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Free Chess Database

#1
Hello Community,
Why is there no free game database in the chess world that comes close to ChessBase. Lichess database is free but not really free. For example, it is not possible to download it to use it offline.
Everywhere you look you will find only ChessBase. Why is that? The ChessBase products are very expensive and not really convincing in quality. So the CBH format is more of a vice.
Can you answer this question for me ?
Greeting @Riffecs
#2
scid and scid.vs.pc are database programs and actual data for example http://caissabase.co.uk/

as for features chessBase is for sure more complete. also it may have more games than caissabase but 5 million is a lot anyway
#3
I have been wondering too. I think it is about the curation aspect and intellectual property. There are no standards for databases still, after so many year of digital recordings of all games. Lots of curation to do. A lot of individual credibility at stake perhaps.

I consider this topic a mess.

Edit: I hypothesize that deep down, there is a will to keep chess as mystifying as possible, to keep scientific approaches at bay. Like understanding something brings its fun down for some. Keeping chess an individual art might be a motivation.. really subconscious...
#4
database does not constitute work of art. A collection might but then there must be sufficient effort is choosing the games like 10 best games of year 2020 might protectable. All games I could not find year 2020 definitely not. And in EU there is database protection directive eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A31996L0009 but has no implication for chess. Games and the moves with in are fact and hence cannot be protected. Person claiming that some games were harvested from their database would have to prove. And that is pretty much impossible as the games constitutes of moves and once saved for example in scid database format it impossible to say where the data originated
#5
I think online games are easier to maintain and use. But OTB games, and other databases have to be collected, and assembled, and curated for mistakes, and also many criteria about data quality or compatibility with each other. I can't tell why, but it is very hard to find reproducible explanations for how to gather any chess data base I have seen advertised or offered online anywhere.

free, open, or proprietary and paid... It does not matter, it seems as though it is under proprietary protection or barriers.

I may be just the difficulty at technical level. Thanks for clarifying though that the raw data itself is not the issue. It is the base in database that is the issue.

It is not the software placeholder standard I was referring to either. But the database content from the field of knowledge here being chess games. Having plenty of pgns, does not make a database with curation standards. And giving only parts of the guideline one uses in constructing/curating a database, without any reproducible standard, isn't either, I claim.

I mean, of course, potential reproducibility, not everyone can do it, but one ought to have enough specification to understand that it could be reproduced given the same open sources of data). Maybe this is just an opinion of mine, and I am expecting too much.

There is hard work there, that I think is currently being the object of trade. Hence not free. (in money, or shareable reproducible access).

The only free database reproducible I know of, is that of online lichess games, and the database can be queried. I have some idea of its curation criterion. They may have some suggestions for more databases, but even they have to rely on some master database source in opening explorer which is dependent on the work of one individual, and can't be reproduced from sources. (as far as i understood).

Maybe i should precise that I mean updated or updatable. And perhaps that is also what the op meant. Otherwise, there are free databases from the past. Soucreforge holds many, keywords like free and kingbase. But not clear to me how updated or updatable or how they compared to chessbase or lichess master db. I don't claim to know the field at all, but i have tried to find them on the net, have downloaded a bunch, never really used them, really, as I am not sure of their quality or what quality can be expected and mean. I am content with lichess opening explorer, and the knowledge that if I had the ressources I could download its data and make base.

Also, I hope to be wrong and contradicted here... This may have changed in the past 2 years, since I stopped looking, or given my limited abilities or experience I may have a shallow view.
#6
I also may have completely misunderstood the op... Free and open source database handling software does abound... I meant the databases themselves. sorry. And you can download the lichess source data of all its games (I think the monthly games include all games).
#7
I'm an internet bird lawyer, apparently chess games have no copyright and can't be protected by copyright.

it way more complicated than that, of course. it doesn't need to be complicated, but lawyers need to justify their existence.

chess24 was sued at least twice over covering the last world championship. they won at least twice.

there's something about sweat of the brow. meaning while a single game might not have any protection, a collection of games (i.e. a database) should. but courts has disagreed with sweat of the brow.

in theory, if you trust an internet bird lawyer, and I don't see why your should, the games should be available. I image people like chessbase don't let you export the entire DB.
#8
@Riffecs said in #1:
>
> Why is there no free game database in the chess world that comes close to ChessBase.

My guess is, that it takes a lot of effort (time, knowledge, hardware) to create such a database. Just because there's no copyright on the moves of a game, doesn't mean the games collect themselves into a nice searchable structure. Nor does it imply anyone has to give you the games should you ask for them.

You may as well ask yourself, why haven't you created a free game database to share with the world?
#10
@Riffecs said in #1:
> Hello Community,
> Why is there no free game database in the chess world that comes close to ChessBase. Lichess database is free but not really free. For example, it is not possible to download it to use it offline.
> Everywhere you look you will find only ChessBase. Why is that? The ChessBase products are very expensive and not really convincing in quality. So the CBH format is more of a vice.
> Can you answer this question for me ?
> Greeting @Riffecs
Nothing you can really do about it

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