What If: Voting on which fan films are officially canon

[Pindar]

What is the scenario where you're currently having fun now that wouldn't exist under the system I'm proposing?

I forget now, do I need to form a quango or a quorum to draw up my response?

 

[Balok's Decoy]

BTW, if voting is a Bandwagon fallacy, isn't one person making the same decision an Appeal to Authority?


I'd have to take your word for it. I honestly wouldn't know. Seems like an Ad Hominem attack, though.


Trademark law. I suspect there may not be a trademark on Sherlock Holmes (at least not related to TV and movies, although merchandise is a different matter), but someone can file for a trademark on "Sherlock Holmes: Miami Vice". (Assuming the trademark on "Miami Vice" has lapsed. Come to think of it, "Sherlock Holmes: Alien Hunter" would have been a better example in this case. Trademarks are tricky.) The non-profit organization governing the community canon would hold all relevant trademarks. All trademarks not related to branding ("Captain Kirk", "Klingons", et cetera) would be automatically licensed to fan films, regardless of canonicity, so long as the films identify themselves as fan films. Branding would be reserved for canon works so that they may be distinguished from other works. Decanonized works are grandfathered.


No one has (or rather, will have in 2023) the copyrights to Sherlock Holmes, not derivative works produced by fans. They'll likely have copyright on their works for 95 years. Also, someone can file for a trademark on "Sherlock Holmes: Miami Vice" (assuming there isn't already a trademark on "Miami Vice", but lets say there isn't)


A) It's easily understood and explained because all submissions would be available from a central source and all documentation of canon would be available from the same source. Just go to the non-profit's Web site, watch the episodes/films and read the canon documentation. That's actually easier than what we have with Star Trek now.

B) The non-profit organization has the power to enforce trademarks and to enforce copyright on behalf of the submitters. People falsely using continuity branding can be sued.


How is it any less hobbled than it is now?
Can you have your fan film accepted into Star Trek canon? No.
Can you make a fan film as long as a Star Trek episode without potentially being sued? No.
Can you create a fan series without being sued? No.

My system doesn't require fan films to be canon. The only real requirement is that they post a simple disclaimer that it's a fan film and that the work does not reflect the views of the governing non-profit, similar to the disclaimer in the current Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines. In ever other respect, my system is less restrictive. Yet because you have the option of making your fan film canon, which you didn't have before at all, it's more creatively restrictive because...???


What is the scenario where you're currently having fun now that wouldn't exist under the system I'm proposing?

It is not a fallacy that CBS and Paramount determine the canon. They hold the copyright and it is their intellectual property. They literally can do whatever they want with it because it belongs to them. It's not a fallacy to say the owner of a thing decides what to do with it. If Stephen King says Pennywise is a clown and I say it's a monkey, it's not an appeal to authority fallacy for you to say, no, Stephen King wrote it and he said it's a clown. Otherwise, what the hell is anything?

Having a group of fans determine canon based on "quality", on what they think is "good" that day, is bandwagoning. I was guilty of this myself when the first two Kelvin Timeline movies came out. I didn't want to like them because THE FANS didn't like them and not liking them made you a better fan. Of course I didn't think of it that way consciously, it was a subconscious bias, a bandwagon fallacy, but it did warp my perception of those films for a long time. And this kind of thinking is really what a fan committee is. Proposing that canon should be based on quality is just saying canon should be what a nebulous We think is Good. It's saying the only things that actually happen in Star Trek are the things a small cadre of fans say are "good". That's just so bonkers.

And here I go again! Dragged back into this pointless debate. I'll see myself out.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I'm still unclear of the problem trying to be solved. Especially when there would be multiple committees for multiple continuities. How thin do you keep slicing? If every new continuity gets a new committee doesn't that defeat their reason to exist in the first place?

Would each individual committee hold the copyright or would a different one hold all of them? Would the committee buy the trademark from the originator?

And what about copyright? Anything original in my Sherlock Holmes: Alien Hunter would be copyrighted by the creator. Would the committee buy that from the creator? Would they expect the creator to just donate it?

What if it became profitable? What if this public domain IP started getting views on YouTube? Started making money? Who gets the money?

Alan Moore used public domain characters in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen....

 

[Matthew Raymond]

I forget now, do I need to form a quango or a quorum to draw up my response?

You joke, but your comment suggests you think films need prior approval under my system. They do not. Canon is a matter of recognition by the community. It doesn't stop you from creating whatever film you want.

