Difference between Klingon and Tengwar

[Mark E. Shoulson]

On 9/16/21 3:42 PM, Hans Åberg via Unicode wrote:
> Languages, including orthography, are not copyrightable. Movie and TV production companies regularly make copyright claims of no legal basis.

True, and I tried to make that point in previous discussions on this 
topic.  The more recent proposals were predicated on a claim that 
Paramount really has no legal standing on the matter, especially as 
evidenced by the use of pIqaD in all sorts of environments.

However, Ken's point is also a good one: it doesn't matter if 
Paramount's case is completely baseless.  It doesn't matter if they 
wouldn't win in court.  Just bringing a case is enough to cause huge 
damage to Unicode.  Paramount's legal army could empty the minuscule 
coffers of Unicode just in pre-trial hearings.  Yes, there are laws 
against doing that, but you know what it takes to get a ruling in your 
favor regarding those laws?  Yep, more lawsuits.  So I can understand 
Unicode's reluctance to actually encode without having at least SOME 
better confidence legally. Which is why I just asked for the rejection 
to be rescinded, but didn't get that either.

Now, Peter Constable writes:

> The main concern is that _/users/_ of The Unicode Standard won’t be 
> susceptible to IP claims against them. Since this is uncertain, the 
> onus is on the advocates for encoding the script to resolve that.

which is an angle I actually had not heard before.  And here I'm really 
puzzled.  The users of the script are already using the script, whether 
Unicode encodes it or not.  So why is Unicode suddenly concerned on 
their behalf?  This one is really kind of strange.  Could Unicode be 
legally responsible for people "illegally" using the script?  It's 
hardly in Unicode's power to stop them, as evidence by the fact that 
usage exists.

~mark

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