[Wikipedia-l] Klingon

Wed Jun 9 03:56:56 UTC 2004

Imran Ghory wrote:

>I think there's one simple way to end this arguement,
>
>Paramount owns the copyright to the Klingon language, the words, the
>grammar, everything.
>
>Let me repeat, (it is claimed) Paramount owns the copyright to individual
>klingon words.
>
>i.e. we can't legally have a klingon wikipedia.
>
>If someone can get Paramount to produce a waiver documents stating that it
>is perfectly legal for third parties to produce klingon language
>documents and redistrbute them under any licence, then we can reconsider.
>However until that time we should not risk copyright violation and wasting the time of contributors (to the
>Klingon wikipedia).
>
The situation may not be as simple as that.  It opens up the question of 
whether a language can be copyrighted at all.  I suspect that it may be 
patentable in the same way that certain accounting and business 
processes have been patented.  But that's a whole new kettle of fish.

Have there been any court decisions anywhere about whether copyrights in 
a langiuage can exist.

Ec