I read the entire article entitled “Chess History Content in the Digital Era: Cardinal Sins and a Cautionary Tale”, just published on chesscafe.com This is typical of the tripe we get from ChessCafe. Hanon Russell and Chess Cafe are known for attacking rivals and people he just plain dislikes, featuring articles by such as Edward Winter and Taylor Kingston attacking Grandmaster Larry Evans, Raymond Keene and Eric Schiller over trivial matters. This time ChessCafe attacks the free website chessgames.com that provides an invaluable resource that almost every serious chess player uses. I wonder what chessgames.com has done to evoke the ire of Hanon Russell. I doubt it is simply that chessgames.com nowadays gets more website traffic than chesscafe.com does.
His main complaint seems to be that teenaged chess enthusiasts post comments on chessgames that are not carefully researched and contain errors. The kind of errors to be found posted by users on chessgames.com includes mis-identifying the name of the chess club where Emmanuel Lasker gave a simultaneous chess exhibition in 1902. The article is filled complaints of trivial details about chess games played more than one hundred years ago by players nobody has heard of or remembers.
Speaking of errors, back in 2005 Chess Cafe and Hanon Russell signed a contract with the United States Chess Federation wherein they agreed to pay the USCF $350,000 per year for the exclusive concession to sell chess books for the USCF. When the time came to pay, Hanon Russell refused to pay. Rather than risk a lawsuit against Hanon Russell, a lawyer, the USCF agreed to reduce the amount to $150,000. Hanon Russell agreed to this but then did not pay the $150,000 either, nearly bankrupting the USCF. The USCF got completely stiffed.
Meanwhile, during this period, Hanon Russell refused to sell books authored by Evans, Keene and Schiller saying that sales by those authors were not good enough to justify carrying their books, whereas in reality those three are the three best selling chess authors of all time. Hanon Russell was publishing his own rival chess books. His books, while good, were not selling as well. This explains why Chess Cafe did not get enough sales to enable them to fulfill the contract to pay the USCF.
Sam, with incredible respect for your obviously dedicated research,
to what end does it serve anyone to bring up details long forgotten,
and which really do not currently concern USCF??
This article is from a back issue of Chess Cafe but was posted yesterday to Facebook by “Kingpin Ed”.
He is apparently getting it ready for publication in Kingpin Magazine.
The introduction to the article by “Kingpin Ed” says “Incompetent, unethical and biased - why one of the world’s most popular chess websites is also its least reputable”. This is clearly an attack piece.
Kingpin Ed is famous for his attacks on Keene whom he calls “The Penguin”. It is almost guaranteed that he is going to attack my new book as soon as he finds out about it.
If you think this is not relevant to the USCF, that is because you do not know what is going on right now on the USCF Board.
Perhaps you could flesh this out just a bit? I and others on the Board come here often and will discuss almost anything within reason. I have no idea what you’re talking about. For the sake of clarity, “what is going on right now on the USCF Board”?
I wonder how many of these 42 fallacies ( nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ ) could describe Sloan’s reference to “what is going on right now on the USCF board.” …
Wasn’t there an incident some years ago where a recognized chess author lifted another person’s opening analysis and piublished it in his book of original authorship?
I was in fact thinking of Keene, as you mentiom. but did not have a source to cite and therefore did not specify. Your link goes to an nstance of Schiller copying, so perhaps Hanon Russell had reasons of principle not to deal in books by Keene or Schiller. But Evans? I am 300% sure he had no need or reason to copy or plagiarize.
I have seen a Swedish booklet Fo"rsvar, which I believe is a rearrangement of a Soviet book Zashchita. with authorship credited to the Swede.
I can’t tell whether or not you saw it, but the link in my prior post also describes an instance of copying by Keene. It follows the material about Schiller.
Edward Winter has funny ideas about copyrights. He once accused me of violating his copyright by posting a picture of Raymond Weinstein on my website, when in reality the picture had first appeared in a 1961 issue of Chess Review Magazine.
I know a lot about copyright law as I talk to the US Copyright Office in Washington DC all the time and I have more than 100 registered copyrights including 15 I filed last week.
The claim by Edward Winter that Schiller violated a Yugoslav copyright is without basis. There is no copyright on chess moves or chess diagrams or positions. There are only four types of things that can be copyrighted. They are: Literary text, Work of the Visual Arts, Sound Recordings and Pictures. Chess diagrams to not fall into any of these categories. You cannot copyright a picture unless you took the picture yourself. There is no copyright on design or ideas. The claims by Winter against Keene just show his obsession with Keene. Winter cites short fragments, paragraphs, a few scattered chess moves. I suggest that Winter would be laughed out of court if he tried to file a case about this.
I see nothing in your post that violates the AUG. No reason to remove it, other than it’s a bolt from the blue and has nothing to do with my question to you. Unless, of course, you meant to insinuate that “what’s going on with the Board” is that it has given Bill Hall a “golden parachute.” I’ve written about Bill’s resignation elsewhere here in the Forums and gave some approximations. Why don’t you give that a read. The particulars of the separation agreement are confidential, but I promise you no one in the history of time has ever called such an agreement a “golden parachute,” until today. Our agreement with Bill was reasonable and modest. It concludes this week. And again, thanks to him for his service.
So, I ask again, “what is going on right now with the Board”? and what does it have to do with your post? Here’s the post again:
Got anything? Anything at all? If you do, here’s your opportunity to get some light on it.
OK. Without telling you what I know about this subject that you may not know, I understand that the outsourcing of the books and equipment contract is again subject to re-negotiation.
I know I’m reopening a dormant thread, and facts never seemed to stop Sam Sloan from tossing innuendo around, but Hanon Russell sold ChessCafe at least a year or two ago and now has nothing to do with it.