If You Created a Cheap Star Trek Knockoff...

[Dukhat]

Facts as pertaining to what, exactly ? And making my fanfic with a ripoff character where, exactly ?

I mean, suppose I were a Chinese person, favoured by the Chinese government. So I create a derivative work. An American judge rules it to be a ripoff, a Chinese judge rules it to be an original work and not subject to copyright. Not much Amazon can do about that, ultimatelly. You can feel it's not righteous (and I personally would agree with that), but in the end there's probably very little you (or even Amazon) can do about it - unless China would be willing to cooperate for some greater good.

And if you object to me suddenly invoking China - the discussion was transnational to begin with, as it started about the 'nazi' stereotype.

I don't know how much clearer I can be about this subject: If you sell a product (and fanfic doesn't count unless you make money off of it re: Axanar) that contains someone else's copyrighted IP or something skirting the line, be prepared to deal with legal trouble (re: Axanar.)

For your Chinese example (and it's a good one, because the Chinese rip off American goods all the time), it would depend on whether the American company decides to bother dealing with it. I'm also a fan of Transformers, and Chinese companies produce third-party Transformers-based toys all the time, which is a clear violation of Hasbro's/Takara's IP. However, Hastak doesn't bother with it because the customer base for these things is so small that they aren't really losing any money from it, so they just tolerate it. But they certainly could put those Chinese companies down if they desired to, and they would have the legal right to do so.)

 

[uniderth]

Speaking of different countries. One option could be to find a country that doesn't recognize American copyright laws and straight up copy Star Trek.

 

[at Quark's]

"But they certainly could put those Chinese companies down"

Curious as to what that would mean, exactly , in the hypothetical circumstance the Chinese government would back them wholeheartedly, that is. I mean, sure, I could imagine them to have to pay such a huge fine that they would choose to end their "American wing" existence formally, but not sure what it would mean for their base in China, and if it could actually be affected that way.

However, for right now, I'm going to bed as it's 1 AM in my time zone, so no more replies from me for the first 8 hours or so. Thank you for the discussion.

 

[Dukhat]

It’s not really a government problem. The Chinese government has better things to do than deal with a Chinese toy company violating an American toy company’s IP, and having that American toy company go after them. The Chinese toy company, knowing they are clearly in the wrong, would just stop producing those toys under threat of legal action, then six months later reform as a different company and restart production. But honestly, again Hastak doesn’t bother with this stuff 99% of the time.

But someone here in the States making money off of someone else’s IP? (I’m looking at you, Alec Peters) That’s kind of a big deal.

 

[Tim Walker]

I have to wonder if some of you guys have even seen Axanar.

 

[Dukhat]

Why is that?

 

[F. King Daniel]

That's the part that seems fuzzy, though. If the name of the character was "John Smith", I would imagine that, copyright or not, you could use it in another work.
So, how is it delineated? Where is the line that makes naming a character "Luke Skywalker" a copyright violation, but not "John Smith"?

Real-life Trekxample: Jonathan Archer was going to be Jackson Archer until they discovered there was a real life guy with that name and changed it.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Real-life Trekxample: Jonathan Archer was going to be Jackson Archer until they discovered there was a real life guy with that name and changed it.

Yep. But IIRC, they could have gotten away with using "Jackson Archer" if there had been more than one real person with that name. But as that wasn't the case, well...

 

[at Quark's]

Yep. But IIRC, they could have gotten away with using "Jackson Archer" if there had been more than one real person with that name. But as that wasn't the case, well...

Perhaps this is a silly question, but am I to understand that because there was exactly one person actually with that name, it would have been a problem, and that for the name "Jonathan Archer" it wasn't, because there were either more than one (which I would guess) or none at all (seems very unlikely to me)?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Perhaps this is a silly question, but am I to understand that because there was exactly one person actually with that name, it would have been a problem, and that for the name "Jonathan Archer" it wasn't, because there were either more than one (which I would guess) or none at all (seems very unlikely to me)?

It's been almost 20 years since I read the original article, but I do remember that it was a case that there was just one guy named Jackson Archer at the time, but there were already several people named Jonathan Archer. There was some legalese about uniqueness or commonality that followed in the article, but the gist of it that i got was that the studio couldn't be sued by multiple real people named Jonathan Archer, whereas they could be by the one singular guy named Jackson Archer.

 

[at Quark's]

It's been almost 20 years since I read the original article, but I do remember that it was a case that there was just one guy named Jackson Archer at the time, but there were already several people named Jonathan Archer. There was some legalese about uniqueness or commonality that followed in the article, but the gist of it that i got was that the studio couldn't be sued by multiple real people named Jonathan Archer, whereas they could be by the one singular guy named Jackson Archer.

Ok, thank you. Pretty weird situation though that probably never was the intention of the laws that made this possible, if you ask me Anyway, as a studio I would in that case stick to quite common names, just to make sure I never run into that trap.

 

[F. King Daniel]

For whatever it's worth, Jackson Archer got a namedrop in a Trek novel (Captain's Peril, I think), presumably the authors saw those leaked casting sheets and tried to get the very first ENT reference in. There's a reference to Doctor Boyce being bounced on Jack Archer's knee when he was a baby.

 

[Tim Walker]

Regarding Prelude to Axanar.....

There was not even a token attempt to disguise it. It blatantly plagiarized Star Trek.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Regarding Prelude to Axanar.....

There was not even a token attempt to disguise it. It blatantly plagiarized Star Trek.

No it was transformative because they changed the nacelles on Kelvin Universe Federation ships slightly which made it okay to sell them as Axanar model kits

 

[C57D]

Regarding Prelude to Axanar.....

There was not even a token attempt to disguise it. It blatantly plagiarized Star Trek.

And looked like it was going to be a fitting return to the "Cage" era.
Just a shame that STD, the official network return (so called!) to the "Cage" era, didn't try harder to blatantly plagarise TOS............ just saying!

 

[Dukhat]

And looked like it was going to be a fitting return to the "Cage" era.
Just a shame that STD, the official network return (so called!) to the "Cage" era, didn't try harder to blatantly plagarise TOS............ just saying!

To be fair, there was a lot of upheaval before DSC premiered, and what we got was nothing like what was originally envisioned. That's quite different from one dude making his own fanfic film.

 

[F. King Daniel]

And looked like it was going to be a fitting return to the "Cage" era.
Just a shame that STD, the official network return (so called!) to the "Cage" era, didn't try harder to blatantly plagarise TOS............ just saying!

It's funny because those Kelvin Universe ships Axanar uses were derided heavily for not fitting into the continuity in 2009

 

[uniderth]

No it was transformative because they changed the nacelles on Kelvin Universe Federation ships slightly which made it okay to sell them as Axanar model kits

That makes perfect sense!

And looked like it was going to be a fitting return to the "Cage" era.
Just a shame that STD, the official network return (so called!) to the "Cage" era, didn't try harder to blatantly plagarise TOS............ just saying!

This comment receives my heartiest approval.

 

[C57D]

To be fair, there was a lot of upheaval before DSC premiered, and what we got was nothing like what was originally envisioned. That's quite different from one dude making his own fanfic film.

Just a shame that (for a good portion of ST fans) the fanfic film was closer to the spirit of TOS than the train wreck that STD gave us.
STD just seemed to me as let's get the fans interested by promising "Cage" era Prime universe, then deliver vaguely generic scifi with the ST name on it to draw in the existing fan base.
Yeah cynical I know - but just my opinion.

 

[C57D]

It's funny because those Kelvin Universe ships Axanar uses were derided heavily for not fitting into the continuity in 2009

I musta missed all that. They seem pretty TOS like to me.