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Language Creation Society Says Klingon Language Isn't Covered By Copyright
Reader AmiMoJo writes: Earlier this year Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed a lawsuit against the makers of a Star Trek inspired fan film, accusing them of copyright infringement. In their amicus brief, which actually uses Klingon language, the Language Creation Society lists many examples of how Klingon has evolved, and it specifically disputes Paramount's earlier claims that there are no human beings who communicate using the Klingon language. "In fact, there are groups of people for whom Klingon is their only common language. There are friends who only speak Klingon to each other. In fact, at least one child was initially raised as a native speaker of Klingon." As such, Paramount should not be allowed to claim copyright over the entire Klingon language, both in written and spoken form. The language is a tool for people to communicate and express ideas, something people should be allowed to do freely under U.S. law, LCS argues.
Billions of children are raised on the delusion that there's a man in the sky who forbids them to masturbate and tells them to hate gay people. And you worry about something innocent such as this?
First, let's make sure all religious upbringing is classified as child abuse, then think about whether some nerdy shit is actually harmful.
The father was featured in a documentary I saw a while back, but I can't remember which one. Anyway, he taught his daughter Klingon from birth and she picked it up easily and quickly, as an experiment to study language development in children and see if there was something special about natural languages compared to invented ones. At the age of about 4 she lost interest and stopped using it. Of course she spoke English too.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Tolkien actually invented the elvish languages himself, in full. A professional linguist was simply hired by the studio to flesh out the bits that James Doohan made up for the star trek movies. I'd be interested in seeing how that distinction plays out legally
Genesis 38:8-10
Leviticus 18:22
See http://conlang.org/axanar for our press release giving background, links to all the case docs, and a formal legal memorandum from Dentons on conlangs & IP law.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
http://s.ai - http://s.ai/foia - http://s.ai/tsa/legal - https://patreon.com/saizai
No true Scotsman falacy. If that were the case we wouldn't have laws like the ones in North Carolina and Alabama. Most Christians raise their children similar to Muslims raising theirs; if they had their way we'd all be dead.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Every single ethnic group believes in the afterlife in some form or fashion.
At one time, every single ethnic group believed that the Earth was flat. Turns out they were wrong.
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What will you do if you're wrong?
Ahhh, Pascal's Wager, the lamest of all "arguments" to believe in magical fairy tales.
If I'm wrong, I'll get to hang out with all the cool people- Jimi Hendrix, Christopher Hitchens, most of my friends, family, and lovers, Janis Joplin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Douglas Adams, Woody Allen, Mick Jagger, Kevin Bacon, Richard Burton, George Carlin, Jeremy Clarkson, Jimmy Carr, Bruce Lee, Orson Welles, Robin Williams, David Gilmour, Charlie Parker, Steve Wozniak, etc etc etc....the list goes on and on.
If your god is willing to cast those people into the pit of Hell, then fuck your god, okay? Just fuck him.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Which kind of idiots raise their children on Klingon as their main language?
Klingons.
Can't comment on this directly because it's out of scope for us.
However, the API cases are certainly related law. I suggest you google "Charles Duan" + Klingon, Oracle, Lexmark, and/or Cisco. You'll get relevant info; he writes well, both for posts and amicus briefs.
http://s.ai - http://s.ai/foia - http://s.ai/tsa/legal - https://patreon.com/saizai
Simple response to this: you can't assign IP that you don't own to begin with. ("Work for hire" is a sort of presumptive assignment doctrine.)
Our argument is that a language *can't* be copyrighted at all in the first place, so it doesn't really matter who made it or what contracts they had.
Of course, the *books* can be copyrighted, and the movies, and the scripts, etc. And they can use trademark to control what's "official" (mostly). But not the language itself.
http://s.ai - http://s.ai/foia - http://s.ai/tsa/legal - https://patreon.com/saizai
You've obviously not read it in the original Klingon.
Who ordered that?
The real problem here is dysfunctional corporate management. Many CEOs tend to let their legal dept run amok and dictate policy, rather than treating them as advisors. Whenever you find yourself suing your own fanbase, you know it is time to rein in the lawyers.
In the Oracle vs. Google Java case, the judge asked the parties, "Can the Java programming language be copyrighted?"
It seemed obvious to me that the answer was no.
The definition of the Java programming language is, "the set of all Java programs".
This is an infinite set.
Therefore it cannot be fixed in a tangible medium.
Therefore it cannot be copyrighted.
It seems like a similar argument should prevail here.
What, are you Klingons or Feringi?! Just declare war on Paramount. This is coming from a Federation native. Even we wouldn't let someone charge us for our language... Ugh!