Saturday 17 March 2018

Stolen Memories

You'd like to think that the merits of a cause could be judged by the quality of the buffoons who support it. It ain't so of course, and there are all kinds of clowns on every side of any given argument, but nevertheless I was pleased to see that FIDE's latest blundering proposal, to bully its members into giving professional incompetents AGON (or anybody else) an illegal monopoly on transmitting chess moves, has been supported by professional buffoon Steve Giddins.


Now, if I were Steve I wouldn't be using the word stolen, for a couple of reasons, one of which is that you can't steal what isn't anybody's property, and there's been enough court cases by now which have established what we already knew, that the moves of chess games are public information in the public domain. You can't steal them.

But there's another reason, which is that you can steal other things, which include the analysis of chess games, and the notes made to them. Or should we say purloin?

What do you reckon, Steve? I reckon there's people who can talk about stealing, and then there's people who are more-than-willing dogsbodies for an actual fraud and thief.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Back in the day when Gidders was involved with the Staunton tournaments, he was never very happy with the notion that organisers should make available the games played in their tournaments. Or if they did, those who who downloaded the games should contribute to the organiser's breakfast.

Elsewhere organisers try to obtain coverage on popular sites so as to publicise their event. This weekend's 4NCL being an example were games are available on chess24 as well as the 4NCL's own website.

RdC

Chris Goodall said...

The one thing chess players fear more than a change, is a change that might cost them a tiny amount of money.

David Llada said...

Oh, this is the guy who blocked me on twitter and asked everybody to boycott my work, because I was the official photographer in the WWCC in Tehran :-))

Anonymous said...

Buongiorno, Mr. Horton.

Da qualche mese sto notando che:

la qualità dei tuoi articoli è in costante e progressiva discesa (a mio personale parere);

pensi di avere sempre ragione, anche quando non ce l'hai (a mio parere);

ricorri sovente (questo è un fatto) all'offesa personale (cosa orrenda, a mio parere);

sostieni talvolta cause palesemente sbagliate in partenza (a mio parere). [qui dovrei argomentare, lo so, ma il mio scritto diventerebbe cinquanta volte più lungo (però rimango comunque disponibile per qualsiasi confronto, pur con tutte le difficoltà della lingua)]

Peccato; mi eri piaciuto molto, e per molto tempo (e nei forum italiani avevo in varie occasioni parlato di te con termini di eccellenza)...

Tra l’altro, sebbene a te non piaccia, Mr. Giddins mi sembra una persona perbene nonché da tempo un acuto osservatore (come te) delle cose scacchistiche: http://twitter.com/GiddinsSteve/status/707581615992664064

Vabbè, amen.

Cordiali saluti,

Riccardo Musso (Italy)
- modesto scacchista e modesto giornalista (non iscritto all’Ordine) di scacchi -

P.S. Chiedo scusa se lascio il mio scritto in italiano ma la mia padronanza della lingua inglese non è molto buona e, dato l'argomento, credo sia preferibile non correre il rischio di tradurre in modo sbagliato, o non accurato, qualche concetto o qualche parola. Chiedo davvero ancora scusa per questo.

ejh said...

Hi Riccardo

Thanks for yours. I'll let it go on this occasion but in future postings need to be in English or another language I can translate for other readers (Spanish, perhaps French).

Steve Giddins who by the way is no stranger to the art of personal abuse, is somebody who appointed himself to the post of personal courtier to a man with a forty-year record of cheating and theft in English chess. For this reason, his views on theft (and anything else pertaining to ethics) are not to be taken seriously.

Cheers

Justin

Chris Goodall said...

Not really a discussion about theft or ethics though, is it. Giddins can be casually abusive and can hand-wave proven cases of plagiarism, we know that. But as you yourself pointed out, you have to stretch the definition of "stolen" a long way to shoe-horn that into a discussion of FIDE's live broadcasting policy.

ejh said...

Well to be fair Chris it is Mr G who is alleging this to be about theft.

Chris Goodall said...

I think it's a rhetorical device, Justin. Like when someone steals your parking space.

ejh said...

For sure, but given that Ray's thefts have been on the unrhetorical side, it's a device I'd prefer his bag-carrier not to use

Anonymous said...

Thanks Justin, now I understand your point. In the meantime, I also have read your article and links more carefully (Keene, plagiarism, etc). Moreover, if what written in the comments is true and if I understand it well, Giddins was against the Women World Championship in Tehran some time ago and pushed for some wrong boycotts ('wrong' in my opinion). Lights and shadows. Thanks for the hospitality.

Un saluto,
Riccardo Musso

Chris Goodall said...

Somehow I don't get the impression that you'd come round to Steve Giddins' point of view if only he'd use better rhetorical devices on Twitter...

Anonymous said...

There is something to be said for the devaluation on the return of interest for a company like Agon who want to market the event. Yet laws are laws. It has to be accepted then, that the money that can be made from broadcasting an event like the World Championship is limited. There is no way of avoiding competitors. Less money to feed the penguins.

-theblueweasel, spending some time in orange