tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 20 18:20:30 2001
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language copyrights (was Re: More questions)
ja' ro'Han:
>This has become a very interesting discussion for one that started with an
>innocent question regarding permission. Can our Klingon be copyrighted?
The description of the Klingon language in TKD etc. is protected by
copyright. The language itself cannot be. What we write using Klingon can
be protected by copyright. The sticky problem is that Viacom has on at
least one occasion claimed that what *anyone* writes using Klingon is
considered a "derivative work" of TKD, and thus the copyright to all
material written in Klingon is held by Viacom. That claim is without merit
in *my* opinion, but I have neither the legal training nor the funding to
dispute it in the courts.
>Shift that onto another language: would it be right to copyright Esperanto?
>Or even English for that matter?
In my opinion, it is neither right nor legal to copyright a language.
Grammar books and dictionaries may be protected, but not the language.
There's precedent for trying to do so, however. Ownership and control of
the vocabulary list for Loglan was claimed by its creator. Instead of
bringing a legal challenge, the rest of the "Loglan community" responded by
choosing a different vocabulary list but keeping the rest of the language
the same, and thus the Lojban language came into being.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh