tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 28 12:26:43 1997

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Game analogy for tlhIngan Hol

I've been looking at Chet's postings and thinking "sigh," and I've 
thought of a legal analogy for our use of the language.

Klingon is a game.  The rules are written in the dictionary and you 
win the game by having intelligible conversations in the language.  
That's certainly how I play.

Consider a copyrightable game.  I buy a Monopoly set.  I buy a
Microsoft Golf disk.  I buy a Klingon Dictionary.  Now 
what commercial activities can I legally use them for?

Can I charge people money to teach them how to play?
Now I've never seen Monopoly lessons advertised, but would 
Milton-Bradley (or whoever makes Monopoly) sue you if you offered 
them? You could charge anyone willing to pay to come over to your 
house and play Monopoly. 

Can I rewrite the rules in an easy to understand format 
with lots of examples and tips for winning strategies and sell that?
People certainly do that for computer programs and I've never heard 
of Microsoft suing the Dummies book people for Microsoft Golf for 
Dummies.  But a for profit tlhIngan Hol Step-by-Step book would get 
you sued so hard by Paramount it's laughable to think of it.

Can I write a novel about playing Monopoly?

Can I write a book about actual real estate trading full of examples 
from the Monopoly board, in the pretense that a Monopoly game is a 
real life event?

I dunno.

I certainly may not recopy the game and sell it myself.

- Qov

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