The CopyKat

Maurice Ravel in 1925

There were a myriad of reports that almost 90 years after it was first performed in Paris, the copyright in Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" expired on May 1st. Ravel died in 1937.  Written in 1928 and performed on November 22nd of that year at Paris' Opera Garnier, the symphonic work, which grows steadily louder as it progresses, was originally a ballet piece ordered by Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein, a friend and sponsor of the French composer Ravel and famously was danced to by Olympic gold medal winning ice skaters Torvill & Dean in 1984.  More here. HOWEVER ...... France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (SACEM) has now been presented with a dossier which seeks to take advantage of a legal loophole which could extend Bolero’s international copyright - worth an estimated €1m a year - for another 20 years. The challenge is based on the fact that Bolero was originally a score for a ballet and whilst it is not disputed that Ravel wrote the music, the challengers claim that the original choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska, and the director and scene-maker, Alexandre Benois should be credited as joint authors. As Benois died in 1960 - the argument is thus the final term of copyright must run from HIS death? SACEM, the body that administers copyright payments in France, said that it had rejected the claims as baseless. The copyright of Bolero belonged to the composer Ravel alone, the organisation told the Independent.

Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, overwhelmingly passed a bill for a new Act on Collective Management Organisations (CMO Act) on Thursday, April 28. The new law replaces the 50-year-old Copyright Administration Act. More here. 

Canadian singer/songwriter Nelly Furtado, who has sold more than 40m records worldwide is the latest artiste to hit out at Google's seeming reluctance to 'play fair' with payments to artistes from YouTube streaming - rightly pointing out that as a technology company YouTube has been fairly poor at developing software that can identify and remove infringing content. In a blog the Grammy Award-winner discusses the recent wave of artists standing up to YouTube over royalty payouts – and adds her name to the cause. 

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc. where the court will rule on the appropriate test to determine when a feature of a useful article is protectable under section 101 of the Copyright Act [text]. The case deals with designs on cheerleader uniforms, but the case is expected to have a broader impact. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had ruled that Varsity Brand's designs were copyrightable. Image by Jeff Hitchcock from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

A new bill in the U.S. House of Representatives is being introduced in Congress this week which would give producers, engineers and mixers a piece of the digital royalty pie. The Allocation for Music Producer Act, or AMP Act (H.R. 1457), is being formally introduced by congressmen from both sides of the aisle: Reps. Joe Crowley (D-New York) and Tom Rooney (R-Florida). The AMP Act would create a statutory right for producers to receive royalties that would be managed through CMO SoundExchange.

An Australian government commission, the Productivity Commission, has published a new reports on copyright exploring how well Australia's intellectual property laws are working. Titled  "Copy(not)right" you can probably guess that the report is not very sympathetic to current regime and holds the opinion that Australia’s copyright arrangements are "weighed too heavily in favour of copyright owners, to the detriment of the long-term interests of both consumers and intermediate users. Unlike other IP rights, copyright makes no attempt to target those works where ‘free riding’ by users would undermine the incentives to create. Instead, copyright is overly broad; provides the same levels of protection to commercial and non-commercial works; and protects works with very low levels of creative input, works that are no longer being supplied to the market, and works where ownership can no longer be identified."  More on TechDirt. 

The New York Appellate Court has agreed to rule on the case which Flo & Eddie from 60's band The Turtles have brought against Sirius XM Radio over the issue of whether the copyright owners of recordings made before 1972 have a common law right to make radio stations and others pay for their use. The case has been referred to the Court of Appeals from a federal appeals court. Federal law established limited copyright protections to recordings after Feb. 15, 1972, while preserving state law property rights on earlier recordings.

Green members of the French National Assembly have voted to strike Hadopi from France's lawbooks - and with just 7 MPs in the house, they had  enough members to see the motion to remove the law from the statute books in 2022 passed. It's unlikely the motion will pass the Senate, but the Greens have used the opportunity to call attention what they say is the "uselessness and expense of Hadopi." French President François Hollande called for the end of Hadopi before his election, a position he later retracted.


