CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar
- Thread starter Richard Baker
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with a custom Axanar logo toaster.
and coffee..... don't forget the coffee
My guess is Alec is thinking this is okay because of this.I don't know how anyone can say this looks like its related to Star Trek...
Neil
I wonder if this case could make Hollywood pressure the US Government to make copyright/trademark laws even more stringent?
It is obviously "Star Trek", CBS shouldn't have to copyright every possible variation of any given design.
Note: attorneys' fees are a part of the prayer for relief. Areas with the requested relief are bolded.
"PRAYER FOR RELIEF WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully requests that this Court enter judgment against Defendants as follows: ...
Plaintiffs are entitled to the following damages:
a. At Plaintiffs’ election, statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each separate Star Trek Copyrighted Work infringed, for willful infringement pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), or Plaintiffs’ actual damages sustained as a result of Defendants’ acts of copyright infringement according to proof and Defendants’ profits obtained as a result of their acts of copyright infringement according to proof; and
b. Plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, et seq., and 17 U.S.C. § 505.
4. That the Court find that the threat of irreparable harm to Plaintiffs as a result of Defendants’ conduct leaves Plaintiffs without adequate remedy at law, and therefore that Plaintiffs are entitled to an injunction restraining Defendants, their agents, servants, employees, attorneys, successors, assigns, subsidiaries, and all persons, firms, and corporations acting in concert with them, from directly or indirectly infringing the copyrights in the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, including but not limited to continuing to distribute, market, advertise, promote, produce, sell, or offer for sale the Axanar Works or any works derived or copied from the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, and from participating or assisting in any such activity whether or not it occurs in the United States.
5. That the Court enjoin Defendants, their agents, servants, employees, attorneys, successors, assigns, subsidiaries, and all persons, firms, and corporations acting in concert with them, from directly or indirectly infringing the copyrights in the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, including but not limited to continuing to distribute, copy, publicly perform, market, advertise, promote, produce, sell, or offer for sale the Axanar Works or any works derived or copied from the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, and from participating or assisting in any such activity whether or not it occurs in the United States."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2660454-Startreklawsuit.html
"PRAYER FOR RELIEF WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully requests that this Court enter judgment against Defendants as follows: ...
Plaintiffs are entitled to the following damages:
a. At Plaintiffs’ election, statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each separate Star Trek Copyrighted Work infringed, for willful infringement pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), or Plaintiffs’ actual damages sustained as a result of Defendants’ acts of copyright infringement according to proof and Defendants’ profits obtained as a result of their acts of copyright infringement according to proof; and
b. Plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, et seq., and 17 U.S.C. § 505.
4. That the Court find that the threat of irreparable harm to Plaintiffs as a result of Defendants’ conduct leaves Plaintiffs without adequate remedy at law, and therefore that Plaintiffs are entitled to an injunction restraining Defendants, their agents, servants, employees, attorneys, successors, assigns, subsidiaries, and all persons, firms, and corporations acting in concert with them, from directly or indirectly infringing the copyrights in the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, including but not limited to continuing to distribute, market, advertise, promote, produce, sell, or offer for sale the Axanar Works or any works derived or copied from the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, and from participating or assisting in any such activity whether or not it occurs in the United States.
5. That the Court enjoin Defendants, their agents, servants, employees, attorneys, successors, assigns, subsidiaries, and all persons, firms, and corporations acting in concert with them, from directly or indirectly infringing the copyrights in the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, including but not limited to continuing to distribute, copy, publicly perform, market, advertise, promote, produce, sell, or offer for sale the Axanar Works or any works derived or copied from the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, and from participating or assisting in any such activity whether or not it occurs in the United States."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2660454-Startreklawsuit.html
I think it could be difficult to be ultra specific without becoming like tariff regulations. a jury has to give it the sniff test. does it smell of ferengi in here?
Isn't using the visual style of Star Trek part of this issue? Wouldn't that fall under "derived or copied from the Star Trek copyrighted items"?
I've read that there is a trademark concept of "trade dressing" which is like this. Don't know if there is an analog in copyright.
That's why I'm having a hard time seeing the #trufans of Axanar (or Peters himself?) abandoning this guy. Sure, the group might get whittled down to just a few, but unless the lawsuit absolutely steamrolls Peters, he's going to have support.
YMMV just how "supportive" said support is in actuality, of course.
So, he could be heading for martyrdom (figuratively, of course) among his fans. If that happens, I'd guess most of them will say he was a victim of ruthless corporate America stepping on "the little guy" who only wanted to follow a dream and make people happy. After all, they'd say, he wasn't hurting anybody except CBS, who was just embarrassed that he was handling "Star Trek" better than they were.
