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CBS banned the use of the name "Starfleet"

ralph

ralph

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
Frota Estelar Brasil (Starfleet Brasil) fan club held a convention in São Paulo last Saturday (08) and brought news about the Discovery series. But surprising news was released at the end of the event: CBS contacted the group and banned the use of the name "Starfleet" from now on. Now CBS are going to tell me that I can´t use the name starship or starbase or Federation.
This can happen with any fan club.
 
Starfleet Brazil has been called Frota Estelar Brasil since its foundation in 1989. At the time, according to Luiz Navarro, president of the club, there was a gentleman's agreement between them and Paramount Pictures for the use of the name. But now CBS owns the rights to Star Trek. The Starfleet name remained "forgotten" during that time, it has never called attention to CBS executives, until now.
 
HerbFlynn said:
Did CBS Trademark the term "Starfleet"?
Click to expand...
In a Forum, I found an interesting comment:
I don't think they can copyright just the word starfleet. The term has been around before the original Star Trek series from books and stuff. Now if your version of starfleet also has the likeness of Star Trek's the similarities are what will get you. Besides there are many, many instances where titles have been duplicated. Copyright is about protecting creative ideas and whole works. Not just a word. Now maybe they have patented the word...
If you want to be safe maybe just break the word into two. There is no way anybody can own "star fleet".
 
Has anyone double checked with CBS on this? Seems odd to me. There has got to be pleanty of clubs that actually use "Star Trek" in their names, yet CBS goes after one using "Starfleet"?
 
Nerys Myk said:
Has anyone double checked with CBS on this? Seems odd to me. There has got to be pleanty of clubs that actually use "Star Trek" in their names, yet CBS goes after one using "Starfleet"?
Click to expand...
Here's Starfleet Brasil's site, which I translated into English for those of us not quite bilinguals: https://translate.google.com/transl.../tag/frota-estelar-brasil/&edit-text=&act=url

Apparently, according to the site, Starfleet Brasil took a 13 year hiatus, and when they started up a new convention this year, CBS, the new owner of Star Trek, contacted them and said they could use the term "Starfleet" one more time for this convention, but then no more. They then went on to say that CBS has been on a witch hunt since the lawsuit against Axanar, and that it's stifling fan creativity.

From what I gather, Starfleet Brasil is still Starfleet Brasil, but their conventions can't be called Starfleet conventions. So they changed the name to Starcon, and the latest convention will be called The Phoenix. In other words, it wasn't about their name at all, but that they called the conventions Starfleet conventions, which could most definitely confuse people. Again, assuming this is all true.
 
Treadwell said:
FASA was licensed. Perhaps you're thinking of Star Fleet Battles?
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Star Fleet Battles (SFB) also has a license deal, or at least some sort of biding contract. But, yes, somewhere in that contract, or perhaps as a later amendment, ADB was told they must use the two-word version Star Fleet and not Starfleet.

Back to the original post, with no information other than this thread, I would suspect the group was told that can't use "Starfleet" as part of naming the convention until and unless the sign a license with CBS. They have a vested interest in keeping conventions that use they name "official" to avoid much greater problems that can arise from unsanctioned conventions, such as black-market sales bootlegged videos and fake props.
 
Last edited:
Coloratura said:
Here's Starfleet Brasil's site, which I translated into English for those of us not quite bilinguals: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.trekbrasilis.org/tag/frota-estelar-brasil/&edit-text=&act=url

Apparently, according to the site, Starfleet Brasil took a 13 year hiatus, and when they started up a new convention this year, CBS, the new owner of Star Trek, contacted them and said they could use the term "Starfleet" one more time for this convention, but then no more. They then went on to say that CBS has been on a witch hunt since the lawsuit against Axanar, and that it's stifling fan creativity.

From what I gather, Starfleet Brasil is still Starfleet Brasil, but their conventions can't be called Starfleet conventions. So they changed the name to Starcon, and the latest convention will be called The Phoenix. In other words, it wasn't about their name at all, but that they called the conventions Starfleet conventions, which could most definitely confuse people. Again, assuming this is all true.
Click to expand...

Besides this, there was a payment of an entrance fee in this convention. I don´t know if it has to do with the banning.
 
ralph said:
Besides this, there was a payment of an entrance fee in this convention. I don´t know if it has to do with the banning.
Click to expand...

If money is changing hands and CBS/Paramount IP is what's making the sale, then I'd say that's exactly why CBS said Starfleet Brasil couldn't use the one-word version to promote their convention. Remember the cardinal rule: you cannot make profits off of CBS intellectual property.
 
I boggles my mind that people just think it's cool to make money off things you do not own and have not licensed in any way............then cry about picking on the little guy. Little guy seems to be a pick pocket in most cases.
 
Yeah. If this is about naming your convention using CBS IP, I'm not particularly moved by it. CBS is well within their rights to protect their property and people shouldn't be making a profit off of someone else's property.

This is hardly stifling fan creativity. If your creativity begins and ends with "star fleet" you are not that creative to begin with.
 
We still haven't answered the question if CBS holds an active trademark to STARFLEET (one word) in the categories of Events and Festivals.

Trademarks need to be registered in a particular category for protection in that category. An example - the SHAZAM! App - Warner Brothers can't do a blessed thing because when they registered (and the 2 re-registrations)for the word they did not cover "Electronic Applications" and someone came along and snagged it. Warners literally holds the trademark use of the word SHAZAM for every possible category - except that one!

We can assume they hold a trademark for STAR TREK in the category of Events and Festivals since CREATION has licenced from them for years.
 
Treadwell said:
FASA was licensed. Perhaps you're thinking of Star Fleet Battles?
Click to expand...
Star Fleet Battles is actually licensed through the Franz Joseph estate as it is 100% based of his "Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual" (circa 1975); which he (because of the way the contract to do it was written an later interpreted by a Court) got his own copyright on (and why GR was pissed when he wanted to USE some of those designs for TMP and Paramount came back, yeah, about that, we'd need to license them back....)
 
ralph said:
Besides this, there was a payment of an entrance fee in this convention. I don´t know if it has to do with the banning.
Click to expand...
It didn't help, I'm sure.

Charge nothing, call it whatever you want.

Charge something, then you better be giving CBS their cut.
 
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