Constructed Languages and Copyright: A Brief History and Proposal for Divorce
2014; The MIT Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0897-3393
Autores Tópico(s)Copyright and Intellectual Property
ResumoTABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. WHAT IS A CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE? A. Classification of Constructed Languages by Their Form B. Classification of Constructed Languages by Their Communicative Function III. PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGES VIA COPYRIGHT A. Dr. Zamenhof Makes Esperanto the Property of Society B. Tolkien's Secret Vice and Ownership of Elvish Languages C. Klingon and Paramount D. The Loglan v. Lojban Dispute and a Trip to the Federal Circuit E. What Qualifies as Fair Use and How Does It Protect Users of Constructed Languages? IV. CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGES SHOULD BE USED FREELY AND WITHOUT FEAR OF LEGAL CONSEQUENCES A. Copyright Protection Does Not Incentivize the Creation of New Constructed Languages B. A Personhood Theory of Rights over Creative Works Is Insufficient To Justify Control over an Entire Language C. Developing and Using a Constructed Language Is an Exercise in Semiotic Democracy V. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION For a variety of reasons, a small cadre of people dedicate time to constructing new languages. Most often this endeavor is a labor of love, undertaken with little hope of reward but rather to enrich the world's corpus of languages and the lives of those who learn them. At the outset, the inventor of a enjoys absolute control over every feature of her new system of communication. The complete control over a corpus and grammar is what draws people to the enterprise--the ability to create a free from the perceived flaws of natural language, uniquely suited to a particular mode of expression. However, once a finds an audience, it quickly escapes the exclusive control of its original creator, taking on new forms and generating unexpected contextual relationships. Copyright law provides an author with more than a right to profit from a creative work. The owner of a copyright also holds the exclusive rights to authorize (or enjoin) any reproductions, derivative works, or public performances of her copyrighted material. (1) As a result, there is a strong temptation for the creator (or primary curator) of a to assert a copyright on it in order to prolong her control of the language's dissemination and development. But so far, no court in the United States has been called upon to determine the validity of such an assertion. And so it remains an open question: What elements of a can be subject to copyright protection? Seizing the opportunity presented by this legal uncertainty, the curators of some languages demand that newcomers acknowledge their continued authority over the or else face legal action. This Note argues that curators' deployment of copyright is both misguided and likely to fail. This Note instead argues for the establishment of a clear legal principle: Anyone interested in learning a has the right to use that however she sees fit. Part II begins with a discussion of what a is and provides a working definition of that term. Part III then examines instances when creators have attempted to control their languages via copyright and the extent of their successes. Finally, Part IV concludes that copyright protection surrounding languages should be minimal and argues why this rule should be made explicit. II. WHAT IS A CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE? This Note uses the term constructed language to denote a that has a phonology, morphology, syntax, and sometimes alphabet attributed to an individual human inventor. Danish linguist Otto Jespersen first coined the term in 1928 in a text where he introduced his own language, called Novial. (2) While the term language is a close synonym, some linguists believe the term artificial carries a pejorative connotation and therefore should be avoided. …
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