Hi Everyone,

I was curious about the "copyright" of the language. I was told once that only the officially published material was "closed source" so to speak. But in the following examples, does this apply?

1. Can someone make a "learning Esperanto" software product without permission, and then sell that product?

2. Can someone duplicate and publish Esperanto material online (either for free or not for free)?

3. Can someone change the language (like IDO did) and publish that information without permission?

4. Can someone write their own Esperanto "novels" and publish them for profit?

I'm not saying I'm going to do any of those things, but I am pretty curious. I would consider investing a lot of time into an Esperanto learning software product, but I would likely just open source it since I wouldn't be too keen on charging for that information.

Thanks!

~Aaron

I'll give this a go.

First of all, I'm no lawyer, so I could be dead wrong in what I'm about to say. You've been warned. lol

webgovernor:1. Can someone make a "learning Esperanto" software product without permission, and then sell that product?

I don't see why not, if you're making the software from scratch and not pirating parts of another's language software application, or using copyrighted definitions and/or copyrighted text in the application.

webgovernor:2. Can someone duplicate and publish Esperanto material online (either for free or not for free)?

Completely duplicating someone else's material without their permission would be a violation of that author's copyright (rarely enforced over the internet, but the original author could sue for infringement if they chose to defend their right).

webgovernor:
3. Can someone change the language (like IDO did) and publish that information without permission?

That's sort of a gray area. I'm not sure languages can be copyrighted (again a reminder I'm no lawyer-- don't hold me to any of what I'm saying I believe when it comes to copyright law or any legal issue).

If a language can be copyrighted and the holder of the copyright defends their right, then the changes would have to be substantial enough that you could claim it as an original language of your own "inspired by" the other language, but not the original language.

Minor changes to someone else's work would still be a copyright violation. I can't rewrite a Steven King novel and just change the characters' names and maybe move them to a different city while using the exact same storyline. I'm pretty sure Mr. King's lawyers wouldn't let me get away with that.

webgovernor:
4. Can someone write their own Esperanto "novels" and publish them for profit?

I don't see why not. Matter of fact, while I'm not sure I'll ever be skilled enough in the language, I do occasionally daydream of writing a few of my own stories in Esperanto in the far future and perhaps trying to self-publish them.

Besides, for Esperanto the copyright point is mute. Given Z created this back in the late 1800's the copyright would have slipped into public domain some time ago.

Plus, if my memory of what I read is correct, Z publicly stated he wouldn't defend his copyright to Esperanto and in essence put it directly into public domain from just about the start.

Esperanto has no "copyright", just as English doesn't have a copyright. You can write as much Esperanto text as you want and publish it, just as in English, and just as in English, you can't steal someone else's work.

Anyone can make whatever changes they want to Esperanto, just as I English can speak this like if want I. But if you change the 16 rules, it isn't Esperanto anymore, it's something else. And just as English speakers can feel free to laugh at me if I spoke like I just wrote above, Esperanto speakers would feel free to laugh at me if I made changes in Esperanto. Bottom line - think of Esperanto like Wikipedia. People can make whatever changes they want, but the larger community is not likely to accept it if it goes against the community's ideas.

Even though Esperanto is a constructed work with a definite author, there is NO copyright?

So, I could write a software program that "teaches" Esperanto, and than I could sell it, providing that I just gave word definitions, and that I didn't "steal" someone else's text.

That's good to know.

Yup no copyright, unlike many planned languages. Probably one of the reasons Esperanto is so popular, its free and for the people!

Truthfully that is one of the reasons i learned epseranto, (among many other things) after searching on the internet, i found very few websites taught languages for free. As for making money teaching esperanto... perhaps in the future when it becomes more in demand, but how would you ever compete with the free material on the web, like lernu, and the free online Esperanto correspondence. Perhaps if someone made a really good audio Esperanto learning software that i can listen to while i sit on the bus, i might buy it...

Even if a copyright theoretically existed on Esperanto, in many countries it's copyright would have expired, based on how old it is. Thats partly why several Esperanto books are available from Project Gutenburg, their copyright has run out (in the US at least).

In regards to "closed source" versus "open source", I can see how an open source language would be appealing, but a human language has some important differences from software and operating systems. If I publish a book (a real paper book, not an online book) in some IAL, and then a set of fundamental changes is handed down from the owner or governing body of that IAL, it's not like I can issue a patch for my book -- my book is simply obsolete, perhaps even no longer readable by new students under the new rules of the language, and I lose money. The possibility of this happening would have, and doubtless does have, a chilling effect on anyone considering publishing in a language constantly in a state of flux, as many (if not most) proposed IALs are. This is true even in cases where the changes made are indisputably improvements.

