World Championship 2016 Broadcast

**Vlad Drkulec** · Tuesday, 4th October, 2016, 12:59 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

So they are basically getting you to agree to abide by a copyright agreement - albeit only when the game is being played - which they are not entitled to under U.S. and international law.

**Wayne Komer** · Tuesday, 4th October, 2016, 01:16 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

October 4, 2016

If I want to follow the games and not pay WorldChess, will I be able to or will I be in the same situation as with the Candidates when I had to follow “pirated” moves on chess bomb?

http://forum.chesstalk.com/showthrea...ight=broadcast

In the present mood of uncertainty I cannot see myself getting a Team Karjakin T-shirt to wear during the Match (or ever)!

**Vlad Drkulec** · Tuesday, 4th October, 2016, 03:02 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

My guess is that you will be able to get the games "legally" immediately after the game ends. There will be some websites that will broadcast the games while they are in progress but these will probably at least suffer some harassment though given the laws in the U.S. I am not sure how effective this will be.

**Paul Bonham** · Wednesday, 5th October, 2016, 04:00 AM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

Originally posted by Vlad Drkulec View Post

My guess is that you will be able to get the games "legally" immediately after the game ends. There will be some websites that will broadcast the games while they are in progress but these will probably at least suffer some harassment though given the laws in the U.S. I am not sure how effective this will be.

There are web sites that stream live NFL video action to paying subscribers, but at the same time, there are sites that stream textual descriptions of play-by-play for free as they happen.

There is no way one could successfully claim copyright for the textual descriptions of NFL play-by-play and this tells us that live text descriptions of chess games with moves are equally free from copyright. Thus any attempt to charge subscribers for live coverage of chess events will have to rely on VIDEO streaming.... GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!

"I paid $20 to see Magnus take off his jacket before making his 14th move." Yeah.... chess is a sport.

**Wayne Komer** · Monday, 17th October, 2016, 10:04 AM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

October 17, 2016

An open letter today from the company that owns the commercial rights to organize the World Championship. It appears that any site can get a free widget to broadcast the moves but they must decline to add their own commentary and analysis tools. If they sell the upgraded broadcast subscription to their members, then they get 10% commission.
Here is the letter and the affiliate programme is given as a second posting in this thread.

Both can be found at:

https://worldchess.com/2016/10/17/an...adcast-policy/
________

A letter from Ilya Merezon, chief executive of Agon Ltd., the company that owns the commercials rights to organize the World Championship.

Just before the Candidates Tournament in Moscow in March, we announced that we would take legal action against chess websites that infringed our broadcast rights to the event.

It is fair to say that the furor that followed divided the global chess community.

We were asked, “Does Agon have the right to prohibit anyone from broadcasting the moves as they were made?”

We believe that we do and that we have a strong legal position. We also have the full support of the World Chess Federation and many others within the game.

Our position was (and still is) that it costs a tremendous amount of money to organize chess events and those who invest in the sport are entitled to recoup that investment.

Furthermore, we firmly believe that unless broadcast rights are protected, it is impossible to attract corporate partners into the sport. In my mind, if we are to build a commercially sustainable future for chess, then the first step has to be to protect our media rights for the benefit of the commercial partners and ultimately the hundreds of millions of chess fans around the world.

The more commercial partners we attract to chess, the more money we have to spend on broadcast production, events, tournaments and grassroots development. It is a very simple equation.

Despite our warnings at the time of the Candidates, a few websites decided to broadcast the live games without our permission.

In response, we sued those sites and we continue to pursue those legal actions.

During the Candidates tournament, as the PR whirlwind we had created raged around our ears, we were mindful of the concerns and so we also began the process of creating a new financial model for the broadcast of chess for the benefit of all its stakeholders.

Today’s announcement is the culmination of that process.

First, and most importantly, the live moves of the World Chess Championship match will be made available for free to responsible chess websites and other media organizations that take our official broadcast widget. For the uninitiated, a widget in this context is simply a webpage that can be added to any website that joins our affiliate program.

