Paramount forcing scanned FASA Trek material off Net (Pen&Paper)

Discussion in 'Trek Gaming' started by Ian Keldon, Sep 10, 2012.

  1. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    I just got a heads up from one of the other boards I keep an eye on. Paramount has been decided to crack down on scans of anything from the old FASA Star Trek RPGs. No word on why they are doing this now, after years of not caring. I understand it was always their right to demand this, it's just a bit odd that they've decided to re-enforce their rights with a vengence now, given how outdated and irrelevant the material is.

    Fair warning to anyone hosting such material: get it off line.

    Email I received below:

     
  2. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    I heard back from the Admin at Morena. He can't say much w/o burning a source, but he seemed to indicate that the FASA material was "collateral damage" from a hunt for more infringing material. Basically they were going after something else Trek related and found the FASA stuff.

    Apparently CBS and/or the new Paramount management isn't as lenient as their predecessors.
     
  3. Neumann

    Neumann Captain Captain

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    But whats the deal with this, its 25 years old, and its not harming them in any way. How are they losing a profit from this?

    The Star trek games currently on the market are:

    Fleet Captains
    expeditions
    Star Fleet Battles
    ACTA Starfleet

    None of them is similar or uses fasa concepts and ships :wtf:
     
  4. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    No one is quite sure. There is speculation that a new game is about to come out, but I don't think that likely.

    From what I've been told, Paramount has been going on a C&D binge since sometime around May with anything Trek related it can get it's hands on. Scans of the published material were always copyright violations in the legal sense, but up till now they were semi-tolerated by the rights holders for just the reasons you gave above.

    That is no longer the case. Paramount is exercising it's rights as IP holder on Trek and cracking down on anything that infringes it's property.

    The open question now is whether or not they will branch out even further and start going after things like fanfic/fanfilms and independent artwork based on Trek.
     
  5. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Oh no, they are going all Apple on us!
     
  6. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Ah, nice to see Paramount has time to play Mallcop these days.
     
  7. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    A quick Google search turns up no real references to this other than Ian Keldon's posts here and in the Fan Films forum.
     
  8. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It would be mildly/morbidly amusing if discussing it here brought about exactly the event that is being discussed.
     
  9. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    I was informed by the owner/Admin of the Morena Shipyards Yahoo site who was informed by one of the other board members who is an "insider" with Paramount/CBS.

    I thought it prudent to spread the word so that people who might be infringing have the chance to take their stuff down before the lawyers get involved.

    So what's your problem, Legion?

    *ETA* Here's a link to someone else who ran afoul of CBS/Paramount recently for IP infringement (for a different property):

    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...fering-up-plans-to-3d-print-movie-props.shtml

    and another

    http://tmntnottant.blogspot.com/2012/08/cease-and-desist.html

    This is entirely consistent with what I was told in a followup email that Paramount was C&D-ing other IP infringement and stumbled across someone "archiving" published FASA Trek material so they did the same to it and are looking for more.

    And here is where they C&D-d both Phase II AND Norman Spinrad over "He Walked Among Us"

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/03/29/cbs-blocks-production-of-star-trek-fan-film/
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2012
  10. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Is anyone aware of a move against fanfic/fanart in addition to this alleged crackdown?
     
  11. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    Not so far as I know. Most obviously affected would be fanfilms. According to people close to Phase II, they have a specific liason at CBS/Paramount who deals with the topic, and she is pretty good at letting them know what they can and cannot do (such as the prohibition on them selling their costumes, props, etc or openly soliciting donations with PayPal accounts, etc).

    Phase II did have one run in with CBS/Paramount over the unproduced TOS script "He Walked Among Us", which they wanted to produce. The studio said "no". The situation was resolved amicably.
     
  12. Unicron

    Unicron Boss Monster Mod Moderator

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    I'm not sure why Paramount would be overly concerned about FASA's work specifically, since the bulk of it was produced under license in an era when very little mainstream Trek was being produced by the studios. And once FASA lost the license after TNG came out, it became very difficult to get ahold of the RPG stuff. I doubt a lot of more recent fans even know who FASA was.
     
  13. 137th Gebirg

    137th Gebirg Admiral Premium Member

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    I haven't heard anything yet on my end with the SSDB. If I get any hate mail from their assassin droids I will let y'all know. I guess they think "fair use" doesn't apply any more. :(
     
  14. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    Update: The C&Ds are still going out. They still seem to be going only towards the actual printed material produced by FASA itself (that is, scans of the books, magazine articles, etc).

    Some people over at Morena Shipyards were stupid enough to say in open thread that people should just start burning CDs of the stuff and swap that way and Paramount picked up on it.

    As was said in the IP thread in Fan Productions, Paramount IS watching the internet on a regular basis. JJTrek finally making the big breakthrough to "mainstream" has made this a whole new ballgame in terms of what they are willing to put up with.
     
  15. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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  16. newtontomato539

    newtontomato539 Commander Red Shirt

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    Why don't they also go after the Prime Directive rpg? :wtf:
     
  17. Ian Keldon

    Ian Keldon Fleet Captain

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    ^If they found scanned material, I'm sure they would. Apparently there was a lot of FASA stuff out there and they found it.
     
  18. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    How are full scans of all FASA books ever "fair use"?

    "Fair use" would entail a scan of one page to accompany a review of a whole resource.

    As for CBS Legal sending C&Ds, this would be in support of all current licensees, showing that their $$$ will be routinely protected, as well as the rights of the original FASA creators who may not want their old material being bandied around for free. Tightening up is often cyclic, since it's very expensive to do it constantly, so they'll do the odd blitz instead.
     
  19. SeerSGB

    SeerSGB Admiral Admiral

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    Isn't Prime Directive a spin-off/expansion to Starfleet Battles and under whatever license Amarillo Design has?
     
  20. nightwind1

    nightwind1 Commodore Commodore

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    Apparently, you don't understand the difference between piracy and "fair use" (unfortunately, it seems a large majority of the current generation of netizens don't understand it, so you're not in a minority).