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Re: Loxian

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Monday, March 13, 2006, 22:21
This was rejected yesterday, since I was over quota.  So it weirdly follows
my comment on Loxian that I posted just now.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sally Caves" <scaves@...>
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:57 PM



> John Cowan, who used to frequent this list and is gone, alas, and who has > worked on Lojban for long years, and who remembers the incendiary quarrels > about Loglang and whether it could be copyrighted, has expressed > emphatically that invented languages cannot be.
Except languages that appear in CDs by Famous Singers, apparently. I wonder if this is also true of the Magma group. What about "Sanomi"-- printed on the Internet? What happens when you print something on the Internet?
> As for the other post: I'm not even sure you can copyright the name of > your language. You might put the copyright sign after it, or TradeMark, > but that doesn't protect you legally, largely because I don't think the > Internet is considered as a protectable venue. Someone please correct me, > because it's a depressing idea. > > To wit: I was approached by a RolePlaying group and asked if they could > borrow "Teonaht" for their "dwarves." I politely requested that they not. > I don't know if they did; if they asked permission logic dictates that > they respect permission. But we conlangers don't have something like the > Writers Guild of America, where if you write a script for a television > show, you can register said script with the WGA, and make it impossible > for the producers to borrow as much as a sentence, or your title, without > acknowledging you. However, they are completely free to use your idea, and > couch it in different words. This happened with my teleplay "Babel," > which, had I not arbitrated, would have denied me any TV screen credit by > Paramount. And the residuals. > > Sally > http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chris Bates" <chris.maths_student@...> > To: <CONLANG@...> > Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 11:54 AM > Subject: Re: Loxian > > >> >Good points, but I suspet you can copyright the book, word list, >> >dictionary >>>and music that it comes in, so .. And people are into Official vs >>>UnOfficial, so .. >>> >>>Mike >>> >> The issue is not whether you can copyright the grammar, word list, >> dictionary etc, but whether people can freely use the language. And I >> would say they can: they might not be able to copy word for word large >> chunks of your grammar or dictionary, but I don't think that copyrighting >> these materials is enough to stop them actually writing in your language >> without your permission. Of course, copyright has been spreading in >> recent years, but I still don't think you can copyright or legally own a >> language, whether a conlang or a natlang. The best you can do is own the >> copyright to the grammar and dictionary (and thus legally control their >> distribution), but I don't think if someone has already legally read >> these materials (for instance by reading your website) that you can stop >> them using that knowledge to write in the language. >> Copyright protects the exact form of particular written works, not their >> content per se. Isaac Newton, for instance, had he written the Principia >> recently, would possess copyright over his Principia and could stop >> people copying his work word for work, but he would *not* possess >> copyright over the Newtonian physics contained within his book. If >> copyright law didn't work like this then there would have been no >> progress in the sciences for a long long time, because everyone would >> have to ask permission from the first person to publish an idea to use >> it. >> >

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Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>