OmahaStar
I've been thinking about your comments, and I want to say this: I have been working on a website about Star Trek Fan Films, and as a result, have developed a number of classifications for them. Phase II is what I call, "Professional not-for-profit" Star Trek. CEC and RFS do not make a profit on it due to copyright limitations, but the leaders of this group, including Cawley himself, are film and television professionals. Just as you would expect to get top quality health care in a not-for-profit hospital, you would expect to get quality Star Trek from Phase II. You might, however, not get ENOUGH of it. That is how I think about Phase II. Perhaps that will help.
I think this "not-for-profit" description might be a little misleading. It sounds like we are allowed to collect revenue--somehow--from these episodes as long as we don't collect any more than we actually spent in making the episodes. That is, it sounds like we can cover our costs as long as we don't net any
profit in the whole thing.
But that isn't the case. We aren't allowed to recover a cent. That's
gross income we are not allowed to make, not just
net income. So not only are we "not-for-profit," we are actually "not-for-any-kind-of-income-at-all-even-to-cover-our-expenses-in-making-the-episodes." Our top line must be zero, not just our bottom line.
We spend thousands of dollars to make these silly episodes. I didn't want it to be construed that we are somehow allowed to break even on the whole operation.
Thank you for that clarification. That was my original understanding, and some other fan film makers told me that that wasn't the case. Of course, you could both be right. It makes sense to me that Paramount would be a lot more worried about Phase II than some of these other operations most of which I would describe as enthusiastic, but not as professional. Also, Phase II is more of a black-and-white copyright franchise issue than some of the others.
When I first came to the Fan Film world, copyright issues were among the first to interest me, as I once was the president of an Intellectual Property group of young lawyers. Although your crew has made brief appearances in other fan films, most of them use primarily original characters. My familiarity with the storied history of Superman and Batman in the U.S. legal system tells me that Paramount would face a much tougher legal battle with other fan film makers than they would with a group producing TOS Trek with the original characters, who when aged turn into... glug glug glug (I'm drowning here, people...) the original cast members.
The real problem fan films face is this: As long as there is no money in it, there is no money to pay to protect their interests. Also, most fans would gladly give up making fan films if only Paramount would produce more Trek. So, without regard to the many reasons I think a case against Paramount would be winnable, most fans wouldn't want to win that case.
The community of Trek fans I know, which is the Trek Fan Lovers who work in real science and science education, (I come from a family where about half of us are doctors or scientists, and my friends are likewise inclined) was very disappointed by JJA Trek. My review of JJA Trek (Blog 211) reflects their views. In contrast, James Cawley responded something to the effect of "Trek is Back!".
My friends said,
"Trek is dead." We have been cheered up by some of the fan films, though.
The Warner Communications/DC Comics franchise about Superman was once very broad. In the late 1940s and early 1950s they shut down Captain Marvel who had a cape and flew based on copyright violation of Superman. But as time went by, more and more superheroes entered the comic book world, and by the 1980s and 1990s it was clear that that case would have gone the other way if brought then. Today, the Superman franchise rights are remarkably narrow. This, despite the fact that since Superman was first introduced at the end of the 1930s, not one month has gone by in which no professional Superman was produced. No argument exists for franchise abandonment.
The Stargate series uses a semi-military setting. Buck Rogers... well, you know more than I do... is space adventure. And what was really unique to Star Trek, the use of real projections about science and society, was completely absent from JJA Trek. What's more Paramount produced no Trek from 1969 until 1979, except for TAS for two years. Several fan films were produced at that time.
Frankly, if I represented Phase II I think I would win in court in the case of Paramount v Phase II. I would kill them against the other TOS time period fan films. I might be able to get the case against Star Trek: Aurora dismissed as not stating a cause of action. It's just that it would cost money, even if I volunteered my time, Phase II and the other fan films don't have the money.
I once worked on an antitrust case against the then-giant Eastman Kodak Company. I represented Berkey Film, less than 1 per cent of the US film market against Kodak's roughly 95 per cent. (most of the rest was Fugi). We won in court. We won on appeal. We lost Berkey, which went bankrupt anyway. I was not personally involved in a RICO case a group of blue collar workers brought against the Helmsley Real Estate empire, for defrauding them in the sale of low-end condos, but it was a case I had an interest in for legal reasons. Again, the blue collar workers kept winning, but in the end, the Helmsleys kept the lawsuit going and wouldn't settle, and it was the blue collar workers wound up in bankruptcy court. It doesn't really matter who is right when the combatants are not even, and even here where I think it's pretty clear that the only TOS Fan Trek Paramount has even the color of a case against is Phase II, I would never advise anyone, no matter how personally rich, to do the lawsuit. OK, If Bill Gates was a Phase II fan, I might reconsider...
Thank you for the clarification. I want to be clear, also, that I think your stuff is really wonderful, and there are those of us out here in non-costumed, non-convention-going Trekland who you never hear from and who love it. People who work in the development labs at Pharma companies. People who work in Math and Science departments at Universities. People who are doctors, engineers, and software developers. And science and math educators, too.
In fact, let me throw an idea at you. Have you ever considered developing a science education show for PBS based on TOS, and throwing that at both PBS and Paramount? Paramount might be more open to that than to just-for-fun fan films. NovaScienceNow did two TOS sequences this summer (green screens only, and yes, I pointed out that there was a real set in Fort Henry to Dr. Tyson, but he thought it would be too expensive to work out all the details with you and shoot up there). There might also be interest in funding a science education show based on TOS from NASA suppliers and the aerospace industry. Just a thought.
In the meanwhile, I hope your Buck Rogers project goes really well, and that you make some money out of it, and not just to cover your out-of-pocket costs.
Which I suppose is why I can't help obsessing about some way you could at least get your money back out of it, and hook Paramount on OKing the deal. It's probably as impossible as squaring a circle, but it's become a minor obsession of mine that it's JUST NOT FAIR that you do all that and they won't even let you just break even.