Esperanto on the other hand is "closed source" in that it is based upon an unchangable document: the Fundamento. The Fundamento is not legally protected by copyright or whatever, and in fact textbooks and the like produced by private individuals or groups will usually (and indeed should) include the fundamental "16 rules" of Esperanto much as they are presented in the Fundamento and/or a glossary based on a subset of the Universala Vortaro (which is also part of the Fundamento), and there is no need to obtain a license or pay royalties to Zamenhof's estate or anything like that to do this. But the Fundamento is unchangable nonetheless, due to the widespread agreement of Esperantists to Dr. Z's request that it be regarded as absolutely and forever "untouchable" by anyone, even including himself.

Anyone following this thread might be interested in reading Zamenhof's own thoughts about the "untouchable" Fundamento, the enrichment, evolution, and future of the language, and why he set things up the way he did. He makes a better case for himself than I do (in my opinion). This, the Foreword of the Fundamento, is in Esperanto of course, but I think it's fair to ask that anyone inclined to propose changes to Esperanto already be fluent, yes?

http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/fundamento/...

Trojo, I'm reading the "forward" now, although I am not fluent, I can understand about 60% when I think about it. So there isn't an issue with posting things in Esperanto.

I'm not arguing for changes, which seems to be what people think. I was able to overcome many issues that I strongly disagree with by hearing your justifications. Right now I'm trying to justify the irregularity with "vir-", ie: "vir-in-o" is literally "Masculine-Feminine-Noun" or, a transgender person (as I see it), but it somehow is overridden by the feminine suffix to mean "female".

My only issues with the language are the reactions and criticisms it receives. I personally know people who will not learn it, because they expect an auxiliary language to be 100% regular without exception. I would make the statement that these issues which lead to criticism are the largest obstacles on the road to an EPO as the official IAL, but I would be laughed at without spending several years studying Esperanto. I'm learning the language. I can read and write at a child's level in Esperanto. And I plan on dedicating myself to learning it fully.

My reasons for posting this topic were, actually, to help the movement by producing a quality piece of software that would target the youth, I was going to develop this using a 3d "third-person" adventure engine that I've developed with Torque 1.5 SDK.

Once I find a "worthy" cause I generally stick to it. I'm not trying to change the language until I get a better understanding of it, and I'd only attempt to do so with the support of the community agreeing to switch. Which will never ever EVER ever happen without providing some serious bribes.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

You can certainly make your own Esperanto learning materials without worrying about copyrights, just as you could make learning materials for English.

Regarding the regularity of Esperanto; it is much more regular than national languages, but it was created by a human being, and human thoughts don't always fit into a 100% regular framework. The irregularities are few and far between, and not hard to learn. I wouldn't get too concerned about it; as far as the -in- ending is concerned, the situation you discuss appears ONLY in "family" words.

Regarding people who look for a 100% regular IAL - maybe Esperanto isn't for them, and that's ok. My usual philosophy is to present Esperanto as it is, and if someone doesn't like that, I don't feel any particular pressure to convince them that they're wrong. They can feel free to go to another language that they like better. Sometimes they come back to Esperanto when they realize that the grass isn't always greener.

I doubt that there will ever be an 'official' IAL. Perhaps the EU will decide to use Esperanto one day. I doubt it. I use Esperanto because I personally get a lot out of it; it would be great (and logical) if nationas would see the benefit of Esperanto and use it for their international contacts, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Metric has clear advantages to English measures, but in the US we still use English measures because we are too lazy to do the work to change. I wouldn't hold your breath on Esperanto getting picked up by the worldwide community. To me, it is very worth learning, but if making Esperanto somehow official is your goal, keep in mind that this is unlikely, so try to look for the aspects of Esperanto that make it worthwhile, in and of itself. Then you won't feel (unjustly) as if you have wasted your time, in the likely case that Esperanto never gets named the "official" anything.

webgovernor:My reasons for posting this topic were, actually, to help the movement by producing a quality piece of software that would target the youth, I was going to develop this using a 3d "third-person" adventure engine that I've developed with Torque 1.5 SDK.

Cool. I've long wished there were more learning games available for Esperanto, or even just games that are in Esperanto, not necessarily for the purpose of learning. The games at Lernu are cool and all, but I've long since learned everything I could from Frenezaj literoj and Savu la princinon!.