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[Bobby Roberts]

I think the difference was that George Lucas was just good natured about it

Yeah, that's another one of the differences. But I think that's minor (and really not even relevant at this point) compared to the other differences, and I think one of the main differences is what I mentioned upthread: Star Wars fans aren't making Star Wars fanfilms as a kind of a "watch this instead of what the studio is actually putting out," whereas a fair amount of Star Trek fanfilms (and Axanar especially) had that air about them. Basically, the relationship between the fan-productions and the mothership is adversarial, and the company actually holding the licenses is never going to react kindly to that.

If Axanar's producers hadn't pushed it like they did, in the ways they did, Paramount probably wouldn't have reacted in kind. But they did and now the whole fan-film community is going to eat shit for a little bit.

 

[FyreWulff]

I mean I only vaguely followed the Axanar kickstarter, but other than having some production stuff and actors from the show, how did they go behind their back?

You'd think Tim Russ making Tuvok fanfiction would have raised more red flags.

the entirety of Renegades is basically nuked like this. They have freaking Tuvok, Uhura, and Chekov.

From everything I read, the part where they pissed off CBS is they were using the production as a direct pitch for jobs in Hollywood, and Hollywood is small world as fuck so it got back to CBS and they didn't like that at all since their whole deal was ST fan projects were fine as long as they weren't commercial and not used to sell other things (in this case a production company)

The current fan project rules release looks lawyered to hell and back and is basically a default licensing agreement rather than an indemnification like they had before. Case in point: having to use licensed Trek props and clothing. the lawyers straight up wrote it assuming a company would be on the other end of it

 

[tearsintherain]

It sucks for the super fans and the awesome guys making stuff like Araxen, but I kinda understand too. Whenever I see those fan star trek things that sort of cross the line of "home made video" into more professional realm, it honestly kinda dilutes the Star Trek brand to me. I know thats a dick thing to say, but I do cherish something more if there is less of it.

 

[MisterHero]

sometimes I watch lightsaber interpretive dance videos and think, "Hey this should be in a real movie"

 

[Bobby Roberts]

sometimes I watch lightsaber interpretive dance videos and think, "Hey this should be in a real movie"

That's happened before, kinda. Those old Ryan vs Dorkman fight videos got Ryan a job at Lucasarts when it was still around, doing lightsaber effects for the games.

 

[RiccochetJ]

The original Star Trek becoming public domain would not stop Paramount from making anything. It would just prevent them from having a monopoly on something they didn't create in the first place.

Paramount funded it from the beginning. They are directly involved in it getting it onto the screen in the first place.

What the hell are you talking about monopoly? A monopoly on the idea a man had that they helped bring to the screen in the first place and now people want to blatantly rip off? This isn't like water or electricity.

 

[Branduil]

Paramount funded it from the beginning. They are directly involved in it getting it onto the screen in the first place.

What the hell are you talking about monopoly? A monopoly on the idea a man had that they helped bring to the screen in the first place and now people want to blatantly rip off? This isn't like water or electricity.

Paramount in 1966 /= Paramount in 2016.

Wanting to use ip which should be in the public domain is not "wanting to blatantly rip off." People don't write fan fiction because they want to rip something off.

 

[RiccochetJ]

Paramount in 1966 /= Paramount in 2016.

Wanting to use ip which should be in the public domain is not "wanting to blatantly rip off." People don't write fan fiction because they want to rip something off.

And like I mentioned in an earlier post, they've been iterating and funding their IP since then.

And lol at your fan fiction argument. The rules they set out say that's completely fine. The people they're targeting with these rules is a whole different animal.

I also disagree with your assertion that it should be in public domain if they've been actively using the IP since the inception.

 

[web01]

All those conditions seem very reasonable.
It should be amateurs and fans making these films for the love, not these very professional companies / start ups looking to get free publicity by using someone else's IP.

 

[wenis]

So what's stopping people from making unofficial sequels to their unofficial 30 minute star trek productions. loop hole!

 

[Branduil]

And like I mentioned in an earlier post, they've been iterating and funding their IP since then.

And lol at your fan fiction argument. The rules they set out say that's completely fine. The people they're targeting with these rules is a whole different animal.

I also disagree with your assertion that it should be in public domain if they've been actively using the IP since the inception.

No one said Paramount shouldn't have rights to recent Star Trek they've produced.

