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This thread illustrates pretty well why copyright laws are stupid.

As an artist, musician and aspiring author, I couldn't disagree more.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Profit intent doesn't matter in the slightest. See: Threats and lawsuits against bittorrent piracy. What really matters is whoever has more money to spend on lawyers.

My advice with conlanging and copyright is this: Don't worry about it. Unless you're basically photocopying and distributing the works you're taking inspiration from directly, you're in basically zero danger of any legal threat from that angle. Nothing you do as a conlanger will ever bring up any issues of copyright, ever.

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Really?

"In order to circumvent JCB's copyright claims, they remade the about 1300 root words (gismu) from scratch, and they also gradually made new operator words (cmavo). They also won a trial in court over whether they could call their version of the language "Loglan"."

So, basically, ideas or concepts can't be copyrighted? I heard that ideas themselves can't be copyrighted, but once they are expressed, that's protected. So the concept of the textbook structure itself can't be copyrighted, but the structure in that book is copyrighted. If you don't mind me asking another question so long as we're on the topic...
I'm making a board game that is similar to the "Civilization" computer game series and it uses a lot of their ideas and concepts (it's hard not to). They claim that they hold the rights to the themes and settings of the game, among other things. Is my using of some of their game premises, concepts, etc. violating either their ToS or a law?

Copyright law can be frustrating!

While the textbook will be copyrighted, so one can't sell the textbook as one's own, the excercises within the textbook probably won't be. You might run into trouble if the only difference between your work and the textbook was that the language being taught was different, but probably not. Fair Use probably covers you at any rate: non-profit for education material that won't harm or compete with the original is a waste of a lawsuit.

They can copyright (or patent) the game itself, the story, the artwork, the game engine etc. i.e. Original content they created. They can't copyright the RTS system or the premise of taking control of a historical civilization however. If you're really concerned you can A) write to them and ask for specifics (probably a waste of time) or B) simply look up similar games for a feel of what they were allowed.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

But even if it isn't violating copyright, isn't there still some sort of requirement to give credit to sources that helped you make your language (vocabulary, grammar techniques, etc.)? Is that plagiarism if you don't?

Using J. C. Nesfield's Outline of English Grammar 1921 as an example, if I were to begin by teaching how to distinguish the various parts of speech, starting with nouns then moving through pronouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, adverbs etc. I wouldn't be obligated to credit him (though it would probably be courteous to do so).
Even if I were to tell the reader how to do so by asking himself what the word does in a sentence, I still wouldn't need to.
If I were to begin 'To find the "Part of Speech" to which a word belongs, or which it is used in any given example, ask yourself, "What kind of work does the word do in the sentence before me? What parts does it play in helping to make the sentence?"' then I must both credit him and keep within Fair Dealing (or your country's equivalent) guidelines or obtain his permission (or whomever is now authorised to grant it as Nesfield is almost certainly deceased) as I'm now making use of his content. Not crediting him in this case would be plagiarism.
Also, assuming I'm using his grammar as a template for my own conlang's grammar, it's very unlikely that I'd complete the project without having made significant changes anyway, thus making the question moot.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

If you think your conlang will ever be as big of a thing as Lojban, you need a serious reality check. Besides, being successful is a legal danger all by itself because then every sleazy lawyer in the world will pelt you with lawsuits just in the hopes of one of them sticking so they can pump money out of you.

Besides, if I understand the information in the link correctly, the only reason copyright claims entered the picture at all was because of a schism between the (multiple) creators of the project. If you're working on a conlang by yourself, this can't happen.



Actually I'm afraid that they can (though it would be a patent, not a copyright). The US policy on patents is pretty much universally "approve first, ask questions later" and the law is strongly biased against the defendant in infrigement claims:

- Independent invention is not a defense in claims of patent infringement (it is, however, a valid defense in claims of copyright infringement). If they filed before you invented independently, you're in violation.

- The burden of proof is on the defendant that they didn't violate the patent, or that they were using the patented design before the plaintiff.

- The defendant doesn't have to be a direct competitor to the plaintiff for there to be a violation. In fact, the plaintiff doesn't even need to be using the patent at all for it to be valid. Companies thus have every incentive to file as many patents as possible, as broadly as possible. There even exist companies who don't produce anything at all: Their entire business model is to file/acquire patents and sue others.

Your particular example of the RTS genre, or the premise of taking control of a civilization, would not hold up in court because people have been making those games for years. However, if not for that, you could almost definitely patent them and sue infringers successfully.

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All the conlangs which claimed for copyright, even those with a big community, went to the death (volapük, loglan).
No languages can live under copyright but free.

Hmmm... It must be said that I'm mostly arguing from a UK perspective. Here something you wish to patent must "have an inventive step that is not obvious to someone with knowledge and experience in the subject" and disputes tend to be a more balanced affair.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Blissymbolics is still in use as an aid to people with developmental disabilities.

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George Corley
Producer and Moderating Host, Conlangery Podcast

They are a good idea but the laws are stupidly made and stupidly executed

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Visit the growing Conlang Wiki!

As might already have been touched upon: patents are different from copyright. Patents pertain to general ideas, while copyright pertains to concrete manifestations. Also, one automatically has copyright for all creative works one produces (given that they exhibit a certain level of originality), while patents must be registered. Patents, copyrights and other forms of IP are partly regulated by international conventions, but details might differ between political jurisdictions. The US Copyright Office has some information regarding copyright in the States.

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constructedlanguages.net

What are you talking about? No one is asserting that their conlang will be successful, and I wonder how you measure success if you think Lojban is successful...it isn't Klingon or even Dothraki...success is not a prerequisite for legal issues.

I'm not sure I follow completely. Is it considered plagiarism in my case when I come up with my conlang's vocab. with a Latin and Spanish dictionary as a guide or get grammar ideas from various sources and leave them uncreditted?

I'm saying, I think you'll be fine, so long as you aren't word-for-word quoting the authors.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

The words of natlangs aren't copyrighted as such. In well-studied languages like Latin and Spanish, they can easily be looked up in multiple sources.

Neither are grammatical ideas as such copyrighted.

The only way to violate copyright when it comes to natlangs is to directly copy passages of text that describes that language. (And of course, any work of art in that language would be copyrighted, given that it has some form of originality). And if you do this, it may not be enough to give the author credit - it's likely that they will claim their economic rights.

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constructedlanguages.net