It is not a fallacy that CBS and Paramount determine the canon. They hold the copyright and it is their intellectual property. They literally can do whatever they want with it because it belongs to them. It's not a fallacy to say the owner of a thing decides what to do with it. If Stephen King says Pennywise is a clown and I say it's a monkey, it's not an appeal to authority fallacy for you to say, no, Stephen King wrote it and he said it's a clown. Otherwise, what the hell is anything?

There's no disagreement here, and there never was.

Having a group of fans determine quality based on what they think is "good" that day is bandwagoning.

I think the possibility of this is overblown. The process lasts several months, the problems a particular submission would cause for existing canon would be well documented and publicly available, and the vote would be by secret ballot, so no intimidation would be possible at the time of the vote.

And they don't decide if it's "good". They decide if it belongs in canon, which is not the same thing. A film where the crew of the Enterprise are granted immortality and Captain Kirk becomes Santa Clause for the entire galaxy may be the greatest film every made, but you probably wouldn't want it to be canon.

Quick nitpick: bandwagoning is not the same as a bandwagon fallacy. The act of me blindly accepting the views of my peers would be bandwagoning. The act of you telling me that I should change my views because of the views of my peers is a bandwagon fallacy. A situation where I logically evaluate the views of my peers and change my mind as a result is just me changing my mind.

I was guilty of this myself when the first two Kelvin Timeline movies came out. I didn't want to like them because THE FANS didn't like them and not liking them made you a better fan. Of course I didn't think of it that way consciously, it was a subconscious bias, [bandwagoning], but it did warp my perception of those films for a long time.

Why are we to assume that a single copyright holder is not susceptible to bandwagoning by fans?

Also, I should note that I've been calling the voters "fans", but in reality anyone who's willing to register could vote. Perhaps that's an issue. Perhaps people from one large community might sign up to vote for a rival community's canon and use superior numbers to subvert that canon. In that case, it might make more sense for the people voting to be people who have submitted content rather than the general public. I'm not sure I like that as much, though. Another solution would be that you have to contribute an annual fee to vote. That way, even if you get flooded with trolls, they're at least contributing in some fashion. Don't know. Hmmm...

And this kind of thinking is really what a fan committee is. Proposing that canon should be based on quality is just saying canon should be what a nebulous We think is Good. What happens is what is good. That's what I mean.

I can understand where you're coming from (even if I think your characterization is a big misleading), but let me put it to you this was. You're basically making an argument about the frailty of human judgment. Why would reducing the number of people involved to the number you can fit in a phone booth result in less snobbery and better canon?

 

[urbandefault]

How is it any less hobbled than it is now?
Can you have your fan film accepted into Star Trek canon? No.
Can you make a fan film as long as a Star Trek episode without potentially being sued? No.
Can you create a fan series without being sued? No.

And you can't change it, even though you seem to really want to.

My system doesn't require fan films to be canon. The only real requirement is that they post a simple disclaimer that it's a fan film and that the work does not reflect the views of the governing non-profit, similar to the disclaimer in the current Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines. In ever other respect, my system is less restrictive. Yet because you have the option of making your fan film canon, which you didn't have before at all, it's more creatively restrictive because...???

Your system doesn't do anything, because it doesn't exist.

Canon is a matter of recognition by the community.

Nope.

 

[BillJ]

Nope.

Canon has nothing to do with the community. It is just a baseline that creators of official material follow, sometimes. Canon seems to have become a straightjacket for some folks.

The Star Trek fan community has no right to dictate what is official and should be followed anymore than the Camaro fan community has to dictate to GM what should go into the next model.

 

[Firebird]

I think the possibility of this is overblown. The process lasts several months, the problems a particular submission would cause for existing canon would be well documented and publicly available, and the vote would be by secret ballot, so no intimidation would be possible at the time of the vote.

And they don't decide if it's "good". They decide if it belongs in canon, which is not the same thing. A film where the crew of the Enterprise are granted immortality and Captain Kirk becomes Santa Clause for the entire galaxy may be the greatest film every made, but you probably wouldn't want it to be canon.

When did this turn into a Monty Python satire? Next, you'll be telling me that William Shatner will need to appeal to the council in order to get royalties from any official material that's been banished from canon during Axa-Vatican II.

 

[BillJ]

Axa-Vatican II

Pope Garth?

 

[Firebird]

Pope Garth?

Blessings and sushi be upon you.

 

[Matthew Raymond]

Another solution would be that you have to contribute an annual fee to vote. That way, even if you get flooded with trolls, they're at least contributing in some fashion. Don't know. Hmmm...

