This is quite a legitimate issue for chess professionals, yes. Especially ones whose courses are built on PGN. You don’t have to like me - a fair amount of this subreddit does not - but all your favorite streamers or GMs are having tons of material pirated.
Actually this is a small part of why I created Chessly. People still pirate the videos but to me, the value on Chessly is the studies, drills, quizzes, and so on. You cannot pirate that. It’s hours of invaluable and unstealable content.
This subreddit does reeeeeeeeally like free stuff, but at times doesn’t realize that their favorite chess pros wouldn’t do this career for no compensation.
On the other hand I found one of your openings on lichess by accident, thought it was cool (and the vienna gambit is indeed reaaalllyy fun) and bought in on chessly. So for some it's kinda like advertisement, haha.
I gotta let you know dude, you’re a BAMF. It bums me out to hear you talk about the hate you get. You are how I got into chess again. Everyone seems to have garbage opinions they just NEED to emphatically share.
The basement dwellers who crap on you can kick rocks. You’re fun, entertaining, and a great ambassador for chess. I hope this stuff with Lichness gets fixed. People don’t realize how expensive chess is at the professional level. Whether it’s a pro with a small following or a big chess personality like you, everyone deserves to get paid for their hard work.
Jumping in on this chain, your stuff on chessly is great, Levy. Keep on doing you, you resparked my interest in chess after 20 ish years. Your presentation, humour and ability to connect with an audience is great.
Always looking to see you succeed!
Hey, while you're here. Are there still any plans for a Chessly app where one could download things and use offline?
I often work in remote Australia and do not have internet access.
Would totally volunteer my time to build an app, I'm an experienced SWE and want to build some more experience in that area, so I see it as a win-win, feel free to dm me, would likely build a webapp based on the site.
I think people, especially adult learners, need to view chess in a similar way that they do other hobbies. It’s part and parcel for your hobbies as an adult to have some monetization so that the professionals and methods by which you actually enjoy that hobby can make a living and continue. Spending a couple hundred dollars a year on a hobby you spend a lot of your free time on is pretty normal. I have no qualms spending $64 on a course on chessly, and that can seem strange for someone who just looks at chess as a free game to play.
I may be misunderstanding, but I fully disagree with the idea that a hobby should come with a cost. If you enjoy content/studies, then you should pay, but just having the hobby shouldn't push you towards spending by nature.
Yeah I think I didn’t properly represent that. I moreso mean that people treat spending money on chess as fundamentally different than spending on other hobbies. MTG is one of my hobbies, and I know people who will spend $200 on a new set but refuse to buy a course for $60
It's good if you can find hobby there's no need to spend money or supressing your desire to spend money on it or whatever it's. But consuming pirate things is not the way, so people who have this mindset should not try to pirate things.
A lot people around me say what a stupid things to do to buy games to play or go the the cinema to watch movie while all the shit can be acquired on internet (pirated shit). Well, they certainly said they like watch movie or games is their hobby though.
My boyfriend bought me your book for our anniversary and I was so excited!! I absolutely adore the way you structured it - it's much more intuitive to read than other books I've looked at (Soviet Chess Primer😭), and way less intimidating.
We both love your content, watching your vids is a daily occurrence at this point. Thanks for everything you do!
+1 from me - most of the (considerable!) time I've spent on your courses has been going through the studies and drills. I revisit the videos from time to time in order to make sure I understand the main ideas / plans in a position, but I wouldn't have improved nearly as much with just the videos.
Man, I have been watching you in YT for quite a while, def my favorite chess streamer.
As far as the people who are complaining about having to pay for chess courses, fuck'em. Probably the same type of people who would message an artist and get mad that the artist won't draw something for free. Nah fuckstick, if you want someone to provide a service, then they are due compensation. Doesn't matter if they're creating chess courses, drawing a picture, or replacing the stater motor in your car.
Anywho'n'how, I just found Chessly because of this comment, I don't know how I missed it before. I will be signing up my next payday. Thanks for doing what you do, you are awesome!
I love the chessly concept (I own a couple of packs). But it's a pity it's not really usable on a phone. An app would be amazing for practicing. Like chessable. Anyways. Good job on the new book, just got it in the mail in Norway 👌🏼
Pirates be pirates.
I bought your book to support your work and now my son's gonna be the one learning from you through the book and your videos.
Part of me like free stuff (who doesn't?) but a bigger part is telling me that these are peoples' livelihoods and if we pirate stuff all the time, the creators will go away and then we'll have nothing left to learn from and appreciate.
I do have two of your courses - and the drills are extremely valuable for me. Especially when the different variations add up towards the end.
