ELL: Artifical Languages - Copyrightable or not

[Dan Kolis]

>I hope that the following question is not too off topic. Is the
>translation of a public domain book into an artificial language (Esperanto,
>Interlingua, Shelta, etc.) copyrightable.
>>Patrick R. Saucer

Well the intellectual property organization definition would include them
I'd say:

http://wipo.org/about-ip/en/

Copyright and Related Rights
Copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators for their
literary and artistic works.

What is covered by copyright?
The kinds of works covered by copyright include: literary works such as
novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspapers and computer programs;
databases; films, musical compositions, and choreography; artistic works
such as paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture; architecture; and
advertisements, maps and technical drawings.

-------------------------------------


I'd suggest a synthetic language of any sort is both a literary work and a
reference work. The question of the mark itself "copyright and year",
Markee, etc is open.

In the USA anyway the supreme court upheld copyright no longer needs to be
explicitly stated; (about 4 years ago). So its implicit in many works.

There are stipulations like timeframes and abandonment, etc.

I just spent five minutes on this. It maybe is not important but it is
interesting.

Specifically again the Madrid protocol doesn't address copyright, so its
mostly nation state oriented. The Us constitution doesn't mention language
just intentionailities:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries"

International jurisprudance might land on the World Trade organization.

Its all about enforcement, obviously.

regs
Dan K

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