There is trade dress, but i'm fairly certain it's not related to this. What I think you're referring to-- and i'm not sure the name (I think it might be simply "substantial similarity)-- is "look and feel"-- and while i'm not sure that they can copyright it, they'd certainly win when arguing that the designs of Axanar's ships are substantially similar in look, feel, aesthetic and design-- enough to be infringing.
Essentially, they'd argue that "Star Trek ships" have a "recognizable aesthetic" or words to that effect; there is plenty of precedent for this.
Even without the ships, there's enough infringement to go around - Garth of Izar, the main character, Soval, Klingons, Vulcans, Starfleet and the battle of Axanar itself which is an invention from a Star Trek episode and was later expanded upon in officially licensed tie-in literature. This is as clear cut as it gets, really.
So Jespah, do I have this more or less correct in laymen's terms?
The lawsuit asks for:
1. Up to $150,000 in damages for each copyrighted work infringed.
2. Attorney's fees.
3. An order from the judge telling them to stop making the movie, promoting it, or selling merch.
4. An order from the judge telling to not make the movie, promote it, or sell merch in the future.
Nothing more?
The lawsuit asks for:
1. Up to $150,000 in damages for each copyrighted work infringed.
2. Attorney's fees.
3. An order from the judge telling them to stop making the movie, promoting it, or selling merch.
4. An order from the judge telling to not make the movie, promote it, or sell merch in the future.
Nothing more?
I referenced this before as a link, but because I think this [somewhat long] excerpt from the Axanar official podcast of 8/30/15 ( http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/7/c/3/7c3...53190718&hwt=c39fed7a1354f7143c18cfdb4eaa40a8 ) is likely to be very relevant to the case, I made a transcript of a key portion. Apologies if this is out of the norm for a posting length, if you like, just look at the sections I bolded. Astericks are my take on where a word was verbally emphasized.
The transcript [by me, hopefully full fidelity] picks up where Renegades is being discussed:
[28:58]
moderator: "Alec has a lot to say about it, the idea of, see, they were billing themselves as a pilot..."
AP: "from the beginning"
moderator: "...it was being misconstrued"
AP: "not only that, very early on, before they actually shot, they actually had CBS television production as a production, producing partner on their IMDB page, and a bunch of people raised hell about that. Cause, and listen, I love all the guys on Renegades, I spent a half hour on the phone with [ name ] with the producer, the EP, yesterday, you know, he wants to make a series out of it, I want to talk to him about using Ares Studios for that, [ name ] the DP was one of our camera operators on Prelude, I know a lot of, [ name ] their DIT is our DIT and colorist and coeditor, so we're, there's a lot of cross-pollenation there. And I wanna see any Star Trek fan film succeed. There's you know, there's there's *no* competition, I just do not buy the whole competition thing. We, the success of any one is the success of all, and a rising tide lifts all boats. And, wait, let me search for some other cliches. [laughter]
And, ah, but, I, you *do* not want to do things that are gonna piss off CBS. Now, *we may well be the worst offender of that*. So I may be a giant hypocrite here.
However, there's some certain things that I just don't think you do, and, saying you're a pilot implies official sanction, and they *never* had official sanction, and they were never a pilot. They, I've felt, and I've told them since the beginning, well, you want to call yourself a *pitch*? *Fine*. No one at CBS wants to hear your pitch, but you wanna call yourselves, a pitch, fine. But calling yourselves a pilot gives you false legitimacy, which is *what* they were looking for. The people who were saying this at Renegades were *looking* for false legitimacy. They have continued to do it til this week.
They sent an email out to everyone, said "oh, we have hired one of the best lawyers, and, unfortunately CBS can't move forward at this time". And the whole thing was, was, basically false legitimacy. You know, listen, I met with the people at CBS two weeks ago, and they said, look, they're not talking to us, you know, so, and I don't want to knock Renegades, but, we have to be really smart about what we're doing, *considering* that we are using their IP. I mean, you know, and maybe us raising a million dollars is the, you know, raises the red flag *way* more than someone calling themselves a pilot, but, I think that its really important that we, we *all* try and be as, as, *professional*, and, and, *honest* as we can.
I've never once called ourselves official, or a pilot, or, I've never once said that CBS would even *look* at us, let alone pick us up, cause I don't think that ever will happen, I've often said, look, in my world the best case scenario is that when they go to make the next Star Trek series, someone says, we need to talk to those Axanar guys, cause they're really sharp. And that would be like the all time great win in my book, is to get a meeting with them. Other than that, we have *no* illusions, I know that Rob and I talked about this *many* times, we have no illusions that anything will ever happen with Axanar. And you know what, that's fine.