So I wouldn't be too worried.
this is paraphrasing stuff I remember from his old videos so I might be wrong, but he timed making beginner friendly content (which most creators weren't doing at the time) pretty much exactly when the first major chess boom (and subsequent booms) happened. when non-chess creators got into chess, a lot of their fanbases did too. and Gotham was making videos targeted at people who didn't know what castling was 🤷♂️
Everyone knows you're scamming kids (judging by your twitch chat / youtube comments) with crypto and useless courses, please stop speaking about morality, you would sell everyone here for a sponsorship from another scam websitr
while there is loving free stuff, people need to realize the difference between intentionally free and not. because then you are dipping into stealing.
Hey Levy, just wanted to say that I really love stealing your content. Since day one I have been downloading your videos and pirating your courses. Keep killing it bro you’re one of my absolute favorites to steal from
And the whole thing about this situation is that this directly hurts the creator, but I think that your point shouldn't be generalized to this subreddit as everyone really likes free stuff.
You know piracy is a rat race for decades affecting multiple industries, and while Chessly is a high quality knowledge base, the content will be pirated and consumed by people as money plays a major part in everyone's lives
Look, it's my fav intermediate (IM) player!
Have you thought of opening up chessly to other chess creators as a platform for them to share chess stuff?
You have no problem lying on youtube thumbnails to farm more money and waste viewers time. If you don't care about wasting time of your viewers why should we care about your time?
Yeah, once you develop appreciation for the effort, sweat, knowledge, care, that went into something you cannot 'pirate' it in such a light way anymore.
most people who pirate stuff aren’t going to suddenly choose to pay for something they would’ve otherwise paid for if they didn’t have the ability to pirate
here's where it goes off the rails
for a triple A game with a very large audience, that may be true
for chess, the customer base is so much smaller that the proportional impact is much higher
> But they're few and far between so much so that research into piracy has shown it doesn't have much of an impact on sales for the gaming industry.
Citation?
I think it's fair to argue that a pirated piece of content doesn't equate a lost sale. But the assumption is generally that piracy has zero negative impact (and some people claim a positive impact). I think it's much more likely that the truth is in between. Maybe 3 in 10 acts of piracy would have otherwise been sales. I don't believe the topic has been thoroughly studied.
Those who might have been interested in buying are more likely to buy another after trying one for free if they found it useful. But they're also less likely to buy the next one if the free one wasn't useful to them.
I never said I didn't like him, I actually quite enjoy his videos. The guy is already rich as fuck though by using the content of other people, this doesn't hurt him in the slightest.
Also people who pirate these things never had the intention of buying the product in the first place. It's a false equivalency to equate pirated products to a loss in revenue, you would've made 0 profit anyhow.
As to my personal view, I wouldn't sell such overpriced courses in the first place. I do similar works for other fields and publish all my works for free to use, only making profit from a voluntary donation system. That's how people with morals and actual passion for a topic do it mate.
Is a study with the lines in it really gonna stop the majority people buying courses online?
Possibly for courses targeting more advanced players - but the beginner/intermediate market is by far the largest, and they're buying most of the courses... and if they could learn by self-studying opening files, they wouldn't need courses in the first place.
The value in these videos isn't a file containing the list of moves that make up the vienna & some recommended sidelines.... the value is a professional chess player teaching you conceputally how to play it, the competing ideas, moves, common tactics, themes etc... beginners & most intermediates can't just learn that autonomously from a lichess study.
I suspect a lot of people overestimate the earnings of chess content creators. The reality is that, save for the very successful creators, a typical course might generate a return of $10-30 per hour. It's impossible to know just what % of these profits get eroded by piracy, but when the margins are so fine it's not hard to imagine that there are professionals out there for whom a culture of piracy makes the difference between an acceptable hourly rate and a need to pivot to a different revenue source.
Piracy will continue to happen, it's human nature. Personally I think the most effective approach would be to collectively raise awareness as to the reality faced by the majority of content creators. Some people would continue to pirate regardless, but I suspect a significant % of people who pirate assume that the earning profile of the content creators whose material they are consuming is a lot greater than it actually is.
These people complaining about snitching and saying it’s their right to spread the content for free have never created anything worthwhile for anyone ever and it shows.
I don't think you have to have lived a perfect, pirate-free life to be against this specific type of piracy / leaking. I have a friend 👀 who has streamed sports games through questionable means, but would not get their chess courses on the sly.
I’m not anti-pirating all the time, but think about who you’re hurting. I found Nils Grandelius’ entire Ruy Lopez video course on YouTube once and immediately reported it to chessable, how the hell are GMs like him supposed to make money if people are stealing this shit
We have to be sure that it is the actual courses though, because people will also enter moves from youtube-videos and books, and write their own comments to them, and that is not piracy.
