What can be done?

[JRoss]

Let me start by saying that I haven't watched many fan films. The reason is basically because I don't know wher to find them, but also a bit because of lack of free time. That said, I hate the new fan film guidelines.

Yes, CBS is within their rights, and yes, I think they were right to go after Axanar, but I think the hammer has come down too hard. What can we do?

It seems to be a crying shame that the productions have to stop, especially since they are basically all set up to film and are staffed by veterans.

What about coming up with a brand new IP, one owned by a non-profit foundation, that allows people to make their own films and explore stories that hit some of the same beats as Star Trek.

I'm coming to this idea as someone who publishes roleplaying games. In that sector we have something called the Open Gaming License (OGL), that allows people to freely mod, remix and riff on rules created by other people so long as they respec IP (according to the original publisher's wishes). I've made my own original products, and I've created derivative works. The RPG hobby is thriving online because of this.

What do y'all think?

 

[Amaris]

Find new creative ways to tell a good story in two 15 minute segments. Before kickstarters, celebrity guest roles, 100% authentic bridge sets™, and donation perks, fan productions had to sell their premise on the story. They can do that. I mean, surely with $50,000 and a half an hour a fan production can tell a good story!

 

[dahj]

What about coming up with a brand new IP, one owned by a non-profit foundation, that allows people to make their own films and explore stories that hit some of the same beats as Star Trek.

While there's absolutely nothing stopping them from transplanting their stories into Generic Space Adventure Setting, I doubt any of the fan films want to do that because the whole point of Star Trek fan productions is that people who make them want to be a part of Star Trek in some small way, and I also doubt anyone would actually watch it if they did. This may sound a bit harsh, but the only reason fan productions are even remotely relevant is because they're in the Star Trek setting.

 

[JE Smith]

What do y'all think?

I think there's no reason for this to be a separate thread.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I think it's a good idea, for those that *can* utilize it. The problem I always had with wanting to transplant my Trek fanfic ideas into an original work is that too much of it depends on building off of Trek-specific material.

Just as one example:

One of my enemy species, the D'Agla, was a bunch of twisted shapeshifting telepaths that were making weird terrorist attacks with no clear end goal, and they had some of the citizenry of the Federation scared. The Borg had actually made heavy concessions to the Federation about 40 years prior to this, in exchange for a cooperation agreement against the D'Agla, because they could not cope with them. One of those concessions - and also part of the strategy against the D'Agla - was that the Borg had to return a large degree of individuality to assimilated individuals, becoming more like the Cooperative from the Voyager episode "Unity". This would allow the Collective to use each member (formerly, "drone") as something like a canary in a coal mine - the D'Agla would influence their mind, rather than the Unimind, and the Borg would be able to detect that and correct for it both for the overall Collective AND for that member. And, future assimilations had to be voluntary.

So basically, in my stories, in the short span of 40 years, the Borg have largely gone from being one of the most feared forces in the Galaxy, to being a sort of cult, recruiting in spaceports and shopping malls with the promise of being able to protect the people who are assimilated from the terrorists and with all of the other advantages of the shared knowledge of the Collective. And it works, too - just obviously not as well as taking whole planetary populations by force. Vulcans, in particular, seem to be drawn to the logic of the offer.

Now, see? The Federation as a concept is fairly generic - it could be the League of Sovereign Planets, the Galactic Union, whatever. And the D'Agla are my own creation (though *after* I created them, I briefly thought that the story with Species 8472 might be headed in the same direction, until the Voyager writers neutered them as a threat). But the Borg are THE BORG. Yes, I could "create" a virtually identical transhumanist collective to use in the story - but it wouldn't carry the weight of revelation that this is what THE FREAKIN' BORG have become. Similarly, one of the founding species of my Super Galaxy Club could find joining that transhumanist group appealing. But who cares? That doesn't have the significance for the reader/viewer of it being VULCANS that are joining in large numbers.

