Re: Copyrighting/Patenting a Conlang

Quoting "J. K. Hoffman" <ryumaou@...>:

> Okay first off, let me say that I'm asking this because someone on
> another list asked it.  I don't actually have a conlang that I'd be
> worried about protecting.  Though, I might one day....
>
> In any case, has anyone looked into this?  Has anyone done a conlang for
> a published work that they worried about protecting?  How about just
> plain protecting one?
> I seem to recall that there was some kind of legal case involving the
> Tolkien estate, but I don't recall the details.  Can anyone enlighten
> me?  Might that be applicable in this case?
There's, as far as I've known, been no actual legal case re: the Tolkien
Estate's copyrights to JRRT's conlinguistic work, but there's been any amount of
often acrimonious debate on the subject online.

My advice as a one-time participitant is to stay out at all costs!

What's a given is that you've got copyright on all and any actual texts you
write in or of your conlangs; the debate is about whether and to what extent
it's acceptable to extract linguistic information therefrom and compile lexica
and the like.

                                                              Andreas

Reply