tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 06 11:53:20 2007
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Re: KLI authorized user
- From: Alpha Omicron <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLI authorized user
- Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:51:49 -0500
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Terrence Donnelly wrote:
> --- Alan Anderson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> That legal formula states that the KLI is authorized
>> by Paramount
>> Pictures to use the specified marks ("Klingon, Star
>> Trek, and all
>> related marks") over which Paramount claims control.
>> It most
>> obviously applies to the word "Klingon" itself. I
>> don't believe it
>> applies to the language itself (languages are
>> covered by neither
>> copyright nor trademark law), though I wouldn't be
>> surprised if
>> Viacom's lawyers claimed that it does.
>>
>
> If Klingon were a natural language, I would agree that
> it can't be copyrighted, but Klingon is a product
> that first appeared in copyrighted works (movies and
> books) and didn't exist beforehand independently of
> those works, and that I believe is what Paramount
> would base its claim on. It may or may not hold up in
> court, but who has pockets deep enough to take them
> on?
>
> This is somewhat similar to the case of loglan vs.
> lojban: the original creator of loglan claimed
> ownership of the entire language, so revisionists
> had to relexify the entire thing, even changing its
> name, in order to use the basic grammatical system
> independently.
>
> Thinking back to the discussions of how one might
> expand or clarify aspects of Klingon grammar, this is
> the main roadblock to any such attempts, that a
> for-profit corporation controls Klingon's ultimate
> fate. They used to be very aggressive in attacking
> anything they saw as an infringement on their rights.
> They do seem to have relaxed a bit in recent years
> (as Klingon has become less of a cash cow), but I
> think they would still frown on any attempt to take
> away any of their control of the language, as
> independent development would be likely to do.
>
> -- ter'eS
>
>
>
The courts eventually ruled that the creator of Loglan's claims to
copyright on the language itself were not valid; I believe the rational
was that languages were not copyrightable.
But tlhIngan Hol *is* derived from copyrighted materials, so the case
may be different.
In short, Lawrence (or whoever) could take Viacom to court, but it would
be expensive and would accomplish little, whatever the ruling.