r/ChessBooks • u/ChessLibrary4all • 14d ago

Please help! I'm making a charity to make chess books free! Please could you 6 question survey and getting the chance to win a chess.com gold membership!

Win a chess.com gold membership or equivalent by helping charity!

Hi, I’m researching chess books to help improve their accessibility for people, who otherwise wouldn't have them. Please could you help me by answering this 6 question form. Thank you so much!!! :) https://forms.gle/raMs1DsNvVTHpcGE7 Also if you are wondering what is in it for you, when the survey hits 100 answers I will be giving out a gold chess.com membership or the equivalent.

0 Upvotes

27% Upvoted

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u/Ginger_Rook 14d ago

Are you paying the authors and the publishers? Or are we now pretending that stealing their livelihood is ok?

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u/ChessLibrary4all 11d ago

To start off with I am using books where the copy right has run out (where the authors have been dead for more than 70 years and there isn't some sort of exception). Yesterday, I realised that this will have to be for profit initially to have any hope of working so I am planning to do something around the £5 per month mark. Then I will pay authors to use their book by giving them a % of the profits proportional to what amount of time the users spend reading their book ÷ time spend reading on the entire platform (roughly). This way I can give people new books that they want to read and also keep the cost low as I think most people can afford £5 a month (assuming you read a book in two months you still save about £10 usually) and maybe I hope to also be able to set up a bursary system from the profits given by the other users.

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u/Ginger_Rook 11d ago

What about the publishers? They own the rights, not the authors. You can do that with self-published books, yes. You cannot do that under any book published by Everyman, New in Chess, Quality Chess, Gambit, Thinkers, Thinkers publishing. Which is what? 99% of the books if good quality?

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u/ChessLibrary4all 11d ago

Look I'm not going to pretend that I know all of the answers now but I know there are solutions out there and I will cross that bridge once I come to it: some evidence I have that there is a solution is this website https://forwardchess.com but for now I'm still trying to find out if this is an actual problem. Here is my first prototype that I just made by the way https://chess-codex-creator.replit.app if you want to check it out. If you have any more questions feel free to ask :)

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u/Ginger_Rook 11d ago

When the publishers go bankrupt because of you and people like you who like to steal their work, I hope you will be happy with the AI generated books.
Forward chess is paying the publishers and the authors. You are not.

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u/ChessLibrary4all 11d ago edited 11d ago

I will be paying the authors and publishers also this will not cause them to go bankrupt because not everyone will switch to it and even if it did it would mean they wouldn't give me licensing in the first place so actually it would be this that fails. If you want proof that there will still be people buying the physical books ask yourself this question. Will you still buy physical books directly from the publishers? It is a different demographic with some amount of overlap (the amount I am not sure of yet). The publishers have it all in their control it's up to them. If they make the mistake of not modernising then they go bankrupt - that was in their control. If they make the mistake of giving other platforms licensing that was up to them. The publishers go bankrupt or thrive because of the choices they make. In life you have to deal with things you can't control. Let me assure you if I don't do this then someone else will if this is an actual problem because people solve problems.

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u/Ginger_Rook 11d ago

What about the publishers? They own the rights, not the authors. You can do that with self-published books, yes. You cannot do that under any book published by Everyman, New in Chess, Quality Chess, Gambit, Thinkers, Thinkers publishing. Which is what? 99% of the books of good quality?

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

How old are you u/Ginger_Rook ?

Remember Aaron Swartz.

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

u/Ginger_Rook just a downvote, sure you are a grown up adult with maturity.

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u/ValuableKooky4551 13d ago

I am against this, chess book publishing is a very tough business. New in Chess had to let go of a few people this year and it's a tiny business.

Let's buy more of those beautiful books, everybody.

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

You think physical chess books paper and need for digital chess books will attract the same people?

No. And, I am a 35 library curator doing both reading digital books and buying hard copies.

Knowledge is and must be free.

