Well said, all. I assume Mr. Jenkins gets some form of royalties checks, at least on occasion, from creative works he's participated in (comics, etc).
I'm sure now he's more than happy to sign those checks over to AP or really anyone (how 'bout Meghan Markle although I understand she does not need the cash). Or perhaps he would prefer that those checks were smaller.
Because that's what happens when copyright violations occur and they
aren't litigated. The $$ get diverted to knockoff merch and pale imitations of the real IP. CBS and Paramount have been
exceptionally generous with all of this because they sure as hell didn't have to be. They could've just said, screw this, we're not dealing with it again, no more fan films.
Instead, they concentrated far more on the profit-making aspects of the production they sued - and the productions they were perhaps considering suing (I'm looking at
you,
Renegades). The guidelines mainly address these issues.
So! For the cheap seats:
Mr. Jenkins, don't say you didn't know. Don't say you were never warned.
- Copyright holders have the right to go after any violations, at any time, and in any pattern. They can go after all but one violator, or just one violator, or mix and match on alternate Thursdays. The laws of the United States (and a lot of international treaty stuff, too, I might add) do not give a damn.
- This is not like trademark, which must be quickly and zealously defended.
- Intellectual property is property just like your car, your dog (woof), and your house in Dubuque. It can be sold and it can be inherited.
- However, it's got rights and potential licensing arrangements baked into it which Fido and your condo do not have. There are rights to certain degrees of copying under certain circumstances. Much like a person who makes Eiffel Tower statues doesn't own that iconic structure, neither do the people who copy IP, even if they have the license to do so. Ownership is different from licenses. But I am getting off track here. Axa never had a license and no fan production ever will. That's not a hard prediction, BTW. Fan films won't get licensure because the IP holder is protective of their property.
- Licensing goes to makers who demonstrate a lot of things to the IP holder. Yes, the IP holder has been tone deaf at times. Consider the kids' Spock helmet. But licensing is another piece of property. And it's not a cheap one.
- For an IP holder to take money for licenses with one hand and give away a license for free to another entity with the other would cause a cascade of lawsuits. Because licensing agreements are essentially contracts, paid for with consideration (AKA moolah) in exchange for the permission to make and sell a product and not be sued. ANOVOS is a great example.
- Fair use is a means of circumventing the licensing situation but it's got pretty clear rules. Axa tried to muddy those rules and Judge Gary Klausner was having none of that. Fair use rules are, in a nutshell:
- Educational use is cool. For-profit use generally is not. If use is more for-profit than educational, then forget it, it's not fair use. That's the purpose and character test.
- Small usages can be cool. A page out of a thousand page-long book is probably cool. 973 pages out of that same book won't be. That's the substantiality test.
- If the copied item is public, then the copied usage is more likely to be cool. This is because first publication rights are pretty damned valuable, and content creators deserve to unfetteredly own them. This is the nature of the work test.
- If the copied work isn't sold but it prevents licensed products from being purchased (i. e. it diminishes the market for the legit goods), then that's not cool. If the copier makes an effort to confuse the public with the knockoffs and go after the market for the legit goods, then that's not cool, either. That's the effect on the market (AKA market harm) test. See: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/
- Axa fails on all four of these. But don't take my word for it. Klausner said that.
- The work was unabashedly for profit. If you don't think the donor store was anything but a store, then I've got a bridge I've been dying to sell you.
- The usage was substantial. While Star Trek itself is a large, sprawling property, the wholesale use of races, scenes, story lines, characters, and planets was substantial.
- Of course Star Trek is a public work, and in myriad forms.
- And Axa was presented enthusiastically to its supporters as "the one true Trek" with AP as "the keeper of the faith", and it was all framed as a professional alternative to the Kelvin timeline films. The production's staff kept sowing the seeds of discontent and downright anger with the Kelvin timeline - until Justin Lin and JJ Abrams opened their traps without thinking and (highly likely) without explicit permission to do so. See: https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...-09938-CD-CA-2016-01.html#document/p4/a333686
- And I haven't even gotten to the boondoggle of a studio. The 'studio' in California was a rental which:
- Was started with donor funds
- Rather than making the film
- And rather than sending out perks owed during crowdfunding campaigns
- And was intended as the endgame to become a for-profit venture for future non-Trek productions and even Trek fan films - for a price, of course.
- And I haven't even gotten to the tires, restaurant meals (sushi, anyone?), cell phones and cellular service, union dues and fees for SAG-AFTRA, health insurance, and trips which were also (it's in the court documents, folks) paid for:
- With donor funds
- Rather than making the film
- And rather than sending out perks owed during crowdfunding campaigns
- And were intended to create a semi-lavish lifestyle for the infringers in order to attract even more donor funds.
- And I haven't even gotten to the salaries yet, which were:
- Obvious profits from donor funds and demonstrated an obvious surplus of funds
- Not used to make the film
- But rather to make it so the inner circle didn't have to look for actual employment like the rest of us peasants
- And it was not used to send out perks owed during crowdfunding campaigns
- And I haven't even gotten to the threats to detractors, the attempts to shape and control the narrative, the creation of talking points (for a goddamned fan film!), and the continued beating of the donor drum. Props to @muCephi for mentioning those.
I have every single one of the court documents. I paid for them and have no qualms about handing over copies. I know a lot of people with screenshots (which they will be only too glad to dig out and supply), plus there's the Wayback Machine. I haven't written
anything which can't be independently verified.
So Mr. Jenkins, is this what you want to be associated with? Because if you do, after all of this information, then you will, sir, deserve whatever agita, ridicule, and perhaps even legal action, that you get.
