
Location: Germany
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 128 times

Re: Legal aspects of tsumego and tsumego books ?

Post by leichtloeslich »

To be a bit more specific than tchan001, I'd recommend the gokyo shumyo (the gengen gokyo is also nice, but most of the problems in there are pretty tough, while the gokyo shumyo also has some very easy and a lot of intermediate-ish problems).

It's thematically divided and has problems ranging from easy (double digit kyu) to fairly insane (high dan).

Since you're going to make a video on it I suspect you'll restrict yourself to tsumegos you can read out completely, so there should be no copyright issues whats-o-ever.
Post Reply