Re: this is what I got in the mail.

On Sunday 16 March 2003 6:28 am, you wrote:
> Sally Caves scripsit:
> > But it ISN'T a whole, John.  As such, Teonaht exists only in published
> > on-line documents: a grammar book, a dictionary, a chrestomathy by Sally
> > Caves, and a handful of on-line musical productions, and all have my
> > copyright mark on them.  All the rest is in my head, in a battered
> > notebook over thirty years old, and what I say to Chris or my cat.
> > Strictly speaking, and putting aside dream and philosophy, Teonaht  is
> > NOT a real language.  It's an invention.  And so is every documented word
> > of it.
>
> Sure.  But if I or someone else puts together those words in that
> documented way and produce a unique new Teonaht text, it belongs to me, me,
> me, and you have no rights at all.  At law.
>
Surely, Teonaht is a code or cypher - a method of storing data together with
the information for interpreting that data correctly at some time in the
future. I'd argue that the "language" - which is the creation of one person -
is entirely copyrightable, and that Sally Caves would have a good chance of
enforcing that copyright should anyone try to profit from her intellectual
work.

Codes and cyphers can be copyrighted - for example the .gif format for graphic
elements. And also computer languages - AMOS Basic (for Amiga) was
copyrighted, and I think Visual Basic is very much the property of Microsoft.

Isn't Loglan copyrighted? Lojban?

Gevey is definitely copyrighted - every page on the website includes copyright
metadata. But the chances of anyone ever wanting to use Gevey for profit is
minimal, to say the least.

Just my opinion of course.

Rik

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