That means that any chess fan can follow the games live for free on a multitude of different websites around the world, including those that they currently use.

Second, we are offering chess and media websites and national chess federations the chance to become affiliate partners for our premium pay-per-view virtual reality broadcast of the match. Every time a member of a partner website upgrades to our premium product via the official free broadcast widget, that website will receive up to a 10 percent commission.
We are also giving chess federations a unique code that chess fans can use when purchasing a pay-per-view subscription for the match – making the federations affiliate commercial partners as well.

So this new model for the broadcast of chess will:

§ Plough money back into the grassroots of chess through the national federations.

§ Provide an opportunity for chess websites – which nurture the global community of chess fans – to profit from the World Championship.

§ Increase the revenue coming into the game for the benefit of players.

§ Most importantly, give chess fans the chance to watch the games for free or to pay just $15 for a season pass to experience the championship as if they were watching over the shoulders of the two players.

What we are doing has never been attempted before in the chess world. It is a revolutionary approach and I am sure we will probably make some mistakes in its implementation before we are finished.

I am really interested to hear your comments and thoughts on our new model and approach. You can reach me at merenzon@agonlimited.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

For affiliate partners see next post.

**Wayne Komer** · Monday, 17th October, 2016, 10:07 AM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

October 17, 2016

Affiliate Partnership (continued from previous post)

Agon Ltd Launches Affiliate Programme For Broadcast Of World Championship Match

Agon Ltd, the commercial rights holder to the World Chess Championship cycle, today launched its affiliate programme for the broadcast of the forthcoming Championship Match that takes place in November.

The strategy is designed to provide chess enthusiasts around the world with the highest-level user experience for the eagerly awaited Match between reigning champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway and his challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. It will also enable chess websites or media organisations to directly profit from the broadcast of the contest.
Affiliate partners, such as chess and media websites, will be supplied with a widget that will show the live representation of the game board in the Championship Match and also includes a cutting edge chess analysis engine which can think up to 16 moves ahead. The widget will be available in a number of different colours and formats and will be available as a free “plug in” for affiliates’ websites.

The widget will also feature a link to the premium service that includes 360° virtual reality broadcast of the Match, numerous other video feeds as well as grandmaster and guest celebrity commentary.

The premium pay-per-view broadcast, that will cost $15 for the whole match, or about the same price as a cinema ticket, will be promoted on the free widget with the host website receiving up to 10% commission for each of its users who upgrades to it.

Chess websites that accept the terms of using the official broadcast widget will decline to add their own commentary and analysis tools to the live representation of the moves. Instead they will financially benefit from the official Agon premium broadcast.

National chess federations will also be given a unique affiliate code for the premium broadcast product. When a chess fan uses this code to purchase the broadcast, a percentage of that sale goes back to the federation.

Ilya Merenzon, the Chief Executive of Agon, said: “Our mandate has always been to increase the commercial prospects for chess as a global sport and to grow its audience size.

“Today’s announcement is a major milestone in the sustainable commercial development of the sport we all love.
Our affiliate programme is designed to make the Championship Match available for anyone to watch, for free, on their preferred choice of chess website. Secondly, when a user of any website that incorporates our widget chooses to upgrade to our premium pay-per-view broadcast product, that website will directly profit.

And by including national chess federations in our affiliate programme, we will be directly ploughing money back into the grassroots of chess around the world“.

Any chess or other media organisation that wishes to incorporate the free broadcast widget should request membership in the affiliate program at: agonlimited.com/affiliates.

Agon also reiterated today that it would take legal action against any website that broadcasts the live moves of the Championship games without taking the official broadcast widget.

Mr Merenzon said: “A website that wants to broadcast the live moves for free simply has to request the use of our official widget. But any rogue website that chooses to operate a pirate broadcast of the live moves will be subject to legal action that is in line with our ongoing commitment to professionalise the commercial side of chess for the benefit of players and fans alike”.