The leaders of two major Android app piracy groups have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges. Aaron Blake Buckley (22) and Gary Edwin Sharp II (29), ran the Applanet and SnappzMarket groups before they were shut down by the FBI in 2012. U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. of the Northern District of Georgia will pass sentence in August.

And finally - The CopyKat's profound thanks to qurgh lungqIj who made some wise and lucid comments, correcting my headline for the article on the Klingon Language. I have never been advised on and in Klingon - thankfully this time with translations into English! Forbes have also published a very interesting article on WHY the film companies behind the Star Trek series and films (CBS and Paramount) are taking action - having previously ignored or tolerated fan fiction, fan films and the like. 

q bljeghbe'chugh vaj blHej (our first headline in Klingon)

The lawsuit between Paramount Pictures, CBS studios and the producers of the crowdfunded Star Trek spin-off "Prelude to Axanar" just keeps giving. And this week the not for profit Language Creation Society submitted an amicus brief in support of the filmmakers - arguing that the use of the Klingon language shouldn't be restricted in any way by the film company rights holders. The brief notes that “No court has squarely addressed the issue of whether a constructed spoken language is entitled to copyright protection,” and conclude that “Klingon gave Star Trek characters convincing dialogue. But, it broke its chains and took on a life of its own— a life that the [US] Copyright Act has no power to control.”  

The suit, filed by attorney Marc Randazza argues that while Paramount Pictures created Klingon, the language has "taken on a life of its own" as a real language - and a real language is incapable of being protected by copyright - so "Paramount Pictures lacks the 'yab bang chut' or 'mind property law' necessary to claim copyright over the Klingon language":

The language was created by Mark Okrand who was commissioned to develop the language by the two claimant film companies, and the language was adapted and extended in subsequent films and TV programmes.  But the language does seems to have taken on a life of its own: There is (after all) the Klingon Language Institute in Pennsylvania, which promotes the Klingon language and culture - and you can study the language at the Osric University, "a non-accredited degree granting institution" that conducts Klingon studies via the internet, Back in 1995, Anita Karr taught herself Klingon and submitted her degree dissertation on the Klingon Language when she studying at Portsmouth University for her BA in applied linguistics: There are Klingon dictionaries, phrase books, on line tutorials and poetry. You can attend conventions dressed up in your finest Klingon battle armour ... teach your child Klingon ..... and there are even Klingon weddings. 

Charles Duan from consumer group Public Knowledge said in a Blog post: "There would be great danger to allowing the copyright power to extend to prevent others from speaking a language" 

This brief might have legs!  Paramount and CBS take note - q bljeghbe'chugh vaj blHej - Surrender or die is a popular Klingon phrase. Is it time for CBS and Paramount to leave this particular battle at warp speed? 

But let's remember the claim includes some 57 instances of infringement - its not just about the Klingon language:  These similarities are divided into categories like characters (including Garth of Izar and Vulcan Ambassador Soval), races and species such as the Vulcans, Romulans and Tellarites, costumes, settings like the planet Axanar and the Klingon planet Qo’noS, as well as spacedocks and the Starship Enterprise, logos like the Federation logo, and plot point similarities including the concept of dilithium crystals, phasers, and the Klingon Empire.

Torrentfreak explains all.

http://www.the1709blog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/we-come-in-peace-phasers-to-kill.html

Some useful phrases in Klingon here: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/klingon.php

Are Languages Created by One Single Homo sapiens Protected by Copyright?

You may remember that Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios are suing Axanar Productions and its principal Alec Peters over the short movie Prelude to Axanar (see here and here). Plaintiff claims the movie is an unauthorized derivative work, and that it infringes their copyright in Star Trek. Plaintiff filed an amended complaint last month, which details further what they consider to be infringement.

The complaint alleges that one of the infringing elements of Prelude to Axanar is the character of Garth of Izar, the legendary Starfleet captain who won the battle of Axanar, and later became insane, as shown in one of the original Star Trek episodes, Whom Gods Destroy. The Complaint also alleges infringement in the characters of Soral, a Vulcan ambassador, Starfleet captain Richard Robau, and historian John Gill.

