From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Thu Dec 05 11:34:00 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 05 Dec 2002 11:34:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from com1.uclan.ac.uk ([193.61.255.3]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 18K1kx-0000TO-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 05 Dec 2002 11:33:56 -0800 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Thu, 5 Dec 2002 18:31:03 +0000 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:05:58 +0000 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:05:23 +0000 From: And Rosta To: lojban-list Subject: [lojban] Re: Loglan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline X-archive-position: 3084 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list >>> Steven Belknap 12/05/02 12:05pm >>> #On Wednesday, December 4, 2002, at 07:18 PM, And Rosta wrote: #> Robin: #>> The #>> *instant* I discovered that Loglan was copywritten, I dropped it in #>> favour of lojban #> #> Yes, that is a good reason. (I am assuming you mean what I would call #> "copyrighted" and not "copywritten".) I have never seen a TLI #> statement of its position on copyright, though. # #Why is that a good reason? It may have spooked the learly lojbanistani, #but an attorney friend with considerable expertise in intellectual #property rights tells me that such a claim would be laughed out of a #courtroom. Alas, there is nothing certain in law but the expense. As #And points out, there isn't any vocabulary copyright statement in the #TLI materials. I gather from frenzied debate about the copyright of invented languages, especially Tolkien's, that the question is VERY unclear and has not been settled by any actual court cases (the Loglan one being a trademark suit). The mainstream opinion seemed to be that copyright wouldn't extend to *using* an invented language, but it might extend to compiling grammars and dictionaries of it, though those activities might still fall under fair use. The ethical position I personally am most comfortable with is that the originator should have exclusive right to profit financially from any product that uses the copyrighted material, but no rights beyond this. This means that for me personally, the fact that Lojban has been explicitly placed in the public domain is actually an important thing in its favour. --And.