tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 22 07:08:21 1997

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Re: Paramount (and unlicensed use of Hol in commercial products)



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>Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 09:23:17 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Chet Braun <[email protected]>
>
>As it turns out I just got off the phone with my attorney.  The opinion of 
>the lawyers in this firm are that commercial use of tlhIngan Hol, *even in 
>original prose*, is a violation of copyright law.  On this point they are 
>not 100% certain but then nobody has tested it and they feel that it would 
>be quite expensive to test.  A hell of a lot more expensive than we can 
>afford.  We are exploring other avenues to keep this book on the market so 
>we haven't given up yet.

Hrm.  This is a particularly troublesome point, and possibly one that
Paramount will have some well-deserved trouble with.  I don't think it is
possible to copyright a language.  You can copyright the word-list or
something, but original text in a language you make public?  Might as well
try to copyright the Latin alphabet and collect royalties from printers the
world over.

I won't rant any more on that subject, since it wouldn't accomplish much.
What MIGHT accomplish something, though, would be to talk to Bob
LeChevalier ([email protected]) and John Cowan ([email protected]), both
of the Logical Language Group, which not all that long ago won a judgement
regarding its language, Lojban, which started out life as an offshoot of a
language (called Loglan, though the judgement determined this was a generic
term) on which there was a copyright by The Loglan Institute and its
founder, Dr. James Cooke Brown.  I understand Dr. Brown has at times even
claimed that everything written in his language falls under the copyright,
which is similar to the case here.  I don't know if the court case involved
this aspect, but it might, and hey, you might be able to find some
precedent.  Ask Bob and John.  (for all I know John may be on this list.
You out there?)

~mark
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