I retract this. Non-profits shouldn't accept fees like this. I think the best solution would be to allow all contributors to the project to vote, but allow contributing simple stuff, like a song or a blueprint, so the burden isn't too high.

I'm still unclear of the problem trying to be solved. Especially when there would be multiple committees for multiple continuities. How thin do you keep slicing? If every new continuity gets a new committee doesn't that defeat their reason to exist in the first place?

You could say the same thing about open source. If anyone can fork an open source project, wouldn't everything just splinter into a thousand pieces? In reality, that doesn't happen because people would get tired of maintaining a project where they're the only ones working on it. There tends to be only one or two major projects, and the rest are either niche projects or they atrophy and disappear.

True, there are hundreds of Linux distributions, but they're usually based on only a handful of major projects, and an OS is made out of thousands of smaller projects. If you look at how many people are using each distribution, however, you notice that there are basically a handful of major distros with the vast majority if the users.

In other words, proliferation of canon communities is a problem that basically solves itself.

Would each individual committee hold the copyright or would a different one hold all of them? Would the committee buy the trademark from the originator?

The creator always holds the copyright. The canon organization would require the copyright holder submitting their content to license the content to the community (and possibly grant them the right to sue on their behalf, but I haven't decided that yet). I'm thinking that license would be copyleft and possibly non-commercial in nature, but I'm open to arguments on this.

And what about copyright? Anything original in my Sherlock Holmes: Alien Hunter would be copyrighted by the creator. Would the committee buy that from the creator? Would they expect the creator to just donate it?

The creator would have to agree to license it, but they would retain the actual copyright.

What if it became profitable? What if this public domain IP started getting views on YouTube? Started making money? Who gets the money?

Good question. If we assume a strict rule of non-commercial projects, then no one earns a profit.If we all profit, any submissions would still require the copyright holder to grant a license to the community, and that may limit how they can profit from their content. I'm not sure how worried about this I am. I don't have a problem with people who have a legal license to a property using that license to produce a commercial product. This is not what happened with Axanar. My understand is that they never had a license to begin with, among many other problems.

At any rate, I'm open to opinions on this matter. Assuming proper licensing, is commercial fan fiction something we want to discourage?

 

[BillJ]

...is commercial fan fiction something we want to discourage?

Absolutely. Commercial and fan fiction don't belong in the same realm. But then neither does fan fiction and canon.

 

[Firebird]

The creator always holds the copyright. The canon organization would require the copyright holder submitting their content to license the content to the community (and possibly grant them the right to sue on their behalf, but I haven't decided that yet). I'm thinking that license would be copyleft and possibly non-commercial in nature, but I'm open to arguments on this.

The creator would have to agree to license it, but they would retain the actual copyright.

I truly think you don't understand how copyright works. The rights holder is the one that grants licenses to third parties, not the other way around.

 

[Campe]

I am so confused as to what's going on in this thread. Apparently, the OP wants singular groups to decide upon the canonicity of fan films but there can be hundreds of these "canon groups" who decide what goes in their own "canon?" Am I getting that right?

Because its a terrible idea when it comes to policing the copyright of any property, it creates billions of permutations of "canon" which will confuse the living crap out of people who visit these "canon groups" and a whole lot of unnecessary competition and conflict in Star Trek fandom where we really need to be bringing everyone together following the Axanar suit.

But... at least canon was spelled correctly.

 

[Matthew Raymond]

I truly think you don't understand how copyright works. The rights holder is the one that grants licenses to third parties, not the other way around.

Licenses can and often do allow sublicensing with specific limitations. That's how open source licenses work. Something like the Linux kernel would be impossible without sublicensing.

Absolutely. Commercial and fan fiction don't belong in the same realm. But then neither does fan fiction and canon.

Commercial books are released all the time, and many of those are written by people who consider themselves "fans" of the franchise, and they aren't canon.

I am so confused as to what's going on in this thread. Apparently, the OP wants singular groups to decide upon the canonicity of fan films but there can be hundreds of these "canon groups" who decide what goes in their own "canon?" Am I getting that right?

Yes, although they don't get the trademarks or the infrastructure that the original group had. In practice, most splinter communities would end up dying out and can be safely ignored for all practical purposes.

Because its a terrible idea when it comes to policing the copyright of any property, it creates billions of permutations of "canon" which will confuse the living crap out of people who visit these "canon groups" and a whole lot of unnecessary competition and conflict in Star Trek fandom where we really need to be bringing everyone together following the Axanar suit.

Only one entity would hold the trademark for "Star Trek", so there would be no confusion. Other communities would have to use their own branding. Most people would just see those communities as knock offs, and the license for Trek content would require attribution (and a disclaimer if they use non-branding trademarks).