The fact that the fans, so many fans consider this canon, and in their, in their little head canon, and love it to death and believe that we are carrying the flag of Star Trek, that's been, you know, basically dropped, there's no Star Trek on TV, and you know what Paramount's putting out is more like Guardians of the Galaxy than Star Trek, so fans, you know, love us. And that's what we're going for. We want to continue to please the fans, and do as best we can to not offend CBS, and ah, and if they do [laughing] get offended by us, sorry, we're trying our best, and I think, I really think that Axanar is *nothing* but good for CBS. They can, and you know, yes, we are using your IP, and you know, you may get upset that we've raised so much money, but you know what, we are doing more positive for the Star Trek franchise than anything CBS or Paramount is doing, outside of making a movie. [33:16]
The transcript [by me, hopefully full fidelity] picks up where Renegades is being discussed:
[28:58]
moderator: "Alec has a lot to say about it, the idea of, see, they were billing themselves as a pilot..."
AP: "from the beginning"
moderator: "...it was being misconstrued"
AP: "not only that, very early on, before they actually shot, they actually had CBS television production as a production, producing partner on their IMDB page, and a bunch of people raised hell about that. Cause, and listen, I love all the guys on Renegades, I spent a half hour on the phone with [ name ] with the producer, the EP, yesterday, you know, he wants to make a series out of it, I want to talk to him about using Ares Studios for that, [ name ] the DP was one of our camera operators on Prelude, I know a lot of, [ name ] their DIT is our DIT and colorist and coeditor, so we're, there's a lot of cross-pollenation there. And I wanna see any Star Trek fan film succeed. There's you know, there's there's *no* competition, I just do not buy the whole competition thing. We, the success of any one is the success of all, and a rising tide lifts all boats. And, wait, let me search for some other cliches. [laughter]
And, ah, but, I, you *do* not want to do things that are gonna piss off CBS. Now, *we may well be the worst offender of that*. So I may be a giant hypocrite here.
However, there's some certain things that I just don't think you do, and, saying you're a pilot implies official sanction, and they *never* had official sanction, and they were never a pilot. They, I've felt, and I've told them since the beginning, well, you want to call yourself a *pitch*? *Fine*. No one at CBS wants to hear your pitch, but you wanna call yourselves, a pitch, fine. But calling yourselves a pilot gives you false legitimacy, which is *what* they were looking for. The people who were saying this at Renegades were *looking* for false legitimacy. They have continued to do it til this week.
They sent an email out to everyone, said "oh, we have hired one of the best lawyers, and, unfortunately CBS can't move forward at this time". And the whole thing was, was, basically false legitimacy. You know, listen, I met with the people at CBS two weeks ago, and they said, look, they're not talking to us, you know, so, and I don't want to knock Renegades, but, we have to be really smart about what we're doing, *considering* that we are using their IP. I mean, you know, and maybe us raising a million dollars is the, you know, raises the red flag *way* more than someone calling themselves a pilot, but, I think that its really important that we, we *all* try and be as, as, *professional*, and, and, *honest* as we can.
I've never once called ourselves official, or a pilot, or, I've never once said that CBS would even *look* at us, let alone pick us up, cause I don't think that ever will happen, I've often said, look, in my world the best case scenario is that when they go to make the next Star Trek series, someone says, we need to talk to those Axanar guys, cause they're really sharp. And that would be like the all time great win in my book, is to get a meeting with them. Other than that, we have *no* illusions, I know that Rob and I talked about this *many* times, we have no illusions that anything will ever happen with Axanar. And you know what, that's fine.
The fact that the fans, so many fans consider this canon, and in their, in their little head canon, and love it to death and believe that we are carrying the flag of Star Trek, that's been, you know, basically dropped, there's no Star Trek on TV, and you know what Paramount's putting out is more like Guardians of the Galaxy than Star Trek, so fans, you know, love us. And that's what we're going for. We want to continue to please the fans, and do as best we can to not offend CBS, and ah, and if they do [laughing] get offended by us, sorry, we're trying our best, and I think, I really think that Axanar is *nothing* but good for CBS. They can, and you know, yes, we are using your IP, and you know, you may get upset that we've raised so much money, but you know what, we are doing more positive for the Star Trek franchise than anything CBS or Paramount is doing, outside of making a movie. [33:16]
I just don't see how what is currently going on is good for the franchise in any way?
What good? A 21 minute prelude and a 3 minute scene. That's it! It took Paramount less time to film a major motion picture than it's taken Axanar to build a bridge!
Neil
Look, do you want it fast, or do you want it good?
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