Potential plagarism by ST: Titan TV series fan campaign?

Discussion in 'Fan Productions' started by Sumghai, Oct 17, 2012.

  1. Sumghai

    Sumghai Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    I've been following the recent fan campaigning CBS for a potential ST: Titan TV series for a wee bit now.

    A while ago, the page admins posted on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/StarTrekTitan) and YouTube a CGI video of the Ent-E going into warp. Amidst glowing praises by rabid fans, a YouTube user immediately revealed that A) the animation was a fan creation and B) he was the original artist and they stole the video from him.

    After being called out on this, as well as not giving credit to the artist, the video was pulled (or at least, made private).

    More recently, the Titan fan page admins posted this:

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...0117786223.355752.310765186222&type=1&theater

    Again, no attribution or credit given to the original artist(s), and an image lookup revealed that it was cover art from an upcoming ST novel.

    I've bought these issues to the attention of the page admins, who have so far deleted my comments.

    Thoughts? Or am I making mountains out of molehills?
     
  2. Count Zero

    Count Zero No nation but procrastination Moderator

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    I don't know but I think you're posting this in the wrong section of the board. I'm moving it to fan productions.
     
  3. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think they need to educate themselves a bit about permissions and attribution. "Plagiarism" isn't the appropriate term here unless they claim to have animated or painted those things themselves. My guess is that they don't see the difference between what they're doing and about a thousand videos at YouTube that use CG and model shots from the Star Trek movies (which is also not necessarily legally okay, but it's widespread).
     
  4. Sumghai

    Sumghai Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    Okie doke.

    I'll admit "plagarism" might not be the optimal choice of words here, although I did so based on past experiences...

    Aside from being a Trekker, I'm an Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) who regularly posts models and creations on Flickr. The general culture of Flickr is that if you posted something on your "photostream", you are in effect declaring you are the original artist, even if you don't explicitly say so.

    Now, some inexperienced kids would go download other people's LEGO creation photos and reupload them onto their own stream. Most use lame excuses like "I didn't know there was a favourite button" or "I thought it was cool, so I'll save them for myself", although there has been the odd case of said kids claiming ownership of the photos.

    Eventually, a whole bunch of us grown-ups were fed up with this, and started a Flickr group called Brick~Busters that would identify and screencap these kids (dubbed "swipers") as part of a name-and-shame campaign - if the publicity didn't get them to repent and remove the images, we would send Flickr an infringement report and watch the admins take the photos down.
    I suppose social sites like Facebook work differently to photo/artwork sharing sites like Flickr and DeviantArt. A pity there isn't a proper reporting mechanism on FB.


    Interestingly, the Titan fan admins finally responded by claiming that they did have permission from the "artist's agent but not direct contact". My response, of course, is to ask them why didn't they post a disclaimer in the first place.
     
  5. Linnear

    Linnear Lieutenant Commander

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    I have a serious problem with this group. They clearly have no clue what they are doing. And they are duping people into giving them money, so they can get more "likes" on their Facebook page!

    A total scam in my book.

    Alec
     
  6. Sumghai

    Sumghai Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    They've basically told me that if I had any more questions, I should just email them and not post on the FB wall for all to see - looks like they're trying to internalize and quell any dissent.

    Perhaps somebody should email CBS about this? I've heard that whilst the company (probably) has ambivalent attitudes towards fan productions, they'll definitely clamp down on peeps misusing Trek IP (be it selling knockoff merch or bogus TV campaigns)
     
  7. Danlav05

    Danlav05 Commodore Commodore

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    All they are doing is getting people to 'like for a STAR TREK TITAN series starring Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis and Tim Russ' if they get a million likes.

    Even if they are genuine in their intentions they are going about it completely the wrong way.

    Is it a petition or a project? There is no clarity whatsoever.

    They will not say WHO they are and what they are doing, so they almost certainly can't be industry professionals.

    Compare that to the Renegade project who list personnel, and have OF GODS AND MEN under their belt, whatevr you may think of it.

    I asked who they are and what exactly this was. They deleted the comment. I unliked the page - this is either a con or they're completely deluded, I'm sorry to say.

    I'd love a Sirtis/Frakes Titan series hopefully someone will do it someday.
     
  8. Tom

    Tom Vice Admiral Admiral

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    A Titan series is never going to happen. What do they need funding for? Are they planning to make the show themselves? do they have any production experience? Sounds like either dreamers or swindlers to me. Looks like the guy putting this on is out of Denmark. I can tell you that none of the actors he has listed to star in the series is on board with this, so that's a lie and i'm also sure he has not talked to CBS.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2012
  9. doubleohfive

    doubleohfive Fleet Admiral

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    So you guys are a bunch of adults playing with LEGOs bullying kids who save your pictures to their streams because they don't know any better? Classy.