 

[urbandefault]

Only one entity would hold the trademark for "Star Trek", so there would be no confusion.

One entity already holds the trademarks and copyrights for Star Trek: CBS. There seems to be some confusion about that on your part.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I retract this. Non-profits shouldn't accept fees like this. I think the best solution would be to allow all contributors to the project to vote, but allow contributing simple stuff, like a song or a blueprint, so the burden isn't too high.


You could say the same thing about open source. If anyone can fork an open source project, wouldn't everything just splinter into a thousand pieces? In reality, that doesn't happen because people would get tired of maintaining a project where they're the only ones working on it. There tends to be only one or two major projects, and the rest are either niche projects or they atrophy and disappear.

True, there are hundreds of Linux distributions, but they're usually based on only a handful of major projects, and an OS is made out of thousands of smaller projects. If you look at how many people are using each distribution, however, you notice that there are basically a handful of major distros with the vast majority if the users.

In other words, proliferation of canon communities is a problem that basically solves itself.


The creator always holds the copyright. The canon organization would require the copyright holder submitting their content to license the content to the community (and possibly grant them the right to sue on their behalf, but I haven't decided that yet). I'm thinking that license would be copyleft and possibly non-commercial in nature, but I'm open to arguments on this.


The creator would have to agree to license it, but they would retain the actual copyright.


Good question. If we assume a strict rule of non-commercial projects, then no one earns a profit.If we all profit, any submissions would still require the copyright holder to grant a license to the community, and that may limit how they can profit from their content. I'm not sure how worried about this I am. I don't have a problem with people who have a legal license to a property using that license to produce a commercial product. This is not what happened with Axanar. My understand is that they never had a license to begin with, among many other problems.

At any rate, I'm open to opinions on this matter. Assuming proper licensing, is commercial fan fiction something we want to discourage?

As the copyright holder, would I have to license my creation in order to get the stamp of canon? Or could I still get the committees approval without giving out a liscense?

Could I charge a fee to license my creation? Or would I have to give it away for free?

 

[Campe]

Yes, although they don't get the trademarks or the infrastructure that the original group had. In practice, most splinter communities would end up dying out and can be safely ignored for all practical purposes.

Only one entity would hold the trademark for "Star Trek", so there would be no confusion. Other communities would have to use their own branding. Most people would just see those communities as knock offs, and the license for Trek content would require attribution (and a disclaimer if they use non-branding trademarks).

I respect the fact that you have passion for this vision but the most polite thing I can say would be: As conceived, it will never work.

The Axanar suit has proven that CBS will only allow people playing in their universe under certain conditions. And this? This is so complicated and convoluted that CBS would take one look at your proposal and show you the door. I'm not trying to be rude here. But no matter how you slice this, the idea comes off of trying to play in CBS' sandbox and legitamizing those players more than they had to in a post-Axanar world.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Which fan films are officially canon? NONE
Which should be canon? NONE

 

[Steve Roby]

Commercial books are released all the time, and many of those are written by people who consider themselves "fans" of the franchise, and they aren't canon.

If you're implying that official tie-in novels are in any way like fanfic, you're wrong. And if you're not, I don't know what it is that you actually are trying to say. Licenced novels are written by professional writers who have been contracted to deliver a particular book that both the publishing company's editor and the copyright holder's licencing people approve of. The books go through a pretty serious editing and approvals process. They're not canon, but it they are official.

 

[Steve Roby]

So, I said "The only canon that has meaning and practical purpose is one that's (a) easily understood and explained and (b) enforced by someone who has the power to enforce it," and this was the response:

A) It's easily understood and explained because all submissions would be available from a central source and all documentation of canon would be available from the same source. Just go to the non-profit's Web site, watch the episodes/films and read the canon documentation. That's actually easier than what we have with Star Trek now.

B) The non-profit organization has the power to enforce trademarks and to enforce copyright on behalf of the submitters. People falsely using continuity branding can be sued.

A) The current situation is that the TV series and movies are canon and nothing else is. That's actually easier than any council of canon. You want to know if something's canon? Is it a TV episode or movie from CBS or Paramount called some variation of Star Trek? No? Not canon. Period. No documentation needed. No nonprofit organization needed. No website needed. Simple and straightforward.

B) Canon has nothing to do with copyright or trademarks. Case in point: the licenced novels. They are copyrighted by CBS. They use CBS trademarks with CBS's permission. They are not canon. Because, once again, canon has nothing to do with copyright or trademarks.