World Chess Events, and its subsidiary, World Chess U.S., own the commercial rights to this year’s World Chess Championship. In a bold move (Sorry. It was too easy.), World Chess has filed a lawsuit against two chess websites, claiming that they “pirated” chess plays that are the intellectual property of World Chess Events and World Chess U.S. World Chess & Company is seeking $4.5 million in damages and asking the U.S. District Court hearing the case to block both websites from publishing chess plays from an upcoming championship match.
The key issue in this case will be (we are NOT attorneys and we are NOT giving legal advice) if chess moves are considered intellectual property, so we will follow this and keep you informed. We say they are, but our opinion does not count except in the minds of our loyal readers and sycophants.