Re: Conlang legal protection (WAS: Conlang music)

----- Original Message ----
From: Chris Wright <dhasenan@...>
Likewise, if I took your lexicon, reordered it, and sold it, then I'm
producing a new work that constitutes 100% of your work. That would
run afoul of copyright. If I sent someone one word from your lexicon,
that would be a tiny portion of your work. That would likely be fair
use.

=====

I concur. Assume I have a conlang with a vocabulary of 1000 words, which I
provide a bilaterel English-Conlang glossary. The glossary is copyrighted by
virtue of my providing it in tangible form; I need do nothing else. Any
presentation of that glossary by anyone else, in full or in large part, without
my permission, violates my copyright, even if they reorganize the glossary. But
someone writing dialogue using specific words of that vocabulary? That's a lot
murkier. Fair use would seem to dictate that they need to at least credit me,
but they don't necessarily need to get my permission.

After all, if every word in a conlang of my creation were copyrighted by virtue of
it being a component of my copyrighted conlang, I could set up a computer
program to generate all Unicode IPA strings of 10 characters or less and
declare that the official, complete vocabulary list of Omnio. Then nobody else
could do anything with words shorter than 11 letters. >:D

Another component to this is: Conlangs, like any other creative
work, are copyrighted or not according to the dictates of law, independent of
our overt claims that they are (or aren't). All Enya and her lyricist are doing
by proclaiming copyright is indicating where they stand on the issue and
implying legal ramifications for those who disagree. I partially sympathize,
especially with the popularity of slash fanfic these days: I could see how
someone wouldn't want to put in a bunch of time and effort into creating a
beautiful conlang meant for songs of yearning and universal desire, only to
have it show up in fetish stories (rule 34). Even so, I think it would wind up
as so much expensive legal chest-beating if it ever wound up in IP court.

-- Paul

Reply