On Jun 10, 2004, at 10:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Copyright doesn't need to be registered, for one thing.
A couple of questions for the people who know more about copyright
history than I do, which might help clear this up. Can computer
languages be put under copyright?
Is the issue that Klingon is a trademark of Paramount relevent? i.e.,
even if the language and syntax is not owned by Paramount, can we call
an encyclopedia "Klingon" without their permission?
One thing I do think is important to reject is the notion of asking
Paramount for permission/doing it with the knowledge that they won't
complain. A Klingon Wikipedia would not simply be an online
encyclopedia in Klingon - it would be a free encyclopedia in Klingon.
We risk doing a lot of harm to the free software/copyleft movement if
we take a misstep here. If we're not 100% certain that Klingon is not
under copyright, I think we're better served to not play with fire
here.
Note that this is not a comment on the value of a Klingon encyclopedia.
It's a comment on the ambiguity of whether or not a Klingon
encyclopedia can be a part of a copyleft/free encyclopedia project. And
a reminder that, with the wolves at the door of copyleft in terms of
things like SCO and Ken Brown's book on Linux, it's probably best to be
cautious about things like this.
-Snowspinn er
That's an alarmist position and copyright
paranoia. It's also
defeatist. You want to collapse immediately even if they are wrong.
The first step that they would need to take is to issue a take-down
order, and they haven't done that. After that, in the absence of
proper registration on their part (and what that means for an entire
language remains to be determined) their damages would be limited to a
recovery of any profits we may have made through a copyright
violation. ( O:-) )
Since you seem to be arguing on behalf of Paramount, what legal
citations are you using to back your position.
This copyright issue is far more important than the status of the
Klingon language, so please stop using it as an excuse for blocking
Klingon.