    As for the original topic, why would you report this to CBS? Are these people making money off the Titan project? Because if they aren't I don't see how or why CBS would care about any of this.
     
  10. Tom

    Tom Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well they are taking money (kickstarter, selling merchandise) indicating that they will be producing a show that supposably CBS would approve of if they got 1 million 'likes' (good luck with that BTW lol). Thing is, who are they? they have no past productions or anything showing that they can produce. They are lieing about the cast participation, I know that for a fact. To me it looks like this one guy from Denmark who is either a big dreamer and/or con artist trying to dupe Star Trek fans.
     
  11. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    How much money have they collected? the Kickstarter link on their home page doesn't work.
     
  12. batboy853

    batboy853 Captain Captain

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    Im not seeing anything on that page related to collecting money to me it looks like any other facebook group. Yeah they show images of T-shirts, but no where to buy them, and mention kickstart but I think they are talking about kickstart as in collecting likes. like a petition to cbs like a "hey you said you wanted viewers, here's 1 million viewers" sort of thing.

    and with just every other facebook group they post images related to their topic, they dont claim to be the original owners. like right now on my main feed i'm seeing people who have posted images of the peanuts gang, various memes, they aren't the original author....

    In addition facebook's policy is if you have the original artwork, like original image file you created then you can claim to own the painting and then facebook would remove the image, same with flickr and every other image service.

    I think you guys are taking facebook way too seriously.
     
  13. Captain Atkin

    Captain Atkin Captain Captain

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    It looks like they don't have a Kickstarter page. I did a search on the Kickstarter site, and found nothing. If they did have one, Kickstarter probably shut it down.
     
  14. Sumghai

    Sumghai Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    Their description claims that they have a CGI team making campaign videos, as well as the expertise to do all the SFX for the actual TV show.

    Quite frankly, given that the only video they have is a whole bunch of fading text (their Ent-E warp CGI vid was outed as stolen from another YT user), not sure if these guys are serious or screwing with Trek fans.

    The word is building, thank you very much.

    The BB group (http://www.flickr.com/groups/brick-busters/) started out after an AFOL's creation was submitted by a kid as an entry for an official LEGO contest, which he subsequently won. Once we passed word through to LEGO Legal regarding the actual builder, Legal stripped the kid of the accolade, much to his distress.

    Since then we've been working with both LEGO's Creation Lab and CUUSOO admins in taking down plagarized models, as well as our usual stint on Flickr. The community appreciate our efforts very much.

    But I digress.

    They've since stated they are going to nix their Kickstarter by using proceeds from their website ads to pay for more FB ads (and in turn, more likes).
     
  15. batboy853

    batboy853 Captain Captain

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    so what is your gripe? they aren't collecting money, not profiting from it, so it seems like it is just like every other facebook group. and they aren't claiming the work they post is their own. so why are you trolling them?
     
  16. Barbreader

    Barbreader Fleet Captain In Memoriam

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    Since they have only a little over 10,000 likes... I wouldn't worry about this one way or the other. Frakes will be dead before they reach their goal of 1 million.
     
  17. Sumghai

    Sumghai Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    Misleading people into thinking that they have rights to the artwork / videos.

    In the Ent-E warp CGI clip they plagarised, people were asking them in the comments to do a version with the Luna class. The page admin's response was along the lines of "thank you for liking our video, we have a team working on it."

    Of course, this was before they got called out on it and pulled it down from their page.

    Trolling is done for the lulz - I have a legitimate concern.
     
  18. batboy853

    batboy853 Captain Captain

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    Well my advice, since right now they dont have anything on their page claiming that anything they have on there is of their own artwork, ie plagarism, i would let it go. maybe they do have a cgi team, maybe they dont. we all know that not all groups are going to post things until they are ready to, which is why their youtube page only has one video on it.

    their page says no where that they are planning on making the show it is solely a lets get the likes to get CBS's attention that the fans want this show.

    if you feel this is a copyright infringement on CBS thing, well i would read the copyright thread and maybe get in touch with the people there. in fact the designer of the titan itself is on this forum, maybe get in touch with him, after all, all recreations by your law would mean that they would have to ask him if they could create a 3d model. which he has even posted to that facebook group if you look down far enough.

    and going even further down you see a post from December 9th 2010 "The possibility for Star Trek Titan this video was made possible by Uuris" which i think is the video you are talking about.

    if you feel that posting images, or youtube videos are wrong on facebook take that up with facebook?
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2012
  19. Sumghai

    Sumghai Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    I'd limit my inquiry at first to the book cover artists, clarify that the Titan fan group has indeed sought permission to repost the cover art.

    I know Sean Tourangeau - we traded passing comments just now. Getting him involved wouldn't be necessary at this stage.
     
  20. batboy853

    batboy853 Captain Captain

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    dude, its just facebook.