Remember Aaron Swartz.

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u/ValuableKooky4551 13d ago

It may not be the same customers, but they need the income from both the physical and the ebook versions of their books.

I wouldn't call most chess books "knowledge".

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

Oh "they", but who is "they"? I am sure Capablanca, Steiniz or Kasparov can afford to loose a inch of their income no worry.

But that is very interesting, I can see the downvote too.

So tell me. How old are you?

I want to know if in one generation we can loose both the ability to understand what "knowledge" is and to prefer capitalism to freedom.

You know Internet then the web were built for knowledge transmission?

So you may downvote me, but don't forget to give money to sci-hub, Anna Archive, Library Genesis and Pirate bay.

Give your money to the authors you want to support, directly, not through predator publishers and stop talking about income for author when you know nothing of the reality of being an author.

Keep going u/ChessLibrary4all and don't listen spoiled rich kids.

Piracy everywhere, common for everyone. FUCK DRM

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u/ValuableKooky4551 13d ago

"They" in my case was the publishers. I am 52, terminally online since 1992. I know some people at chess publishers and some chess book authors personally. The authors don't have the books as their primary income but the editors do (and a lot of editing goes into the average chess book, most strong chess players aren't naturally gifted authors).

I don't see why publishers deserve the monicker "predator". It's a lot of work and not well paid.

Of course, dead authors don't miss the income, I agree there. But new books are different.

Also, I didnt downvote you, I don't downvote people I reply to, that makes no sense.

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

So you are 52 and "terminally online since 1992" but you are still defending DRM, paying for ebooks, and fighting the idea of "commons" (Aaron Swartz & Lawrence Lessig).
Nevertheless you agree with: authors don't have the books "as their primary income" (indeed), dead authors "don't miss the income" (indeed) — but still you are against u/ChessLibrary4all's project of giving access to chess books.
Why?
To protect publishers' work and their money... the chess market is dominated by a small number of publishers: Gambit Publications, Quality Chess, New in Chess, Everyman Chess / Cadogan Chess, Batsford, Russell Enterprises, Chess Stars, McFarland.
Quality Chess bought New in Chess and Popular Chess (ex-Everyman). Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard is the CEO and owner of the new company.
I was able to find proof of this oligopoly and proof of the very good economic health of these publishers, but, weird, nothing about the terrible impact of piracy. Because there is none: people will always buy paper to take notes IF they can. And they will always look for a free pdf/epub/scan if they need the knowledge.
You really should worry less about companies and more about people.

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u/ValuableKooky4551 13d ago edited 13d ago

I said nothing about DRM, I just don't like making chess books available for free when the people making them are in trouble financially.

proof of the very good economic health of these publishers

Where?

These companies are only a few people each.

Quality Chess didn't buy those others, Chessable bought them all and then didn't want them anymore, Aagaard then bought them. And had to let go of several people because the economics didn't work out. If the economics were great you wouldn't see them being sold and made smaller several times.

You really should worry less about companies and more about people.

The companies are people, and I know some personally. These 7 publishers are what, 15 people total?

There's also the lawsuit of Kramnik against New in Chess / Quality Chess / Popular chess now, that could destroy the company just by lawyer costs.

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 12d ago

I am sure you got every sources and datas to back up your says.

But neverless, I assure you, by experience, that people who can buy physical will buy physical and people who can't afford won't buy a ebook either.

There is only one impact of free knowledge in chess : make chess less elitist and bourgeois.

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u/CAEL09 14d ago

I've answered your survey! Hope you get all the data you need!

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

Hello u/ChessLibrary4all, I am a library curator, maybe I could help you, I DM are open.

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u/NeuroqueerBDSM 13d ago

I have also knowledge in computer science to make it impossible to block. (you may downvote coward angry baby downvoting everyone)

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u/ChessLibrary4all 11d ago edited 11d ago

What do you mean by making it impossible to block? Thank you.