But its so much easier to grant an "implicit license" - i.e. The Guidelines; than it is to actually carve out fully legal licensing, which probably costs a lot more time and money to enforce.
The only money involved is actually writing the license. (Not sure how much that would be, though. IANAL.) They're not legally obligated to enforce their copyrights, except where it could demonstrably reduce profits from the franchise and make them vulnerable to a stockholder lawsuit. Trademarks are a different story, but they'd have to defend those anyway, so there's no real difference in that regard.
Not to mention that legitimate licensee's would get pissed that fan films suddenly have real standing.
It's possible that they may have existing licensing obligations that prevent them from doing a fan license, and in that situation, the licensee with the agreement might take a dim view of it. However, if that's not the case, I doubt most licensees would care unless there was something in the fan license that really rubbed them the wrong way. So long as CBS doesn't sue anyone, it really doesn't matter to the licensees if fan films get made with or without a license. Any effects would be the same, and I doubt a licensee could sue on CBS's behalf.
The Guidelines work because all CBS is doing is acknowledging that, legally speaking, you have a safe-haven from enforcement.
I wouldn't make that statement without advice from a copyright lawyer. Near as I can tell, there's no covenant not to sue.
But in theory they can yank the rug at any time with zero repercussions.
Exactly.
Although TBH, I'd prefer if they'd relax the run-time and "series" requirements to be a little looser.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, I think this is the single biggest problem with the Guidelines.
You'll see in a moment...
And who is defining "proper"?
We both know the definition of that word is irrelevant to the context. It's an attempt to somehow "win" an argument by changing the topic and feigning outrage about how I'm somehow trying to impose my will of what is "proper" on everyone else.
But it is about the bottom line. Because 15,000 people donated to Axanar. Millions paid to see Beyond. That shows what people would rather see.
The problem is that "people" isn't the same in both contexts. The people who even knew about Axanar are diehard fans who probably already watch fan films. The people who watched Beyond are potentially everyone who say the massive advertising blitz for the movie, and could include people who don't even consider themselves fans but wanted to see the movie for any number of reasons. Thus, the people who had sufficient knowledge that would allow them to choose whether or not to contribute to Axanar are not the same number that knew about Beyond and had a choice to see the movie. If you start with smaller numbers of people who know about something, you're not going to get the same number of people buying into it even if the films are both equally good in the eyes of the people who pay for them. This is what I was trying to explain to Professor Zoom. There's no way to do a direct comparison that has any statistical validity. You're comparing two wildly different demographics as if they were the same.
Here's a hypothetical scenario to help you wrap your brains around this: What if Axanar would actually appeal more to a general audience than to fans who watch fan films? What if the percentage of Star Trek fan film watchers that actually donated under-represents what the interest would be if the general public had the same awareness of it as they did with Star Trek Beyond? (Keep in mind, this is a thought exercise. I'm not stating unequivocally that most people would prefer one over the other.)
When the audience is that small, why in God's name would a big corporation like CBS care?
First of all, CBS's policies regarding fan films don't just cover one film. You have to consider them in the aggregate, because all fan films are impacted.
Second, keep in mind that people who do watch fan films are more likely to also be involved in other aspects of fandom. Alienating your most diehard fans can result in a
knock-on effect that creates greater harm to the franchise than if the same number of random people simply decided not to watch. Those fans may also migrate to the fandoms of competing properties that take eyeballs away from the franchise. They may even start such properties themselves.
So I don't think CBS knows how damaging what they're doing really is, in part because I don't think it's necessarily easy to calculate. From an economics standpoint, I'd be surprised if anyone has even done serious research. It's basically uncharted territory.