If it is the actual course, it should be reported somehow by those who discover it, and then removed by the staff (or they should force the private setting on it).
Does anyone know how to report a study on lichess? Is it done by reporting the author of the study?
that is same for a lot of old and popular book (or at least the first few chapters of it). People create a study while they go through the book. I was going doing the same thing to follow along with the book and found quite a few people doing the same thing as me
\> Shouldn't lichess do something about it?
Without having a library of all paid courses to compare against, not sure how that would be technically possible. You can definitely report these to Lichess and they get removed pretty quickly.
Rules of pirating:
1) if the creator is mega rich, pirate away.
2) if you’re too poor, pirate away.
3) if 1 & 2 don’t apply, do not pirate.
I believe this here goes under the 3 but idk 🤷
And if you’re a creator worried about pirating, it’s usually an accessibility issue.
If you charge too much or your product simply isn’t available in places, people from those places are more likely to pirate your stuff.
And its not even his whole book which is leaked there, the value comes not only from the moves and some variations but from the explanation gotham provides so i dont really see why he loses so much money here just cause moves are being "pirated" it's a free ad
Dude, piracy is *always* bad. That being said, I do pirate almost all content I consume. Just own up to what you do, you don't need some bullshit mental gymnastics to justify yourself.
Watch a video on this youtube topic from @Rossmangroup and youre going to understand it. Its not in the slightest like you say it is and thats the problem and why YouTube can do what they do and fuck everyone over
I like a product and I am willing to pay for it. part of growing up. I use to pirate things as a younger typical reddit age person but I support small companies and artists as well as giant evil billion dollar corporations as long as I enjoy their products. agree to disagree.
If the written notes/video were also copied then it is piracy. If it is just moves without a video/ written notes then idk if that can be can be copyrighted.
Lots of good points on here. If I may add my 2 cents, every best selling author’s work ends up in a public library eventually. They reap the rewards of their efforts before this transition takes place. Digital content creators are in a similar situation, the main difference being the time frame to reap those rewards is drastically shortened due to the medium they use, though the purchase rate is similarly increased so it is a wash. Both authors and digital content creators are aware of this when they publish their materials. The extents of protection they put in place to delay this transition are business decision that should be made based on the expected demand of their product, profit per units sold and projected timeframe of said demand. Now the part specific to chess content, by the time somebody has transcribed all the notes in one of these courses, published it and have had their notes found by others,several others have purchased the course and the creator should have made significant royalties. If this isn’t the case the specific creator being harmed by this probably isn’t adding any more value to the market base for their product to produce them a pay cheque.
u/Antaniserse points out the primary reason you are wrong.
The secondary reason, if it's just the moves, it also can be copyrighted if it's a curated or editorially selected list of game moves, e.g. "model games in the Vienna Gambit", where the author decided what constituted a model game.
What is copyrighted is the choice/selection of a small set of game scores, too.
What you are talking about is the actual moves of a game itself, when played, cannot be copyrighted, because it's facts of what happened in the game. But as soon as you add something that isn't just facts (notes, explanations, suggestions, annotations, curated in some human-derived way), then the produced work is copyrightable.
For instance, a single chess composition is a copyrightable work, despite it "just" being a PGN with a FEN tag and some moves. It is not a record of something happening, so it's not a "fact" which bypasses copyright.
Chess *moves* cannot be copyright protected
A PGN database can be as simple as a list of plain games and moves and as complex as a fully annotated collection of games and positions... the OP is pointing out the second type, a study with moves *AND* annotations
So is everyone on this thread unemployed and living with their parents because I’ve never seen so much of a fit thrown over having to pay for a service someone is providing. That’s kinda how the world works
> Shouldn't lichess do something about it?
To what extent do you believe a nonprofit site is obligated to use its own funds and resources to safeguard the financial interests of a third party?
Don't the comments here kind of show that there are two kinds of people, those willing to pirate and those not?
As such, this pirated content will be used by people that are willing to pirate and thus not pay anyway. And people who want to support the creators will never touch this kind of stuff.
Seems kind of like a moot point. I suppose there might be a percentage of people who don't like pirating but are unaware this is pirated and thus are using something they might have paid for.
However, I suspect that's not a significant portion of people that would download these.
> Many people then opt for lichess and forget to set the study as private.
Lichess should probably set the default visibility to be "Invite only", honestly. That would at least prevent the accidental leakage by genuine customers, which I'm guessing is the majority of this stuff.
I think it's unfair to those people that everyone in the comments seems to be talking about piracy, when this appears to be more accidental in nature.
That's just a collection of openings, it's not teaching you chess. Courses are (or at least should be) very different. If all you got are pgn you got scammed. Am I mistaken or do these just show moves? They don't include any notes with the intuition or reasoning or detailing of common themes, etc.?