What public good is provided by allowing Paramount the sole right to profit off the original Star Trek TV series 50 years later, or the sole right to produce original content in the Star Trek universe?

 

[RiccochetJ]

No one said Paramount shouldn't have rights to recent Star Trek they've produced.

What public good does allowing Paramount the sole right to profit off the original Star Trek TV series 50 years later provide?

Explain your "Public Good" stance here.

 

[Branduil]

Explain your "Public Good" stance here.

Copyright law, as originally created, is an infringement on free speech. This infringement is justified by the fact that we want and value creative works, but people won't be as creative if anyone can just immediately copy their idea and sell it. So copyright law was created to give creators a chance to solely profit off of their work for a reasonable period of time before it became public domain and could be used to enrich everybody.

Thanks to Disney and other corporate lawyers, this reasonable period of time has effectively turned into "infinity +1" time, destroying the public domain and making a mockery of the entire original purpose of copyright law, which was actually to enrich the public domain.

 

[RiccochetJ]

Copyright law, as originally created, is an infringement on free speech. This infringement is justified by the fact that we want and value creative works, but people won't be as creative if anyone can just immediately copy their idea and sell it. So copyright law was created to give creators a chance to solely profit off of their work for a reasonable period of time before it became public domain and could be used to enrich everybody.

Thanks to Disney and other corporate lawyers, this reasonable period of time has effectively turned into "infinity +1" time, destroying the public domain and making a mockery of the entire original purpose of copyright law, which was actually to enrich the public domain.

I can't defend Disney. I think I implied that in my previous posts. I don't think Paramount falls into that bracket as they've funded and iterated on the original concept. I think that until it goes dormant by the original creators that it should be on the public domain clock. And yes, I think that Paramount was paramount in getting this entire thing off the ground. They have a legitimate claim on what it is today.

 

[Branduil]

I can't defend Disney. I think I implied that in my previous posts. I don't think Paramount falls into that bracket as they've funded and iterated on the original concept. I think that until it goes dormant by the original creators that it should be on the public domain clock. And yes, I think that Paramount was paramount in getting this entire thing off the ground. They have a legitimate claim on what it is today.

Any laws about ip going "dormant" would be extremely easy to circumvent with lazy crap, not just good faith efforts. Also, like I said, "Paramount 2016" is not the original creators of Star Trek.

I also don't think there would be any such need for a law like that- any new creative work in the same universe would have its own copyright timer. The original Star Wars going into the public domain would not allow some random person to make a Kylo Ren Star Wars movie.

 

[MisterHero]

I think it's reasonable to perpetually hold IPs as long as it can pay for the creator's family/heirs, or even royalties to related actors and crew.

Yeah, there's a reality that's shitty and doesn't let fans live off the franchises they love. But there's another one that allows you to create whatever you want, and maybe someday you too can be a fat cat. Success is never guaranteed, but just because someone owns Star Trek or Star Wars doesn't mean you can't make your own science fiction.

 

[Brakke]

How in the fuck are they going to control this?

Well these guidelines aren't legally binding, I think. CBS could go ahead and sue any project that adheres to these guidelines anyway, they're just indicating that they don't intend to.

Like when a police department "deprioritizes" marijuana enforcement. They'll not legalizing it, just saying "we'll probably be chill about it if you are".

See the disclaimer at the bottom of the guidelines:

CBS and Paramount Pictures reserve the right to revise, revoke and/or withdraw these guidelines at any time in their own discretion. These guidelines are not a license and do not constitute approval or authorization of any fan productions or a waiver of any rights that CBS or Paramount Pictures may have with respect to fan fiction created outside of these guidelines.​

 

[Sulik2]

Star Trek isn't public domain, there has to be some limits. Axanar just seems like someone trying to monetize the Star Trek IP for themselves, despite it looking pretty good. Still these rules seem pretty heavy handed, there needs to be balance. Having a fan base that loves your IP enough to make fan projects is a good thing. These rules are basically limiting their creativity pretty heavily. Can't say I agree with that.

 

[Stallion Dan]

Seems fair to me.


Hey everyone, we the people made it popular so now we the people should be able to blatantly rip it off and make money off of it.

No one is making money off it.

"Creators of fan productions must not seek to register their works, nor any elements of the works, under copyright or trademark law."

"Don't steal our shit, but don't protect yours so we can steal your shit if we like it."

