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