Spectator and VIP tickets for the World Chess Championship Match are available at:

http://www.ticketfly.com/venue/24715

Full details of the Championship Match are available at: http://nyc2016.fide.com/

**Wayne Komer** · Monday, 17th October, 2016, 10:21 AM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

October 17, 2016

Comments online

See

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8730

Roger de Coverly on ECForum:

Chess sites seek to attract visitors by adding value to the coverage of live games by supplementing this with analysis and commentary. What Agon fails to appreciate is that such sites act 24/7 and build an audience for live chess. It could be argued that Agon are acting as a parasite on this evolving coverage

There are those who like to discuss games in real time, on this forum for example. The long-standing convention is that the moves of a chess game are public domain, being a record of facts. Equally if someone posts that move x should be played, that's their intellectual property as analysis. Neither have anything to do with Agon.

Carl Hibbard on ECForum:

I don't expect Chess24 will take any notice of this nonsense?

Roger de Coverly on ECForum:

You are asking them NOT to continue to supply the added value for which they have built up an audience by supplying their standard coverage of analysis and commentary.

Live chess coverage goes back more than twenty years, nearly forty years if you include Teletext. It's a market that Agon seeks to take advantage of, but it's not one it's built.

At the most basic level, you want the coverage to be equivalent to 1970s Teletext. So switch on a device, navigate to a page and the moves so far are listed.

Paul Dargan on ECForum:

This looks like a truly awful deal - which isn’t a huge surprise. Most people still contend that the actual moves are public domain. All of the usual suspects i hope will want to provide their own commentary team - in which case they cannot take the widget given the t's and c's attached.

Frankly this just looks like a sham to try and shore-up Agon's probably/hopefully bogus claims to copyright.

Let's hope the major players ignore this and see it for the distraction it is.

**Wayne Komer** · Monday, 17th October, 2016, 04:13 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

Oct. 17, 2016

Answers to questions about World Chess’s new broadcast policy.

From World Chess at:

https://worldchess.com/2016/10/17/a-...adcast-rights/

This site, World Chess, is the official broadcasting site of the World Chess Championship and the cycle of competitions leading up to it. It will broadcast the upcoming title match in New York City between Magnus Carlsen, the reigning champion, and Sergey Karjakin, the challenger. Other partner sites will be able to broadcast the match as well, but there will be restrictions on what they can do. The following Q&A explains how the broadcast will work and how other sites can become affiliates of World Chess – and profit in the process.

Question: Will World Chess charge viewers to watch the live broadcast?

Answer: For the basic service, no. It is free. And basic does not mean simple. The basic broadcast will include sophisticated computer analytics that evaluate the positions. There is also a premium subscription, which will have high-level commentary and will also allow viewers to watch the match in virtual reality – a first for a global sporting event. And it is only $15 for the entire match.

Q: Can other sites broadcast the World Championship match live?

A: Yes. We will be providing a widget, essentially a plug-in Web page that sites will be able to easily incorporate. The widget will transmit the moves live from the match as well as provide computer analytics of the position.

Q: Can every site get the widget?

A: Currently there is no reason why responsible chess websites and sites belonging to other media organizations should not get the widget. We will make the final decision about which sites can carry the widget, based on the size of their audience, their design and other factors.

Q: Are you charging for the widget?

A: No. It is free.

Q: Can any site that has the widget provide its own analytics and commentary on the match?

A: No. We worked with the World Chess Federation and top chess engines to produce an outstanding analytics tool that will be used in the widget. Live transmission of moves (in PGN files) will not be made available for sites to create their own broadcasts.

Q: What is the benefit to other sites carrying World Chess’s widget?

A: There are two. People who prefer to watch the match on their favorite Web site with other members of their community can still do so. More importantly, people watching the championship through our widget on other sites will be able to upgrade to World Chess’s premium service. When people upgrade from other sites, those sites will receive a commission of 10 per cent for each upgrade. In other words, chess sites and national federations that work with World Chess will also profit from the sale of premium broadcast services. That way viewers can get the premium service and support their favorite sites or federations.

