language as property, follow-up

[Rankin, Robert L]

Mark and others,

I just returned from the SSILA meetings in Santa Barbara and was talking
about this question with some other linguists. I think there is one more
interesting point to be made. It has to do with, yes, lawyers. It seems
that, at least in the Southwest, there are law firms that have caught on to
this movement and are going from tribe to tribe soliciting business (and of
course high fees) for "helping them copyright the language". It has
apparently become something of a racket -- a kind of ethnographic ambulance
chasing. It seems to me that copyright lawyers must already know what the
chances of copyrighting nouns and verb conjugations are and are simply
milking naive clients for every penny they can get. If words were
copyrightable, I suspect that mobile home firm wouldn't be selling Winnebago
RV's any more. Just one more scam for tribes to watch out for.

Bob


I just wanted to acknowledge all of the fine thoughts you shared on the
topic of language as property. Your comments did not fall into a black hole.
It has given me some more grist for the dissertation mill.


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