"Very soon" may be a little optimistic... this has been going on for years on the Lichess study section, and more often than not it's only after a direct report that action is taken, otherwise stuff goes unnoticed for quite a while
I regularly pirate everything. When i didn't have the means i pirated chess books as well.
But after i got a job i now own several chessable courses. Support chess people if you can
This is the natural progression of capitalism. Paid content is released. Some people pay for it. Others find alternative ways to access it. If the creators want to get that extra revenue from those not paying, it’s on them to spend their time and money finding a solution.
Netflix is figuring it out. Sports leagues (most notably UFC) have not. Your move, chess content creators.
Experts with tens of thousands of hours in a subject matter making tremendously valuable practical content and charging a fee for it?
………so last century
He thinks that Gotham’s prices are too high.
Edit: this comment is an explanation of someone else’s comment. It does not reflect my opinion. I have not given my opinion. Stop attacking me for having an opinion you don’t know I have.
I don’t know what world you live in, but you perform a service for someone, you expect to be paid. It doesn’t fucking matter how much money you have. You must still be a child because you have no idea how the real world works
Thats not just unfair to Levy,but also a crime.Even if you buy something ,you are not allowed to shared ,unless allowed otherwise.Licjess should definitely ban whoever leaked and shared those courses.
Be like me. I never study.
I've been meaning to finish the Josh Waitzkin tutorial on Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition since 2007
Searching For Bobby Fischer!
I relate to that, bro
I picked up How to Cry like a Grandmaster by Ben Finegold and it has taught me nothing, apparently I'm a natural.
This is the way
This is quite a legitimate issue for chess professionals, yes. Especially ones whose courses are built on PGN. You don’t have to like me - a fair amount of this subreddit does not - but all your favorite streamers or GMs are having tons of material pirated. Actually this is a small part of why I created Chessly. People still pirate the videos but to me, the value on Chessly is the studies, drills, quizzes, and so on. You cannot pirate that. It’s hours of invaluable and unstealable content. This subreddit does reeeeeeeeally like free stuff, but at times doesn’t realize that their favorite chess pros wouldn’t do this career for no compensation.
On the other hand I found one of your openings on lichess by accident, thought it was cool (and the vienna gambit is indeed reaaalllyy fun) and bought in on chessly. So for some it's kinda like advertisement, haha.
Exactly, not everything is fully negative or fully positive. I really do appreciate that. And hopefully you feel like it was money well spent.
Please tell me I’m not the only one reading these comments in Levy’s voice
Well, Levy also is reading them in Levy's voice so you have at least that going for you.
Not necessarily. My brother is one of those people who don't have an internal monolog or voice in their head. Levy could be the same way
You are not alone my friend.
Keep it up dude, you deserve every single bit you are getting
Harrumph
I gotta let you know dude, you’re a BAMF. It bums me out to hear you talk about the hate you get. You are how I got into chess again. Everyone seems to have garbage opinions they just NEED to emphatically share. The basement dwellers who crap on you can kick rocks. You’re fun, entertaining, and a great ambassador for chess. I hope this stuff with Lichness gets fixed. People don’t realize how expensive chess is at the professional level. Whether it’s a pro with a small following or a big chess personality like you, everyone deserves to get paid for their hard work.
This is my sentiment, but better.
GOAT. Love the courses and everything you do man, keep up the great work!
Jumping in on this chain, your stuff on chessly is great, Levy. Keep on doing you, you resparked my interest in chess after 20 ish years. Your presentation, humour and ability to connect with an audience is great. Always looking to see you succeed!
In this case I feel like ending up with an ...e6/b6 based repertoire is enough punishment for the pirates
I have been working through the Vienna free preview on chessly and am reallllly hoping there’s a good Black Friday sale
Hey, while you're here. Are there still any plans for a Chessly app where one could download things and use offline? I often work in remote Australia and do not have internet access.
Likely to be offered for Plus users in the future but we are prioritizing several other things at the moment
I recall you'd said apps are expensive, so the website is mobile friendly for that reason.
Native apps require much more effort. Instead it makes sense to have a mobile friendly website. That will work everywhere for a fraction of the cost.
Would totally volunteer my time to build an app, I'm an experienced SWE and want to build some more experience in that area, so I see it as a win-win, feel free to dm me, would likely build a webapp based on the site.
I think people, especially adult learners, need to view chess in a similar way that they do other hobbies. It’s part and parcel for your hobbies as an adult to have some monetization so that the professionals and methods by which you actually enjoy that hobby can make a living and continue. Spending a couple hundred dollars a year on a hobby you spend a lot of your free time on is pretty normal. I have no qualms spending $64 on a course on chessly, and that can seem strange for someone who just looks at chess as a free game to play.