Plaintiffs also claim copyright infringement in the Klingon race (a “warrior race”) and their appearance, and in the Vulcans, which “are a humanoid race with pointy ears from the planet Vulcan that are responsible in a large part for the founding of the Federation” and their appearance. Plaintiffs also claim copyright infringement in the Andorians, the Tellarites, and the Romulans, the last a species from the planets Romulus and Remus.

Plaintiffs also claim copyright in the costumes worn by the Enterprise crew, the Vulcan robes, the cowl neck and Starfleet command insignia, and triangular medals on uniform. If a court would recognize such infringements, it would set a precedent for fashion designers to claim copyright in their own works. However, this is highly unlikely, and claiming copyright in a cowl neck, especially, takes gumption, to say the least.

Can an Invented Language be Protected by Copyright?

The list of the claims goes on, and it is an interesting read. I would like to concentrate in this post on the claim in the Klingon Language, “Klingonese or Klingon, the native language of Qo’noS” (p.31). Can an invented language be protected by copyright?

I read online this interesting post by Cory Doctorow about the issue, wich provides links to other interesting articles on the Klingon language. Cory Doctorow does not believe it can be protected by copyright. I learned reading the post and its linked articles that the Klingon language was created by linguist Marc Okrand, and is a combination of Hindi, Arabic, Yiddish, Turkish, and Mohawk. It has its own dictionary.

There is no doubt that a natural language cannot be protected by copyright. A language is a combination of signs, which have meanings, and the language is organized using a syntax. Natural language evolve over time, and are created by member of particular tribes of the human species, following an organic process. As such, natural languages can be described as “procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery” which are not protected by copyright (§ 102. 2 of the Copyright Act).

But what about a language which is “created”? Cory Doctorow argues that the Klingon language “admittedly borrows phonemes from Hindi, Arabic, Tlingit, and Yiddish and grammar from Japanese, Turkish, and Mohawk” which makes claiming a copyright in it dubious.

However, the Supreme Court explained in 1879, in its Trade-Marks case, that “[t]he writings which are to be protected [by copyright] are the fruits of intellectual labor, embodied in the form of books, prints, engravings, and the like.” That does not mean that mere “sweat of the brow” is enough to claim protection of a compilation by copyright, as explained by the Supreme Court in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. The Supreme Court ruled in this case that a compilation of facts may be protected by copyright only if such selection, coordination and arrangement is original enough. However, a modicum of originally suffices.

Is the Klingon Language an Original Compilation of Facts?

Feist could be cited by Plaintiffs to argue that the Klingon language is protected by copyright. Is the Klingon language merely an unoriginal combination of data? In that case, it would not be protected by copyright under Feist. But the Klingon language is original, and original work is protectable by copyright. The Supreme Court defined originality in Feist as meaning “that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity” (at 345). It can easily be argued that this is the case with the Klingon language.

Even if one argues that the Klingon language is merely a combination of natural languages, it can still be protected by copyright under Feist, as the Supreme Court explained in this case that factual compilation may be protected by copyright:

“Factual compilations… may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws” (Feist at 348).

In our case, it could be argued that Marc Okrand compiled facts, the natural languages, and decided in which order to place them, and how to arrange them. This work certainly entailed a minimal degree of creativity. I would say that the Klingon language may be protected by copyright.

Klingon is Not the Only Original Language Ever Created

The issue of whether a language which has been created is protected is topical: the television series “Game of Thrones” features its own language, the Valyrian, which was created by David Peterson and has even a high and a low level of language (hear them here). David Peterson wrote a book named “The Art of Language Invention” (he speaks about it here) and has created several other languages for the movie industry.

Mark Okrand himself has been asked if the Klingon language is protected by copyright and he answered that he does not own the copyright, as he created it as a work for hire, but that he is not sure if Paramount owns it either. And you, what do you think?

Picture of the Klingon Dictionary courtesy of Flickr user geraldford under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Picture of Sign courtesy of Flickr user Aaron Gustafson under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.