Woofwoof, MNb and CastleRock, 

Thank you for reminding me how materialistic I am. I doubt that there will ever be a chess charity in the vein of  the Daughter's of St. Paul.  But perhaps there are other ways we can help each other.   

My chess club (The Colorado Springs Chess Club) would probably be willing to become a sister club to one in Chennai, Singapore, Suriname, or wherever.  We even have a surplus of books!  The problem for us is that the cost of shipping these books to your club would be almost the value of the books.   

I'd love to work out some sort of arrangement with you.  Perhaps we could share some books and you can share some experience.  We might even try a live internet match some day!  Ok, I dream big.  But still, toss it around with your fellow clubbers!

There is another good reason for publishers to take over this model: to fight illegal copies. In Suriname it is easy to get Chessbase 8 and Megabase 2002 for almost free. In the Third World people have the patience (well, they have no choice) to wait a couple of months - sometimes weeks - for interesting stuff like this. But I am sure, that most of them are more than willing to pay an affordable price for the features they now miss and to lower the risk of copy faults.

Just to play devil's advocate...

Chesspublishing is paying GM's & IM's at "western" wages; they pay for the maintenence of their web site at "western" costs; presumably they expect to make profits at "western" margins (who can blame them?). How could they possibly afford to do business if they charged 3/4 of the world subsidized dues?

In fairness, I will admit that all of this would be "extra" money anyway, because they can't expect to gain business from someone who only makes $0.40 an hour (or even $4.00 an hour, less than American minimum wage) at the current pricing.

Maybe if someone could provide an accurate way of determining location, pricing could be altered based on this. I'll propose one method for others to shoot down: Can't a billing address be determined from a credit card or debit card? Presumably no one is going to go to the trouble of setting up a billing address in India to save a buck on a chesspublishing membership (if that is even possible at all). Further, if someone purchases a money order, is it possible to determine where it was physically purchased (not sure on this one)?

Anyway, interesting topic...

In another thread MNb informed that he can’t afford to join chesspub and he is not alone. We have a cartel of chess friends who on an average buy 5 or 6 original books a year and we exchange them, to make it politically correct.   

Now, I am a conscientious man and I am not happy doing it. But, economic considerations of 75% of the chess playing community are far different from that of the western world.

For example, minimum wages in my country is between 35-45 cents per hour! I am one of the lucky ones earning 12 times more. Yet, even I can’t afford what I want and I live without quite a few books I would love to possess.

Now, who’s problem is this? It has always amazed me that Software Vendors and Book publishers have been so naïve and cry foul on IPR matters. 

McGraw – Hill comes out with what is called “Eastern Economy Edition” and sells text books at say $10 when a western edition costs $80. No student photocopies!

Microsoft sells in India what is known as paper license. I am a proud owner of a paper which says I own Windows and that I’m not eligible for technical supports or upgrades for a price of less than $10.

I repeatedly wrote to many publishers and chessbase and I don’t know why this simple economics doesn’t reach their brains. I wrote even to chesspub before joining. At least, they replied in the negative saying they have no way of verifying the claims! There is something called IP address. But, that’s another matter. I can visualize 500 memberships for chesspub from India if it is economically priced. Now I’m not sure they have even 50 members!

One welcome change is happening in India. Batsford is following McGraw Hill model. I recently purchased Grand Master Chess by Nunn and I play against pieces by Gligoric for less than $8 delivered to me.

Idea of writing this is to open the eyes of powers that be through a public forum. My personal emails have failed to deliver.