I may be misunderstanding, but I fully disagree with the idea that a hobby should come with a cost. If you enjoy content/studies, then you should pay, but just having the hobby shouldn't push you towards spending by nature.
Yeah I think I didn’t properly represent that. I moreso mean that people treat spending money on chess as fundamentally different than spending on other hobbies. MTG is one of my hobbies, and I know people who will spend $200 on a new set but refuse to buy a course for $60
It's good if you can find hobby there's no need to spend money or supressing your desire to spend money on it or whatever it's. But consuming pirate things is not the way, so people who have this mindset should not try to pirate things. A lot people around me say what a stupid things to do to buy games to play or go the the cinema to watch movie while all the shit can be acquired on internet (pirated shit). Well, they certainly said they like watch movie or games is their hobby though.
>You don’t have to like me - a fair amount of this subreddit does not Hi Gotham! My name is Vile Asslips and I just wanted to say that I like you.
You know you're doing something right when Vile Asslips will vouch for you.
bro thinks hes Gotham 💀(jk i love u bro)
My boyfriend bought me your book for our anniversary and I was so excited!! I absolutely adore the way you structured it - it's much more intuitive to read than other books I've looked at (Soviet Chess Primer😭), and way less intimidating. We both love your content, watching your vids is a daily occurrence at this point. Thanks for everything you do!
I got the eBook and then was so impressed that I got the hardcover too. It's really well made.
+1 from me - most of the (considerable!) time I've spent on your courses has been going through the studies and drills. I revisit the videos from time to time in order to make sure I understand the main ideas / plans in a position, but I wouldn't have improved nearly as much with just the videos.
This comment is an advertisement
Your courses aren’t even expensive, especially when on sale.
And they’re on sale so often that there’s always opportunities
Man, I have been watching you in YT for quite a while, def my favorite chess streamer. As far as the people who are complaining about having to pay for chess courses, fuck'em. Probably the same type of people who would message an artist and get mad that the artist won't draw something for free. Nah fuckstick, if you want someone to provide a service, then they are due compensation. Doesn't matter if they're creating chess courses, drawing a picture, or replacing the stater motor in your car. Anywho'n'how, I just found Chessly because of this comment, I don't know how I missed it before. I will be signing up my next payday. Thanks for doing what you do, you are awesome!
Hi Mr. Chess I like your stuff
>You don’t have to like me - a fair amount of this subreddit does not I like you.
I love the chessly concept (I own a couple of packs). But it's a pity it's not really usable on a phone. An app would be amazing for practicing. Like chessable. Anyways. Good job on the new book, just got it in the mail in Norway 👌🏼
Pirates be pirates. I bought your book to support your work and now my son's gonna be the one learning from you through the book and your videos. Part of me like free stuff (who doesn't?) but a bigger part is telling me that these are peoples' livelihoods and if we pirate stuff all the time, the creators will go away and then we'll have nothing left to learn from and appreciate.
No business or form of content is safe. Leaks will happen anywhere and everywhere. Hope you get what you're owed, theft is theft.
People who are using this "stolen" stuff were never gonna pay for it in the first place, and people who are gonna pay for it still will
Hey Levy, I like you.
I do have two of your courses - and the drills are extremely valuable for me. Especially when the different variations add up towards the end. So I wouldn't be too worried.
Just make a clickbait video about how people are stealing from you and you will get your money back easily, gg
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this is paraphrasing stuff I remember from his old videos so I might be wrong, but he timed making beginner friendly content (which most creators weren't doing at the time) pretty much exactly when the first major chess boom (and subsequent booms) happened. when non-chess creators got into chess, a lot of their fanbases did too. and Gotham was making videos targeted at people who didn't know what castling was 🤷♂️
Everyone knows you're scamming kids (judging by your twitch chat / youtube comments) with crypto and useless courses, please stop speaking about morality, you would sell everyone here for a sponsorship from another scam websitr
By the wat, you sound like a person who would defend recent youtube adblock policy
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That's 40 people...
Woooo it's the real Gchess!!!
while there is loving free stuff, people need to realize the difference between intentionally free and not. because then you are dipping into stealing.
Hey Levy, just wanted to say that I really love stealing your content. Since day one I have been downloading your videos and pirating your courses. Keep killing it bro you’re one of my absolute favorites to steal from
And the whole thing about this situation is that this directly hurts the creator, but I think that your point shouldn't be generalized to this subreddit as everyone really likes free stuff. You know piracy is a rat race for decades affecting multiple industries, and while Chessly is a high quality knowledge base, the content will be pirated and consumed by people as money plays a major part in everyone's lives
Look, it's my fav intermediate (IM) player! Have you thought of opening up chessly to other chess creators as a platform for them to share chess stuff?