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, that's another one of the differences. But I think that's minor (and really not even relevant at this point) compared to the other differences, and I think one of the main differences is what I mentioned upthread: Star Wars fans aren't making Star Wars fanfilms as a kind of a "watch this instead of what the studio is actually putting out," whereas a fair amount of Star Trek fanfilms (and Axanar especially) had that air about them. Basically, the relationship between the fan-productions and the mothership is adversarial, and the company actually holding the licenses is never going to react kindly to that.

If Axanar's producers hadn't pushed it like they did, in the ways they did, Paramount probably wouldn't have reacted in kind. But they did and now the whole fan-film community is going to eat shit for a little bit.

I mean, given that everyone hates the prequels, you'd have to think there was some aspect of "I can make a better Star Wars than George" behind some of the films anyway.

Again, I don't know much about Axanar so I don't know how they pitched it. I personally think Prelude to Axanar is better than the two movies (and probably all the TNG movies ) but did they actually go around saying this is the "real" Trek?

You'd think Vic Mignogna getting some semi-professional actors and making a direct sequel to a TOS episode would be more "offensive" in that regard. Let alone Tim Russ deciding to make a story that features Tuvok and Chekov.

the entirety of Renegades is basically nuked like this. They have freaking Tuvok, Uhura, and Chekov.

From everything I read, the part where they pissed off CBS is they were using the production as a direct pitch for jobs in Hollywood, and Hollywood is small world as fuck so it got back to CBS and they didn't like that at all since their whole deal was ST fan projects were fine as long as they weren't commercial and not used to sell other things (in this case a production company)

The current fan project rules release looks lawyered to hell and back and is basically a default licensing agreement rather than an indemnification like they had before. Case in point: having to use licensed Trek props and clothing. the lawyers straight up wrote it assuming a company would be on the other end of it

Oh so they were using Axanar as a demo reel to try to get jobs with it? That might make sense... but then there's been so many cases of kids who do 3D modeling of Star Trek/Star Wars ships or whatever getting jobs with FX companies, so I would have thought that was okay. Of course this is more than just a kid with Maya or whatever.

Reading the terms again, it looks they are explicitly targeting Kickstarter fanfilms - since all the conditions on what makes a fan production "non commercial" basically precludes any of the standard Kickstarter rewards that all the fan films funded have offered - DVDs and merchandise. I can sort of agree with that, because the whole idea of crowdfunding a fanfilm has always seemed a bit sketch to me.

I wonder if that includes stuff like Adam Nimoy's movie and the Gene Roddenberry behind the scenes book.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamnimoy/for-the-love-of-spock-a-documentary-film/description
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/791163687/these-are-the-voyages/description

 

[FyreWulff]

Oh so they were using Axanar as a demo reel to try to get jobs with it? That might make sense... but then there's been so many cases of kids who do 3D modeling of Star Trek/Star Wars ships or whatever getting jobs with FX companies, so I would have thought that was okay. Of course this is more than just a kid with Maya or whatever.

I think the difference they were going with was "building a resume" vs "using someone else's IP to pitch your company/product".

If you remember that old 3D engine demo back in the day called Chrono Trigger Resurrection, Square shut that one down because the creators of it were using it to pitch their engine to publishers, and (I believe) it was Sega who rang up Square and was like "uh, do these guys have a license to your IP?" and Square was like "oh hell no"

 

[Pluto]

I mean I only vaguely followed the Axanar kickstarter, but other than having some production stuff and actors from the show, how did they go behind their back?

Axanar raised a lot of money that they used to create a for profit studio and they openly acknowledged that they intended to do for profit work.
They claimed they weren't doing a fan film but that their movie would be a "professional" production, they actually sold unlicenced merchandise (Axanar coffee), planned to do axanar novels, an axanar convention and they had a donor store that wouldn't "sell" stuff, they'd just give you things for "free" if you donated a certain amount of money ...

They also openly discussed how their production was intended to be "real" Star Trek that the fans want and that it would look like a real movie etc., they were directly competing with CBS and Paramount, making money of an IP they didn't own.

CBS and Paramount have always been cool with fan films, they all violated their copyright and not in a small way but Axanar really went too far, they are arrogant assholes who ruined it for everybody else and they still act like they are the victims of big bad corporations.

 

[firehawk12]

Wow, it sounds like the Axanar people are dicks and basically killed Kickstarter as venue to raise money for everyone.

Well, at least I assume no one will give to a Kickstarter with no reward tiers.