Q: How can sites request a widget?

A: All site administrators can fill a request form at http://www.agonlimited.com/affiliates and we’ll reply with specific information on what to do. Sites can contact us starting October 17, 2016. We will try to reply to all requests within 24 hours. If site administrators have further questions, they can also contact Sergey Fayfer, our director of digital services, at fayfer@agonlimited.com.

Q: Why can’t other sites offer their own broadcasts?

A: It undermines efforts to create a sustainable model for organizing the World Championship and related events. It is also piggy-backing and profiting off World Chess’s investment in staging the match.

Regular, sustainable corporate sponsorship depends on advertising and companies will only advertise if their ads reach the intended audience. When other Web sites that have not partnered with World Chess do their own broadcasts, fewer people see the ads of the sponsors. Companies will not sponsor chess if they do not have a guarantee that the audience is watching the official broadcast. It is exactly the same situation as in other sports such as football (soccer), American football, baseball, basketball, tennis and golf. In each case, the broadcaster has the sole right to broadcast the sporting events and that attracts advertising because the companies know they have a large audience.

In addition, other sites that circumvent World Chess’s broadcast are essentially misappropriating content. It costs millions of dollars to organize the World Championship – from the prize fund, to paying for the venue, to construction of the site, etc. Sites that do unauthorized broadcasts are profiting from World Chess’s investment, and damaging World Chess’s ability to raise revenue (advertising and sponsorship) to pay to stage the championship.

Q: What will happen if websites do not respect World Chess’s right to control the broadcasting of the match.

A: They will be sued. That is what happened in March at the Candidates tournament, when several Web sites did unauthorized broadcasts. Though it takes time, the lawsuits are making their way through the courts in Moscow, where the tournament was held. World Chess has already retained counsel in New York and plans to aggressively pursue claims against anyone who tries to circumvent the official broadcast.

**Neil Frarey** · Monday, 17th October, 2016, 04:30 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

Ya, I was looking also today.

Affiliate Sponsorship Program

http://www.agonlimited.com/news/2016...pionship-match

Any chess or other media organisation that wishes to incorporate the free broadcast widget should request membership in the affiliate program at: agonlimited.com/affiliates.

Don't know why the dilapidated Chess Federation of Canada wouldn't see this as a great opportunity for their members.

**Hugh Brodie** · Monday, 17th October, 2016, 05:04 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

I think the Society of Chess Afficionados should get incvolved in a venture like this.

**Wayne Komer** · Tuesday, 18th October, 2016, 10:49 AM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

October 18, 2016

Peter Doggers has an article on the subject today at:

https://www.chess.com/news/agon-laun...mpionship-9422

There is a photo of one form of the widget that chess.com intends to imbed in its broadcasts.

He says:

The widget is directly related to the turmoil, which arose during the Candidates' Tournament in March. Back then, Agon surprised the chess world by announcing that the games would be shown exclusively on its website. Any website that transmitted the games live would face legal action.

Three major chess websites that decided to ignore Agon's threats (chessbomb.com, chess24.com and chessgames.com) are being sued. Agon is seeking 20 million rubles (€288.275 or $317,000) in damages from each of the sites.

"The next hearing for Chess24 is later this month, and for Chessgames and Chessbomb, the hearings are January and February respectively," said Agon's Director of Communications, Andrew Murray-Watson, to Chess.com.

Commentary from chess.com’s kibitzers

- What an absolute crock - a sham of a scheme designed to try and reduce competition from the frankly sub-standard product they tried to peddle during the candidates. It seems the organisation has learned little and I hope that all of the usual chess sites resist this transparent attempt to limit people's options.

If they were to have a premium option that's any good then maybe people would be prepared to pay for it - the problem is so far they have shown nothing. The coverage of the candidates was shoddy, fell over and had less language options than other channels. Start with developing a product people actually want rather than banging-on about rights that few believe you actually have.

