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BGonline.org Forums
Legal question: Can Evals, Rollouts be copyrighted?
Posted By: Alfred Mamlet In Response To: Legal question: Can Evals, Rollouts be copyrighted? (Michael Depreli)
Date: Friday, 9 October 2009, at 11:44 a.m.
I manage the 50-lawyer intellectual property law practice group at my law firm.
The answer is going to depend largely on the specific facts and circumstances, including many of the variables highlighted in this thread. If someone grouped together a series of carefully constructed positions and did roll-outs like Kit's Encyclopedia this would clearly be entitled to copyright protection, likely even without the commentary.
While a collection of roll-outs of opening moves may involve less originality because there is a known set of possible moves, I think if someone were to copy all of the opening rollouts available on this site, put them in a book and sell it, Stick would have a decent copyright case. Stick decided which moves to roll out, which bots to use (and when to use more than one), which settings to use (often baffles me), etc. Adding additional commmentary makes it a derivative work but does not immunize the work from suit. Copying one opening rollout to use in a 300 page book covering an entire match would likely be considered "fair use" and avoid liability.
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