body: In many cases rule books are copyrighted. For example, the standard set of rules to play chess in the United States is copyrighted. Also, the standard set of rules to play baseball is also copyrighted.
  
  
  This creates a problem in that often these rule books are published in some inconvenient format or size for some uses. Also, players who need to summarize rules for various purposes have the problem of how to do so without getting sued. In many cases organizations would like to display the rules on a poster rather than have them in a book. Once again, there are copyright problems.
  
  
  Rules could be construed as "information" or "data" rather than a form of expression, so at some level, to the extent that the rule is "data" it is not copyrightable. How can organizations that need to republish rules (for example to put them on a poster) be able to do so without violating copyrights?
  
  
  
title: Copyright status of rule books