[2623] in tlhIngan-Hol
Copyright and Language
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Jan 19 01:22:41 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: creede@eskimo.com (Creede Lambard)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 22:18:21 -0800
> My suspicion is that it would be illegal to reproduce material from
>TKD for use by people who have not purchased a copy of TKD. Meanwhile, a
>word list would be useless to anyone who did not have easy access to TKD.
>Without the grammar and all those affixes, the words will not take you
>between Klingon and English in either direction. You might want to
>include a disclaimer explicitly stating that this list is intended only
>for those who have purchased a legal copy of TKD, if you are paranoid.
The copyright status of a language is an interesting question. Perhaps
someone could draw parallels to computer languages. This is my guess, and is
drawn only by analogy from the game publishing industry (and by observation
of computerdom); it could be completely wrong, or could vary greatly from
country to country.
I don't think a language, or the words of a language can be copyrighted.
What I think can be copyrighted is (1) presentation, e.g. the rules as given
in TKD, and (2) databases reflecting original research, e.g., the specific
database of words in TKD. The actual list of words in TKD couldn't be
reproduced willy-nilly, but if a list reflects original research (e.g.,
compilation of words found outside TKD, addition of original coinages, verb
forms, etc.) I suspect it could be. A good analogy is the telephone book;
you can't just copy the telephone book verbatim and sell it, but you can
exerpt from it, or compile a phone book of all the Smiths in Oregon from
phone books, or whatever.
Someone familiar with copyright law should follow this up. Zamenhof neatly
sidestepped this problem with Esperanto by explicitly putting it in the
public domain; we're not so lucky with tlhIngon Hol, because in spite of the
work people in this group and elsewhere have been putting into it, it was
essentially bought and paid for by Paramount, which has more money (and
lawyers) than you and I are ever going to see.
-- Creede
