I've emailed Bethesda about this before, their response was less than pleasing.

BETHESDA CUSTOMER SUPPORT

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My name is NAME with the Bethesda Customer Support Team and I'll be assisting you today.
 
We appreciate your inquiry, however,  our intelectual property cannot be used in any other projects and we cannot provide you with any formal permission or licensing agreements.
Unfortunately, this is not expected to change. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your continued support.

If you have further questions, feel free to respond to this e-mail.
 
Regards,
NAME
Bethesda Customer Support

 

I have also asked the same question as Callum and received the same response. There is no reason to believe it's not legitimate.

If you're interested, Bethesda does indeed have an official trademark on fus ro dah.

I can't delve into the legal details, but I view it as a matter of principle more than legality. We promote Bethesda's product (Skyrim), and they allow us to do so as long as we don't infringe on their copyrights and intellectual property. It would be bad form to attempt to commercialize their work. The question of "Could we legally get away with it?" doesn't matter, because at that point our relationship with Bethesda would be ruined regardless.

Bethesda is very serious about protecting their copyrights. It's not something I would risk, and it'd be unfortunate if these many years of work and dedication went to waste.

I have no particular thoughts on invented vocabulary or grammar. The only thing I can imagine that would ever require Thuum.org's legal involvement is if someone's work in the Library was plagiarized or stolen.

I thought of that much. The thing is though if this is actually an email that was really read through as NAME is supposed to be filled with the name of the support guy so i guess to ask youd have to try again until you catch someone who can say something of use ^^

Next problem is the question if that claim is actually legal. I mean - its common for companies to claim rights that they actually dont even posess or claim to not be responsible for things they actually are responsible by law. The law has the last word on this not the company.

And there is the question if Dovahzul was ever made a trademark - if not, it is free to use no matter what the company tells you

It is safest just not to use their work, however I think they have the decency to allow projects like Thuum.org to expand, popularise, and advertise the Elder Scrolls Universe and its contents, especially since no money is being made from their work.

Im more curious - i mean if dovahzul becomes really succesfull there may be legal disputes on its use.

As example there is a theatre group playing Hamlet in Klingon - and since it is a lot of work and effort to actually train actors, requisites etc. they take money for their shows.

So if Klingon was copyright protected they could not do what they do cause they would be sued to hell.

While Klingon, just as Sindarin, Qenya etc. are technically someones invention it is not copyright protected. Some phrases and terms and names are trademark protected but not the language itself.

In case of the Fus Ro Dah trademark as far as i see it in the documents, Bethesda just protected Fus Ro Dah as a phrase. They have not protected Fus OR Ro OR Dah just the combination Fus Ro Dah - and they have not trademarked all the other 600 canon words and they could not trademark the 1000+ fanmade words

So if we would do a Hamlet play in Dovahzul basicly all would be fine as long as we dont shout Fus Ro Dah in the play...which doesnt occur in Hamlet.

the thing with trademarks is that you would need to trademark each single word if you want it to be protected and in some cases that would not be possible as these words already are words in real life languages (like Luft or klo) and therefore cant be claimed as intelectual property.

I dont want to meddle with Bethesda its just if someone was to write a book in dovahzul and print it - it would be commercial use and the question is if that would already violate any law cause afaik as long as you dont use trademarked phrases or copyright protected ideas (like placing the setting on Nirn) it would be totally legal.

I actually found a nice site on this topic regarding conlangs in general:

http://conlang.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/LCC6_Sai.pdf

As far as i understand it it basicly says - its ok to do with the language as you like as long as you give credit to the source, do not use trademarked expressions and dont use material that was already done by someone else. So as example using all words in the Skyrim maintheme in any order is legal as long as you do not copy the exact text from the theme

Follow up - i found another site that deals with Conlang rights specifically.

There it says that the major difference is between a "international conlang" like Esperanto, which are always treated as public domain and the creator has no right claims on it at all or, which is the case for Dovahzul, it is a fantasy conlang created for entertainment purposes.

The latter is the one of importance and the site states, that the first question is - how much does the conlang add to the products entertainment? The smaller the importance of the conlang in the product the more difficult it will be to copyright it.

the next question is the actual ownership of the intelectual property - is it the studio or the actual creator? There have been different cases on this where as example Navi and Klingon both got their legal claims given to the actual inventor while HBO basicly bought all rights on Dothraki from its inventor.

Then there is the question of the licensing - you can not copyright an entire conlang but you can copyright works you create - like a dictionary or grammar sheet - but NOT the content. Meaning everyone can use your Conlang for free as he likes.

BUT you can trademark words, phrases, names etc. and each trademark will be protected.

We can be sure that Dovahzul does not fall under "Public domain" but as stated it cant be completly copyrighted. The most likely would be a Creative Commons license in which actually Thuum.org would need Bethesdas ok to improve the language and work on it.

meaning everyone would be free to use the canon Dovahzul as he likes (excluding trademarks) BUT it would be illegal to change or extend the language in any way without the permission from Bethesda so technically what we are doing here could be illegal

personally i do think that Dovahzul is kinda Abandonware - i mean...i dont think Bethesda will really care about the use of the language. They made quite some Conlangs and will continue to do so and when the next TES games come out they will likely forget about Dovahzul anyway but that is my oppinion, which would make Dovahzul a legal greyzone and as the site suggests - as long as you dont make much of a profit with it you can be sure you wont be sued.

its a bit different with Dothraki seemingly as HBO seems to be very concerned about its use - since they cant copyright the use of the language you are free to speak and write in the language as you like but you can be sure you will be sued the moment you do anything commercial with it even if its just printing a dictionary

I didnt intend to say we should risk a legal battle. Keeping it low is usually the best idea. However i just wanted to be sure if i can or can not say translate Hamlet into Dovahzul legally or play the piece on stage and if, if i can or cant demand an entry fee not to make profit but to keep up the costs or involve a Kickstarter project to finance it.

Like paarthurnax said, it would be a real shame to risk it and lose any legal battle, so it's better to just accept the possible truth and live with it, as it really is best to maintain a decent relationship with Bethesda so we can gaurantee the sites survival.

On a side note, we are 6000+ words that are community made, if I recall correctly