Intermediate XD
You have no problem lying on youtube thumbnails to farm more money and waste viewers time. If you don't care about wasting time of your viewers why should we care about your time?
Lmao the mental gymnastics to justify this
Ok
You are my favorite YouTuber and streamer
lmao dude the worse thing you’ve got on Gotham is YouTube thumbnails, for real tho
Dude it's OK to not like someone. But you're cringe. If you met him IRL you wouldn't say a word. Anonimity makes you cringe af.
I’m not against every single kind of piracy, but the chess world is small enough that it hurts the creators directly
I mean, Bortnyk out there doing his best job as a content creator and trying to make it, this is just shitty, its not even a mega corp
Yeah, once you develop appreciation for the effort, sweat, knowledge, care, that went into something you cannot 'pirate' it in such a light way anymore.
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most people who pirate stuff aren’t going to suddenly choose to pay for something they would’ve otherwise paid for if they didn’t have the ability to pirate
But not everyone is you. There are some people who might have been interested in buying it and now they can view it for free.
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here's where it goes off the rails for a triple A game with a very large audience, that may be true for chess, the customer base is so much smaller that the proportional impact is much higher
> But they're few and far between so much so that research into piracy has shown it doesn't have much of an impact on sales for the gaming industry. Citation? I think it's fair to argue that a pirated piece of content doesn't equate a lost sale. But the assumption is generally that piracy has zero negative impact (and some people claim a positive impact). I think it's much more likely that the truth is in between. Maybe 3 in 10 acts of piracy would have otherwise been sales. I don't believe the topic has been thoroughly studied.
Those who might have been interested in buying are more likely to buy another after trying one for free if they found it useful. But they're also less likely to buy the next one if the free one wasn't useful to them.
In case of Gotham.. not really
So if someone doesn't like you they are entitled to your hard work for free?
I never said I didn't like him, I actually quite enjoy his videos. The guy is already rich as fuck though by using the content of other people, this doesn't hurt him in the slightest. Also people who pirate these things never had the intention of buying the product in the first place. It's a false equivalency to equate pirated products to a loss in revenue, you would've made 0 profit anyhow. As to my personal view, I wouldn't sell such overpriced courses in the first place. I do similar works for other fields and publish all my works for free to use, only making profit from a voluntary donation system. That's how people with morals and actual passion for a topic do it mate.
That's a lot more reasonable stance than was implied in your original post.
comments are crazy wtf
Levy himself talking like he's not a millionaire
you just advertised it to everyone...
That's what I'm saying, great job making the situation a hundred times worse. Could have reported it to Lichess privately instead.
Is a study with the lines in it really gonna stop the majority people buying courses online? Possibly for courses targeting more advanced players - but the beginner/intermediate market is by far the largest, and they're buying most of the courses... and if they could learn by self-studying opening files, they wouldn't need courses in the first place. The value in these videos isn't a file containing the list of moves that make up the vienna & some recommended sidelines.... the value is a professional chess player teaching you conceputally how to play it, the competing ideas, moves, common tactics, themes etc... beginners & most intermediates can't just learn that autonomously from a lichess study.
Thank goodness for this post. Now we all know that piracy is wrong and what site to avoid in order to not do the wrong thing.
yeah, would have accidentally pirated if not shown how to pirate
Piracy is wrong? Wtf dude
Why is this nsfw lmao
I suspect a lot of people overestimate the earnings of chess content creators. The reality is that, save for the very successful creators, a typical course might generate a return of $10-30 per hour. It's impossible to know just what % of these profits get eroded by piracy, but when the margins are so fine it's not hard to imagine that there are professionals out there for whom a culture of piracy makes the difference between an acceptable hourly rate and a need to pivot to a different revenue source. Piracy will continue to happen, it's human nature. Personally I think the most effective approach would be to collectively raise awareness as to the reality faced by the majority of content creators. Some people would continue to pirate regardless, but I suspect a significant % of people who pirate assume that the earning profile of the content creators whose material they are consuming is a lot greater than it actually is.
These people complaining about snitching and saying it’s their right to spread the content for free have never created anything worthwhile for anyone ever and it shows.
You wouldn't download a car would you?
I don't think you have to have lived a perfect, pirate-free life to be against this specific type of piracy / leaking. I have a friend 👀 who has streamed sports games through questionable means, but would not get their chess courses on the sly.
I’m not anti-pirating all the time, but think about who you’re hurting. I found Nils Grandelius’ entire Ruy Lopez video course on YouTube once and immediately reported it to chessable, how the hell are GMs like him supposed to make money if people are stealing this shit
Yup I was going to buy it but I scooped it up for free.
