Tengwar on a general purpose translation site

Steve Downey sdowney at gmail.com
Thu Mar 10 18:02:08 CST 2022


In a decade or so, someone like Amazon is going to ask why they can't
advertise in Social Media in Tengwar and ask hard questions to the Estate,
at which point the new people in charge will be able to say their
predecessors were wrong.
Until then, without someone else setting legal precedent, it's just not
worth spending a few $100K to find out.

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 18:48 Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode <
unicode at corp.unicode.org> wrote:

> Interesting.  In the case of tengwar, the copyright-holder has actually
> explicitly given an answer to the question:  they do not want it
> encoded.  But CBS/Paramount has never said anything one way or another
> about pIqaD (beyond boilerplate copyright notices), as far as I know.
> So tengwar would seem to be further from encodability than pIqaD, in
> this sense.  (And yet, the one disapproved of is not the one that is
> non-approved.)
>
> As you say, the actual relevance, legality, and enforceability of the
> Estate's statement don't really matter.  Nobody wants to be in the
> position of showing it's wrong, even successfully.
>
> ~mark
>
> On 3/10/22 17:46, Julian Bradfield via Unicode wrote:
> > The Estate does not wish to release tengwar into the public domain to
> > the extent that would be required for an encoding.
> >
> > Somebody asked about public evidence of their attitude. Here is what
> > their FAQ says
> >
> > https://www.tolkienestate.com/frequently-asked-questions-and-links/
> >
> >    Tolkien’s invented languages and scripts are protected by
> >    copyright. You may use them for your own private interest and
> >    amusement, but you may not reproduce them in any form of publication
> >    or in connection with any group activity, commercial or otherwise.
> >
> > As people have remarked, there are interesting legal arguments about
> > whether this statement is true, but neither Unicode nor I can afford an
> > argument with an organization which is not short of money for lawyers.
>
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