- Regarding agon/fide/nrk - I'd like to remind everyone again, we're dealing with snake oil salesmen. evidently what they're offering here is an unattractive bare minimum eyesore of a product, with the real objective of further pursuing a monopoly while quantifying the "potential gate", with an endgame of consolidating their "pricing" strategy through the year 2020.

I'm a "little" surprised that chess.com jumps in so rapidly and I'm curious as to how the 'parties' in the lawsuit will react to this and whether they've even been included.

- I'm still somewhat surprised that Agon is even attempting this court case in Moscow, as at least to my understanding the accused websites never agreed to such a venue for arbitration (it was only in the Agon user agreement contract, but they never signed up), and the natural jurisdiction would thus be the defendant's place of business. The fact that the event took place in Moscow is of no relevance.

I have no details, but I would think it would fairly perfunctory to dismiss the case(s) on said jurisdictional grounds, unless Agon is going to try to argue/prove that the sites did in fact somehow(?) enter such a contract that makes Moscow a proper litigation venue (this would be a bold claim and/or common legal bullying tactic, which if nothing else would cause things to drag on until its veracity was decided - but also one that could easily be disputed when/if a Moscow arbitration award was attempted to be applied in a different locale).

**Wayne Komer** · Friday, 21st October, 2016, 11:40 AM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

October 21, 2016

From the official site:

https://worldchess.com/2016/10/20/br...-taking-shape/

Broadcast Team for World Championship Is Taking Shape

Oct. 20 — Judit Polgar has been hired to do game commentary and Kaja Snare as a reporter and program host. Agon, the company that holds the commercial rights to organize the World Chess Championship and the cycle of competitions leading up to it, has hired two people for its on-air broadcast during the upcoming World Championship match in New York City. One is Judit Polgar, the best female player in history, who will do live game analysis. The second is Kaja Snare, a reporter, who will be one of the program’s hosts.

Polgar is the only woman in history to ever play in a World Championship tournament (in San Luis, Argentina, in 2005) and reached No. 8 in the world rankings in April 2005. She was the youngest player to break into the ranking of the world’s top 100 players (No. 55) at age 12 in January 1989. Two years later, she became the first player to break Bobby Fischer’s record as the youngest grandmaster in history when she earned the title at age 15 years 4 months.

She has played and defeated either at slow or rapid time controls numerous players who were World Champions, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov. She has also played and beaten both of the participants in the upcoming match — the reigning champion, Magnus Carlsen, and the challenger, Sergey Karjakin.

Polgar announced her retirement from competitive chess at the age of 38. From January 1989 to March 2015, Polgar was the No. 1 ranked woman in the world, the longest streak by either a man or a woman in history.

Snare is a Norwegian television journalist who has covered chess since 2014 when she went to cover the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. At the time, she was a reporter for the sports channel of TV 2, Norway’s main commercial network. She continued with chess coverage by going to Sochi, Russia, for the World Championship match between Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand.

Last year, she and Carlsen worked together on-air during the qualifier tournament for the elite Norway tournament that followed.

She no longer works for TV 2 after staffing cuts, making it possible to work for Agon.

Though she obviously knows Carlsen well, she said in an interview with Matt & Patt, a Norwegian Web site, that can and will be neutral and objective. “This isn’t, ‘Go Magnus!, ’ it’s ‘Go World Championship!, ’” Snare said.

**Neil Frarey** · Friday, 21st October, 2016, 01:46 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

"Agon, the commercial partner of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), has signed a ground-breaking media rights deal with NRK, a leading Norwegian TV network, that grants NRK exclusive broadcasting rights for Norway for all World Chess Championship events through 2020"

https://www.fide.com/component/conte...-with-nrk.html

**Steve Douglas** · Friday, 21st October, 2016, 03:37 PM

Re: World Championship 2016 Broadcast

Originally posted by Wayne Komer View Post

World Championship 2016 Broadcast

Polgar was the No. 1 ranked woman in the world, the longest streak by either a man or a woman in history.

I'm pretty sure no men have ever qualified to be the No. 1 ranked woman in the world.

Steve