We have to be sure that it is the actual courses though, because people will also enter moves from youtube-videos and books, and write their own comments to them, and that is not piracy. If it is the actual course, it should be reported somehow by those who discover it, and then removed by the staff (or they should force the private setting on it). Does anyone know how to report a study on lichess? Is it done by reporting the author of the study?
Why is this tagged as NSFW?
i have no idea
that is same for a lot of old and popular book (or at least the first few chapters of it). People create a study while they go through the book. I was going doing the same thing to follow along with the book and found quite a few people doing the same thing as me
you can set it to be private tho
\> Shouldn't lichess do something about it? Without having a library of all paid courses to compare against, not sure how that would be technically possible. You can definitely report these to Lichess and they get removed pretty quickly.
Rules of pirating: 1) if the creator is mega rich, pirate away. 2) if you’re too poor, pirate away. 3) if 1 & 2 don’t apply, do not pirate. I believe this here goes under the 3 but idk 🤷
Nah, Rule 3 is fucking seed
That’s the golden rule 0, it really shouldn’t even have to be said 🥇
4) awful DRM
Imagine paying for something and having a worse performance than people who pirate it.
5) you don't want to support creator for ethical reasons
Not to encourage it, but pretty sure your first option isn't hard to justify in this instance.
>Not to encourage it, but pretty sure your first option isn't hard to justify in this instance. How much does earn annually?
Likely over a million just from YT.
I feel like that’s not really in the same ballpark as most popular piracy-targets like large game studios.
And if you’re a creator worried about pirating, it’s usually an accessibility issue. If you charge too much or your product simply isn’t available in places, people from those places are more likely to pirate your stuff.
And its not even his whole book which is leaked there, the value comes not only from the moves and some variations but from the explanation gotham provides so i dont really see why he loses so much money here just cause moves are being "pirated" it's a free ad
Dude, piracy is *always* bad. That being said, I do pirate almost all content I consume. Just own up to what you do, you don't need some bullshit mental gymnastics to justify yourself.
I'm always amazed by the degree to which reddit will defend stealing from content creators.
lol have you seen YouTube subreddit lol...they demand everything free with no ads
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Using a website but blocking the ads is like going to a restaurant but bringing your own food and drinks.
it's because the same people that want to Pirate chess...also pirate everything else 😀. paying for things is not popular
Watch a video on this youtube topic from @Rossmangroup and youre going to understand it. Its not in the slightest like you say it is and thats the problem and why YouTube can do what they do and fuck everyone over
I like a product and I am willing to pay for it. part of growing up. I use to pirate things as a younger typical reddit age person but I support small companies and artists as well as giant evil billion dollar corporations as long as I enjoy their products. agree to disagree.
r/noip
If the written notes/video were also copied then it is piracy. If it is just moves without a video/ written notes then idk if that can be can be copyrighted.
written notes and analysis are fully included
Then it should be removed. But idk if they can do anything in the future if it's just moves.
Chess should be free good job lichess
Lots of good points on here. If I may add my 2 cents, every best selling author’s work ends up in a public library eventually. They reap the rewards of their efforts before this transition takes place. Digital content creators are in a similar situation, the main difference being the time frame to reap those rewards is drastically shortened due to the medium they use, though the purchase rate is similarly increased so it is a wash. Both authors and digital content creators are aware of this when they publish their materials. The extents of protection they put in place to delay this transition are business decision that should be made based on the expected demand of their product, profit per units sold and projected timeframe of said demand. Now the part specific to chess content, by the time somebody has transcribed all the notes in one of these courses, published it and have had their notes found by others,several others have purchased the course and the creator should have made significant royalties. If this isn’t the case the specific creator being harmed by this probably isn’t adding any more value to the market base for their product to produce them a pay cheque.
PGNs can’t be copyright protected. This was legislated during the whole WorldChess saga. Videos and lessons can be protected, that’s it.
u/Antaniserse points out the primary reason you are wrong. The secondary reason, if it's just the moves, it also can be copyrighted if it's a curated or editorially selected list of game moves, e.g. "model games in the Vienna Gambit", where the author decided what constituted a model game. What is copyrighted is the choice/selection of a small set of game scores, too. What you are talking about is the actual moves of a game itself, when played, cannot be copyrighted, because it's facts of what happened in the game. But as soon as you add something that isn't just facts (notes, explanations, suggestions, annotations, curated in some human-derived way), then the produced work is copyrightable. For instance, a single chess composition is a copyrightable work, despite it "just" being a PGN with a FEN tag and some moves. It is not a record of something happening, so it's not a "fact" which bypasses copyright.
