A Fan Film Boldly Goes Too Far

The saga began not with a legal brief, but with a fan film. Axanar was no ordinary fan production filmed in a garage. It was an ambitious, professional-looking project that raised over a million dollars through crowdfunding. The film was set to tell the story of Garth of Izar, a legendary Starfleet captain mentioned in the original series, during a pivotal war with the Klingon Empire. The production quality was so high, and the fundraising so successful, that it attracted the attention of Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios, the owners of the Star Trek franchise.

In December 2015, they filed a lawsuit against the Axanar producers for copyright infringement. The complaint listed numerous alleged infringements, including:

• Starship designs, like the Constitution-class vessels.
• Character elements, such as the pointed ears of Vulcans.
• Costumes, uniforms, and insignias.
• And, most controversially, the Klingon language.

While fans had long created their own stories in the Star Trek universe, Paramount argued that Axanar crossed the line from amateur homage to professional competition. But by including Klingon in their list of copyrighted assets, they inadvertently sparked a much deeper debate that went far beyond this single film.

The Heart of the Matter: Is Klingon Copyrightable?

The legal battle presented two fundamentally opposing views on the nature of language itself.

Paramount’s Argument: A Creative Work of Art
For Paramount, the answer was simple. The Klingon language, known as tlhIngan Hol to its speakers, did not evolve naturally. It was commissioned. They hired linguist Marc Okrand in the 1980s to flesh it out for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Okrand invented its grammar, syntax, and a core vocabulary. Paramount argued that this made the language a work of authorship, an integral part of their fictional universe, and therefore a protectable piece of intellectual property, just like a character or a script.

Paramount claimed Klingon was not a “living language” but a collection of “fictional words and a fictional grammar” created for entertainment. It was, in their view, no different from a poem or a novel.

The Defense’s Argument: A Functional System of Communication
The producers of Axanar, supported by the Language Creation Society (LCS), fired back with a powerful counterargument. They contended that a language, once developed, is not a creative expression but a system for creating expression. They pointed to Section 102(b) of the U.S. Copyright Act, which states that copyright protection does not extend to any “idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery”.

Their logic was this: you can copyright a dictionary (the specific book), but you cannot copyright the words and rules within it. You can copyright a novel written in English, but you cannot copyright the English language itself. A language, they argued, is a functional tool. Once it allows people to communicate unique thoughts, it transcends its artistic origins and becomes an un-copyrightable system.

Qapla’! The Linguist’s Perspective

At the center of this was Marc Okrand’s creation. What began as a few guttural sounds for the first Star Trek film in 1979 was transformed by Okrand into a surprisingly robust and usable language. He didn’t just make up words; he built a coherent grammatical framework, famously using a rare Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) sentence structure to make it feel truly alien.

For example, in English we say, “The warrior drinks the coffee” (Subject-Verb-Object). In Klingon, it’s “qa’vIn yajbe’ tlhIngan” (literally “Coffee understands-not the-Klingon”, a canonical joke phrase). The structure is deliberate and consistent.

Over the decades, a passionate community grew around the language. The Klingon Language Institute (KLI) was formed, speakers translated Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the epic of Gilgamesh into Klingon, and people composed original poetry and songs. From a linguistic perspective, Klingon checked the boxes: it had a phonology (sound system), morphology (word formation), and syntax (sentence structure). It was being used to generate infinite new expressions—the very definition of a functional language.

The Legal Showdown and the Ruling That Wasn’t

As the case progressed, the world watched to see how the court would rule. This had the potential to set a massive precedent for all constructed languages, or “conlangs”. In a preliminary ruling in May 2016, the judge, R. Gary Klausner, gave a strong indication of where he was leaning. He rejected the defense’s argument that a language was an un-copyrightable “system”.

He noted that there was “no evidence that this language is spoken anywhere but in the context of the Star Trek works” and that it was created for a specific artistic and entertainment purpose. He suggested that the “constellation of words and rules” that make up Klingon contained enough creative originality to be eligible for copyright protection. The community of speakers, he implied, was not enough to transform it into a “living language” in the eyes of the law.

This was a blow to the defense and a worrying sign for conlang enthusiasts everywhere. However, the world never got a definitive, final answer. In January 2017, just before the trial was set to begin, Paramount, CBS, and the Axanar producers reached a settlement. The lawsuit was over. Axanar was allowed to be released as two 15-minute shorts, and new, clearer guidelines for fan films were established.

But the core question—the copyright status of the Klingon language—was left unresolved. The judge’s preliminary thoughts were just that: thoughts. They did not create binding legal precedent. The “Copyright That Wasn’t” left the issue in a fascinating legal gray area.

What About Dothraki, Na’vi, and Elvish?

The Axanar case may be over, but its shadow looms large over other famous conlangs. Think of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, which are intricately woven into the fabric of his copyrighted literary works. Or consider David J. Peterson’s Dothraki from Game of Thrones or Paul Frommer’s Na’vi from Avatar. These languages were, like Klingon, commissioned for fictional worlds.

If Paramount had won and established a legal precedent, could HBO sue someone for writing a blog in Dothraki? Could the Tolkien Estate claim ownership over every fan-written poem in Elvish?

For now, the answer remains uncertain. The settlement of the Axanar case means that the fundamental conflict between a language as a creative property and a language as a functional tool has never been tested in a final court ruling. Creators of conlangs and their corporate owners seem to exist in a state of détente with the fan communities who give these languages life.

Ultimately, the Klingon lawsuit served as a powerful reminder that language is a deeply human (and, yes, Klingon) phenomenon. It yearns to be used, shared, and expanded. While born from a single creative vision, a language only truly achieves Qapla’ when it is set free. tlhIngan maH! (We are Klingon!)