Plagiarism in game programming competitions

On June 28, 2011 the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) disqualified and banned the program RYBKA and its programmer Vasik Rajlich from previous and future World Computer Chess Championships (WCCC). The ICGA has conducted an investigation into allegations that, in the chess program RYBKA, two other programs were plagiarized: CRAFTY and FRUIT. It was found that the allegations were true, and that the ICGA tournament rules had been broken. The investigation, the report of the investigation, and the verdict that Rajlich was guilty of the plagiarism took place in the form of a version of Crowdsourced Online Dispute Resolution (CODR). The above sentence was determined by the Board of the ICGA. This article describes, amongst other things, the background, the ICGA rules, the rules for fair play in competitions, CODR, and the future of clones. Finally, in the conclusions, the question is addressed whether the application of the ICGA rules has been fair and lawful. In the same way the ICGA also represents the Computer Games world vis-à-vis the various international federations for games other than chess.