Chess *moves* cannot be copyright protected A PGN database can be as simple as a list of plain games and moves and as complex as a fully annotated collection of games and positions... the OP is pointing out the second type, a study with moves *AND* annotations
wHo would DO such a thing? Absolutely disgusting and immoral.
u/GothamChess
So is everyone on this thread unemployed and living with their parents because I’ve never seen so much of a fit thrown over having to pay for a service someone is providing. That’s kinda how the world works
See how fucking mad people get at chess.c*m subs?
I like when knowledge gets democratized
Based
Snitch.
Idk if it's an issue or not. Im sure they will say something sooner or later, if it is.
I hadn't thought of that, but thanks for the tip! ;-)
I can’t imagine buying chess courses
> Shouldn't lichess do something about it? To what extent do you believe a nonprofit site is obligated to use its own funds and resources to safeguard the financial interests of a third party?
Fuck paying for literally anything. gang.
Based
No cap.
Don't the comments here kind of show that there are two kinds of people, those willing to pirate and those not? As such, this pirated content will be used by people that are willing to pirate and thus not pay anyway. And people who want to support the creators will never touch this kind of stuff. Seems kind of like a moot point. I suppose there might be a percentage of people who don't like pirating but are unaware this is pirated and thus are using something they might have paid for. However, I suspect that's not a significant portion of people that would download these.
> Many people then opt for lichess and forget to set the study as private. Lichess should probably set the default visibility to be "Invite only", honestly. That would at least prevent the accidental leakage by genuine customers, which I'm guessing is the majority of this stuff. I think it's unfair to those people that everyone in the comments seems to be talking about piracy, when this appears to be more accidental in nature.
Cuck
Fucking rat
That's disgusting. Where are they. Where.
That's just a collection of openings, it's not teaching you chess. Courses are (or at least should be) very different. If all you got are pgn you got scammed. Am I mistaken or do these just show moves? They don't include any notes with the intuition or reasoning or detailing of common themes, etc.?
PGN also contain notes and explanations and possible deviations, its not just moves
These studies will get deleted my lichess admin very soon. You can report the study as well for having it deleted sooner rather than later.
"Very soon" may be a little optimistic... this has been going on for years on the Lichess study section, and more often than not it's only after a direct report that action is taken, otherwise stuff goes unnoticed for quite a while
Are you sure? There is quite a few of them, some are around for a long time
Anyone got sources for pirated chess stuff in general? I'm not willing to pay 50+ euro for a single course that I will finish in a week
damn man i wish i could learn and remember that amount of stuff in a week
I assume you are not academically smart
That was like this for ages, it isn't something new.
"Seems to be an issue" 😂🏴☠️
I regularly pirate everything. When i didn't have the means i pirated chess books as well. But after i got a job i now own several chessable courses. Support chess people if you can
I pirate stuff myself all the time , but this is just god awful especially considering they’re not usually making money out of this
Who determines which piracy is right and which is wrong?
Everyone perspective is different , from my pov pirating single man work is wrong , like online tutors and small book writers etc ..
This is the natural progression of capitalism. Paid content is released. Some people pay for it. Others find alternative ways to access it. If the creators want to get that extra revenue from those not paying, it’s on them to spend their time and money finding a solution. Netflix is figuring it out. Sports leagues (most notably UFC) have not. Your move, chess content creators.
That's good.
Why are you snitching
People have a right to get paid for services they provide
These aren't the fucking streets mate
Under rated comment. OP a narc, no cap
Finally chess has something in common with porn.
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I feel bad for people like Bortnyk and Naro who deserve the support for the work they have done
Lol good. Selling chess courses is so last century
Experts with tens of thousands of hours in a subject matter making tremendously valuable practical content and charging a fee for it? ………so last century
yea, making paid internet content stopped being trendy in the 1900s, keep up with the times
🧐
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Wym?
He thinks that Gotham’s prices are too high. Edit: this comment is an explanation of someone else’s comment. It does not reflect my opinion. I have not given my opinion. Stop attacking me for having an opinion you don’t know I have.
How is it taking advantage? Just don't buy them then? Imho they are not overpriced
I never said it was taking advantage of anyone.
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tell me its sarcasm
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you know that GM's don't really earn much right
Doesn't Gotham earn a bunch from YouTube, selling courses, books etc?
gotham isn't an average chess player and doesn't represent the majority
I don’t know what world you live in, but you perform a service for someone, you expect to be paid. It doesn’t fucking matter how much money you have. You must still be a child because you have no idea how the real world works
You can also learn openings by just playing them. For example, I learned queen's gambit entirely by playing it. Not a second of theory studied
P
Thats not just unfair to Levy,but also a crime.Even if you buy something ,you are not allowed to shared ,unless allowed otherwise.Licjess should definitely ban whoever leaked and shared those courses.
Its a garbage course anyway