Tsumego copyright

[mart900]

Hi,

I believe there's a bit of a wasted opportunity in the Go community when it comes to Tsumego. I want to "gameify" them a bit to make it a more fun/rewarding experience. The basic idea is to introduce a time limit for solving the problems and giving people points based on how quickly they solved it. The problems will get ratings as well as the players, so they'd be playing against the problems in a way. Then there will be leaderboards for the players as well as the problems, and because of the timer it's actually possible to correlate Go ranks to ranks on the site.

Basically, I want people to get that dopamine rush from solving a problem quickly and getting a lot of points for it.

For the design to work I need many problems of all levels so there is not too much repetition. Many hundreds if not thousands. Therefore I'm wondering how copyright works for Go problems. Does anyone know if there are free use sets that I can copy from? Preferably digital, so I can automate the process.

Any other advice on how to obtain problems?

(If building the problem set proves doable I could also use some help with the front end. Let me know if interested)

[CDavis7M]

There are existing solutions for what you describe, though maybe not to your liking.

As for copyright, it depends on the country but in general almost everything is protected by copyright and almost everything that people say online about "Fair Use" is false. Fair Use is not an exception to copyright infringement, it is a legal defense to be presented to a judge in trial (like how self-defense is a legal defense to an intent to kill).

Facts are not protected by copyright. There is the question of whether certain stones being placed in certain positions is copyrighted. I would be surprised if the artistic Tsumego go puzzles that create a drawing were NOT protected by copyright. But what about plain tsumego problems? Well, if you are looking for a large collection, there is precedent for protection of the collection. Simply aggregating collections would not help.

Yet, knowledge for all is good and it is the reason that copyright protection exists at all. Have you seen the Japanese book archive website? You can find several public tsumego books available: https://senseis.xmp.net/?JapaneseNationalDietLibrary

I took a quick look again and found books from Honinbo Shusai, several from the Nihon Kiin, and tons more.

If you are looking for someone to spoon feed you problems graded by kyu level then that is what copyright protection exists to prevent.

[xela]

I believe there's a bit of a wasted opportunity in the Go community when it comes to Tsumego. I want to "gameify" them a bit to make it a more fun/rewarding experience. The basic idea is to introduce a time limit for solving the problems and giving people points based on how quickly they solved it. The problems will get ratings as well as the players, so they'd be playing against the problems in a way.

Yes, it's a good idea. And goproblems.com have already done it? (See their time trials.)

[gowan]

IIRC in Japan game records are copyrighted on the grounds, I suppose, that the players created the sequence of moves. On the other hand I've seen many tsumego books for amateur learners where problems from famous collections such as Gokyo Shumyo are included without even acknowledgement of the source. There have been issues in the past with translations of books from Japanese to English being published without permission from the copyright holders. There has recently been some trouble with suits for copyright infringement on Youtube channels.

[Kirby]

All kinds of go books in Asia include overlapping problems that don't give credit to any author or collection. I know this, because I have several such books.

Copyright is kind of a Western idea, though, that's too much of a simplification nowadays.

If I were you, I would go ahead with your project, and include tsumego from various sources. Mix up the problems, and don't take everything from one collection.

If someone has a problem with it, they can give you some sort of notice, and you can decide whether to comply with the request at that time.

Your software collection will be unique and have its own value that supercedes any hypothetical copyright of individual problems.

I highly doubt that you will run into issues by using tsumego from various sources, especially if you take problems from classical sets that everyone knows about.

And again, if someone has an issue, you can decide to be agreeable/compliant at that point.

I will point out the obvious: I am not a lawyer, and am simply expressing what I would do if I were you.

I look forward to whatever you end up creating.

[Cassandra]

Even in the West, there is NO copyright on the "classical" Go problems.

As far as I know (from Chess), copyright can be claimed for the problem ('s setup position) ONLY, but NOT for the moves of the solution (which are assumened to be "absolute truth" that cannot be copyrighted; please note that this statement does NOT apply to any COMMENT on the solution).

If you ever needed to increase the number "your" problems provided in your application, or to simplify some, just create new problems from the variation tree of a given one (i.e. starting after a later move of the solution / a variation).
In many cases, it is not the very first move of the solution that is the real obstacle to identify.

[mart900]

I believe there's a bit of a wasted opportunity in the Go community when it comes to Tsumego. I want to "gameify" them a bit to make it a more fun/rewarding experience. The basic idea is to introduce a time limit for solving the problems and giving people points based on how quickly they solved it. The problems will get ratings as well as the players, so they'd be playing against the problems in a way.

Yes, it's a good idea. And goproblems.com have already done it? (See their time trials.)

They have a timer, but that's where the similarities to what I'm thinking of stop. I never enjoyed their time trial feature. Do you use it, and if so what would you change about it?

[Kirby]

101 weiqi might be a better comparison: https://www.101weiqi.com/

They have a timed problem feature where you try to solve problems within a fixed amount of time (e.g. 45 seconds), and you do 10 of them at a time. If you have a good win rate, you can unlock the next level problems.

[RobertJasiek]

Not copying non-classic collections (over 70 years after the last copyright) has already been mentioned.

Tsumegos are classic or (rather) new. Each tsumego is either common knowledge or invented / discovered. Inventing a new tsumego requires creativity and effort. Therefore, it is good practice to credit the inventor or source of each tsumego even when copying only 1 (local) position. Think of this as follows: it took quite some time to invent a position but it takes you only a few seconds to give credit to the inventor or source.

Even 1 tsumego together with "answer" diagrams or text is a creative piece under copyright. Write your own text and compile diagrams differently, especially with varying the sequences where meaningfully possible. Otherwise, for short citations, use quotation marks and give proper credit. Too long citations are prohibited unless agreed by the copyright owner.

[xela]

I believe there's a bit of a wasted opportunity in the Go community when it comes to Tsumego. I want to "gameify" them a bit to make it a more fun/rewarding experience. The basic idea is to introduce a time limit for solving the problems and giving people points based on how quickly they solved it. The problems will get ratings as well as the players, so they'd be playing against the problems in a way.

Yes, it's a good idea. And goproblems.com have already done it? (See their time trials.)

They have a timer, but that's where the similarities to what I'm thinking of stop.

I was thinking of "The problems will get ratings as well as the players". To me this is fundamental to the concept, and something goproblems.com does well.

[mart900]

I was thinking of "The problems will get ratings as well as the players". To me this is fundamental to the concept, and something goproblems.com does well.

Ah I thought the problem ratings were static. I never looked into their site much because the 4 lives thing put me off, and led me to assume that their rating system is very different from what I had in mind.

I suppose my idea is similar to what they are doing, but without the 4 lives thing and some other differences such as getting more points for solving quickly, and a timer that doesn't run out, rather you start losing points if you take too long. And I suppose a more modern UI.

I don't know if anyone here does chess tactics and remembers chess.emrald.net from back in the day, but it's basically that. They got it exactly right, I think.

[xela]

I don't know if anyone here does chess tactics and remembers chess.emrald.net from back in the day, but it's basically that. They got it exactly right, I think.

Ah, that brings back some memories. I agree with that part. OK, I don't see your idea as *fundamentally* different from goproblems.com, but yes, there's room for you to improve on it.

[karaklis]

I don't know if anyone here does chess tactics and remembers chess.emrald.net from back in the day, but it's basically that. They got it exactly right, I think

I never knew chess.emrald.net but it seems https://chesspuzzle.net/ is using pretty much the concept that you have in mind.