According to the lawyers representing Axanar Productions, the project was meant as a mockumentary, and did not, therefore, infringe upon Star Trek and did not financially harm the studios. “Prelude (and potentially Axanar) uses a unique ‘mockumentary’ style previously unused in plaintiffs’ works to tell an original story,” said Erin Ranahan, the lawyer representing Axanar Productions. “A ‘mockumentary’ has been defined on Wikipedia as a ‘parody.'”
Oh, for the love of all that's holy.....
Okay, let's look at what Wiki says: "A
mockumentary (a
portmanteau of mock and documentary) or
docucomedy is a
type of film or television show in which fictional events are presented in documentary style to create a
parody."
As you may know, a portmanteau is a blending of words to make a new word, e.g., "Brexit" (edit: fixed typo). The second part of "mockumentary" is a documentary, which is a movie or TV show that provides a factual record of historic events.
But let's look up the first part of the work, "mock". This is defined as either a verb meaning "tease or laugh at in a scornful or contemptuous manner," or as an adjective meaning "not authentic or real, but without the intention to deceive."
I would submit to you that "Prelude To Axanar" (and presumably the full Axanar movie) is neither of these. It was a scripted film telling a serious story set in the Star Trek universe. It was not humorous (on a whole, albeit there may have been a few funny moments) poking fun at Star Trek nor was is scornful or contemptuous of Trek. Ergo, it does not fit the definition of "mock" the verb. As to the adjective, they painstakingly copied every detail of the original Star Trek look-&-feel that to a casual observer it could easily be mistaken for the real thing. Based on that, I would submit that there WAS an intention to deceive. Further, one only has to listen to / read Alec Peters' own words regarding his desire to "make Star Trek better than how CBS does it." Therefore, I do not believe that it fits the definition of "mock" the adjective. Indeed, I would suggest that "counterfeit", rather than "mock", is a better description for Prelude To Axanar.
Based on that analysis, I emphatically reject Mr. Peters / Ms. Ranahan's assertion that Axanar is a "mockunetary".
However, I would be remiss if I did not consider the sub-category of "mockuentaries", according to Wikipedia, that being the "docufiction". Again, I would say that Prelude To Axanar is obviously NOT a "docucomedy"; it was done as a serious story-telling film, not a lampoon such as Charlie Chaplin's portrayal of Hitler in The Great Dictator. But what is a "docufiction"?
Well, it depends on which web site you look to for the definition. Some sites talk of it as a type of "docudrama" that allows too much fiction in as to cloud factual historic events. For example, the TV movie "Churchill's Secret" was considered a docudrama as it stayed true to the important facts even while combining several real-life persons into one fictional character, the nurse, and may have sensationalize much of the dialog. To the contrary, TV shows such as Ice Road Truckers and Alaskan Bush People were panned as docufiction because too many of the "events" simply never happened as shown on the screen.
Wikipedia offers a different definition of a docufiction, to wit: "
Docufiction, often confused with docudrama, is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or cinéma vérité) and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression. More precisely, it is a documentary contaminated with fictional elements, in real time, filmed when the events take place, and in which someone – the character – plays his own role in real life. A film genre in expansion, it is adopted by a number of experimental filmmakers."
Once again, Prelude To Axanar did not fit in the first definition, and I do not see how it fits into the Wikipedia definition. If someone can explain to my how it does, great, but until then I personally don't think it does.
Now then, and this is very important, one thing I was looking for and did not find anywhere is any site that lists a definition of "docufiction" as: A fictional story set in a format to impersonate a documentary-style depiction of fictional "historical events".
Given that is not a definition of "docufiction" (and I wonder what that would be called), I firmly conclude that Prelude To Axanar is -NOT- a docufiction or any other type of mockumentary. It does not fit any definition of "parody", and thus not protected under Fair Use clause of copyright law. My ruling would be in favor of the plaintiffs.