You can say that this is because I'm not the best writer, so I'm having to borrow from others to sell the drama. I'll allow that that is possibly part of it. But the story without Trek also just isn't the story I want to tell.

If the people involved in these productions can make that break and still feel satisfied with the results, more power to them. I'll probably watch with envy.

 

[JRoss]

The only thing is that there can't be any series under the new rules, and no more appearances from veterans. If you want continuity and the actors you love, you've got do something new.

 

[CRM-114]

Really, the new rules force fan films to be what they say they are, as they were creeping closer and closer to the real thing, which gives birth to something like Axanar. In some peoples' minds, they were the real thing, and maybe that's where things started to go wrong.

 

[nx1701g]

Honestly I don't really think anything can be done. The rules are fair because Paramount and CBS do own Trek and are still letting fans play in their backyard when they don't have to let them. If too many provoke them it could go from bad to worst case. This takes fan film back to just that: fan films.

To paraphrase Q "Don't provoke the Borg!"

 

[Kor]

Instead of some generic new space opera setting, get name recognition by finding an IP that is now in the public domain, and do some world-building and development to turn it into a cooperative multi-media, multi-production project portfolio.

"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," for instance.

http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/?medium=film&genre=sci-fi

Kor

 

[Solarbaby]

Just make films for free download rather than streaming?

 

[Professor Zoom]

What about coming up with a brand new IP, one owned by a non-profit foundation, that allows people to make their own films and explore stories that hit some of the same beats as Star Trek.

Why does there need to be a shared universe?
Is this an opportunity for a filmmaker to create something of their own?

 

[CRM-114]

What can be done is that those who want to make fan films can abide by the guidelines and make the best possible film they can produce under the circumstances; those who cannot, can either not make films, or can ignore the guidelines and face any potential consequences from CBS/Paramount.

 

[uniderth]

Instead of some generic new space opera setting, get name recognition by finding an IP that is now in the public domain, and do some world-building and development to turn it into a cooperative multi-media, multi-production project portfolio.

"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," for instance.

http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/?medium=film&genre=sci-fi

Kor

Man, I'm already working on Rocky Jones Space Ranger: The Next Generation.

 

[fireproof78]

Hersey! Art can survive under limits!

 

[Professor Zoom]

Hersey! Art can survive under limits!

One can even argue, art THRIVES under limits.

 

[wamdue]

the rules have been set up to stop a certain kind of fan series, and that is one like a New Voayges or a Continues, something that strives to viewed as a proper web series, and obviously has some budget to it, no matter how small compared to an official one. This kind of series is a threat to their new web series, and could cause some legit confusion.

Yes art and fandom can still create little things, but these pocket book stories will never be the same, and without the ability to allow them to have some kind of recurring link between them, they are going to seem a little like the One Shot, fine but never really important.

There was a time when every TV series was making little mini web series, and if im honest they were rubbish, even Doctor Whos TARDISodes were unable to make me care. Dont get me wrong Turnabout Intruder by STC is great, but by itself and not as s set up to something greater its a little pointless. Same applies to Going Boldy, a lovely set up for a new series, but by itself a little pointless.

I dont think there is anything we can do, the rules have been made to do exactly what we all fear, and no amount sending pens (or other random thing) will change CBSs mind, they know we love the fan films, its part of why they created the rules.

I dont know if they can do something crazy, by making a mini when the ship falls into a black hole and that is the ending of Star Trek Continues, but the following week a new series starts, one devoid of Star Trek IP, it starts with a ship coming out of a black hole, with no idea who they are, and no idea everything around them has changed, officially its the story of a crew exploring a new universe with no idea who they are, becoming new people based on their new experiences, its just got the same cast as Continues had, and if some conspiracy nuts wanted to whisper it, this new series is actually a sequel to Continues.

The other crazy option, is that the Stark Trek Continues was never actually Star Trek, they just found themselves in the Trek universe for some reason knowing they had to play those roles, and now they are returned to their universe, they can be themselves again.

