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Hola all! Been a while since I've posted. Anyway...

I was wondering how copyright laws would apply to conlangs. For example: if I'm making a language based off the Semitic language family and am using Hebrew and Arabic textbooks for help with the vocabulary and grammar, do I need to cite those books somehow? Or what if I read about a cool technique someone used and employ it in my conlang - is that violating copyright?

Call me crazy, but I don't want to break the law whether I'm going to get caught or not. Right now, I'm making a textbook for my conlang which follows a structure (rules/graphs, practice excercises, then examinations) which is pretty heavily based off a Latin textbook I use and I'm unsure whether that violates copyright or not.

Thanks for the feedback!

You have nothing to worry about. No citations are necessary unless you plan on publishing your work for profit.

Does your textbook involve copying parts of other works?

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constructedlanguages.net

I don't think copying the structure of something else is called stealing, it would be probably more the case if it was the content.

Copyright pertains not to ideas as such, but to concrete manifestations or embodiments of ideas (such as literary works or textbooks). As a result, grammatical feature as such would not be copyrighted, but a particular description of such a feature in a textbook would.

For a literary or textbook description to be copyrighted, it must have a certain level of originality.[/i] A very simple statement, ( "English is SVO"), or a simple sample sentence ("Peter kicked the ball"), or a list of phonemes /a e i o u p t k b d g s l r h w j/ would probably not be copyrighted.

Are you merely using the same general structure or template as some textbook (like the same sets of titles or subtitles)? IMO this would probably not have a sufficient level of originality to be copyrighted. Are you copying body text, but substituting words in Latin with words in your conlang? Then it would be another issue. Please note that I'm no lawyer, and if you are uncertain you could contact some copyright organisation in your jurisdiction.

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constructedlanguages.net

This.

I'm just using the textbook's concept of doing practice excercises and examples after each section (where the grammatical rules and explanation is given) and a cumulative test after each lesson. In this way, it's very similar to the Latin textbook.

Also, what about deriving words from other sources? The conlang I'm working on takes its vocabulary and grammar largely from Romantic languages. I've used all kinds of websites, dictionaries, textbooks, etc. to come up with the grammar and vocab - do I need to give all these sources (I wouldn't be able to remember them all anyway) credit somehow?

Merely using the same concept as some textbook should not infringe copyright.



No, as long as you do not, for example, copy portions of explanatory text from some work. Words from (natural) languages do not have copyright, so you are free to use them, or derive other words from them.

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constructedlanguages.net

Besides, as someone else said, it only matters if you plan to publish your conlang for profit. Which seems very unlikely, even though it would be cool to do that. But most publishers wouldn't pick the book up and most consumers wouldn't buy it if they did.

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I am a conlanger, a guitarist, a liar, a songwriter, a marijuana smoker, and a reader. Who are you?

are the exercises and examples an exact copy of what's in the textbook? (as others have said, the only difference being it has your conlang instead of Latin)




no, you only need to send the check for the royalties to His Holiness in Rome.
(kidding)

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.