 

[fireproof78]

One can even argue, art THRIVES under limits.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The Star Trek fan films we made in the 1980s were only ever seen by the members of our local Trek club, or played live (and videotaped) at conventions.


Sale of the 23rd Century by Ian McLean, on Flickr

The fan films made in the 1970s were able to be seen only by fans with access to a Standard 8 movie projector.

 

[Warped9]

Firstly folks need to calm the hell down. It's tempting to immediately assume the sky is falling. But one has to remember "guidelines" were already existent previously yet all manner of fan productions were being made without CBS saying "boo."

The language of these so called "guidelines" is curiously vague. After all is said and done the only thing it states specifically is, "If you do this we promise you won't be sued." Yet curiously nowhere does it say specifically what they will do if you stray beyond said guidelines. And that is truly odd because more often than not lawyers love legalese that spells out what will happen if you break the rules.

These are guidelines, not rules.

Consider further. Previously every fan production in existence was already violating CBS/P's IP by their mere existence. Yet CBS/P said and did nothing. Their approach was "no harm, no foul." Keep your head down and play quietly.

Until Axanar.

What changed?

Because Alec Peters went beyond the modest scope that CBS/P could easily ignore. AP sought to set himself up as a for-profit competitor piggybacking on CBS/P's IP. He constantly boasted about producing a "professional" feature to rival official CBS/ P productions, constantly disparaged said productions and used donated funds to set himself up to profit financially rather than for what all other fan productions do with donated money: make the damned film (or episode or whatever). Axanar collected well over a million dollars and had nothing but a twenty minute trailer to show for it all the while setting up a studio for profit as well as selling merchandise and paying himself a salary.

Meanwhile every other fan production continued to do as promised: using collected funds to actually make the productions fans wanted and expected to see from them.

These "guidelines" are primarily to shut down Alec Peters. By strict interpretation and enforcement of these guidelines AP is blatantly guilty and hence is toast.

Meanwhile, after the dust has settled, what has changed?

Essentially nothing except a clear awareness of what not to do to get on CBS/P's bad side.

- don't seek to profit from someone else's IP.
- don't try to register and/or merchandise anything derived from that IP.
- don't promote yourself as anything officially connected to CBS/P's IP and productions.
- keep your aspirations modest and refrain from promoting yourself as a competitor to CBS/P.
- avoid feature film sized productions.
- keep your funding targets reasonably modest.
- respect those who support you and deliver on what you promise.

Essentially do what most everyone else was doing before while aware you could be shut down at any time...just like before.

While annoying for everyone else who has played nice AP has served to illustrate what will happen if you go too far. CBS/P has demostrated under what conditions they will go after you. And this in light of the fact they could have shut anyone and everyone else down immediately based on the mere existence of their individual productions yet chose not to.

Further clarification is likely forthcoming as some of the more prominant fan productions figure out where they stand and how they go forward if they so choose.

Then you go from there.

 

[Admiral2]

Essentially do what most everyone else was doing before while aware you could be shut down at any time...just like before.

"Hey don't worry! Just keep robbing the bank even though that cop just shot your partner! After all, he's never shot anybody before this moment, and it's not clear at all if he'll shoot again, cause he didn't say he'd shoot if you didn't stop! He just said put your hands behind your head and get on the ground! It's totally vague!"

WHAT???

Seriously, the guidelines aren't that vague. Just read them. The part about the time limits is especially clear. The only reason it seems vague is because everybody's trying to "change the conditions of the test." Your choices are dirt simple: Abide or Don't. Make trek fanfilms, or don't. To paraphrase a different fandom quote: "There is no 'vague.'" Do not assume that just because they nabbed AP they will go back to looking the other way for the rest of us just because they didn't spell out "we will sue you if you don't abide." AP was the example, not the sole target. Assume they will be much more vigilant from now on. The guidelines are their compromise.

Abide or don't.