CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

[SuperSpaceMan]

Dang it.. my macbook now has coffee all over it...

House of Kharn or Izarian Gold?

Sorry... I take my coffee officially licensed...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ea88/

(Not really, It's Cafe Bustello)

 

[Red Shirt]

I missed that - Gerrold actually called Abrams "Jar Jar?"

Well, you can do a lot for people, but you can't give a guy class.

Jar Jar "My last movie has been open for three weeks and has made 1.5 billion and by this time next week it will likely be the 4th highest grossing movie of all time" Abrams.

Thats why he shortens it all to "JJ".

QFT


Coffee meet computer screen. Best laugh of the day!

 

[Iamnotspock]

So, Tony Todd retweeted the Hitler vid.

Yep - with my twitter handle... I am getting more women from this then I have ever had before *shrugs*

Meanwhile, over at I Stand With CBS, we're using Star Trek titles to descrive this sorry event

Peters seems to think he's the emissary of the fans, but he's set himself up as CBS's new nemesis, and it looks like the Axanar project is yesterday's enterprise now. Perhaps he should just make the voyage home and crawl into bed?

He wanted the best of both worlds, but the man trap he's found himself in has ensured that he just won't get the motion picture made. Peters seems to think he's waging a private little war against CBS, and 'Inter arma, enim silent leges' just won't cut it as a defence. Oh well, all good things...

 

[Franklin]

Dammit people! I finish reading a page and you've got another one going!

Thank you a bunch to anyone who listened in and heard me talk IP (I haven't lived on Long Island since 1995 but I know it comes out at times).

I agree with Smoked Salmon (love that username) in that the particulars of IP law are certainly daunting but the essential truth should be known, not only to anyone who's ever practiced, but to most sensible laymen.

You used a thing that wasn't yours. You did not have permission to use it.

And that's the crux of the biscuit.

There truly is little else to discuss (but I'm not saying to shut down this thread; it's a blast).

Absolutely. People forget that sometimes the obvious is staring them right in the face.

Not that I haven't encountered judges who always see it like that, but the best judges always do.

So it really doesn't matter one way or the other if the project is for profit (for someone or anyone) or not, does it? Profit or non-profit, maybe it's just the scope and extent of this project that caused the crackdown?

That's the part I can't get my head around. Some fan films use Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and everyone else and are set aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. That is certainly a trademark violation if not a violation of copyrights as well. Is it because most of these operations were essentially versions of garage bands (not meant to be disparaging, just seemed like an apt comparison for a small-scale, largely amateur operation) that CBS allowed it?

I don't see why profit matters, just the scope of the "stealing" of another's IP. Even though I'm using copied material for educational purposes and certainly not making any money off of it (maybe even eating the costs of copying), if I make copies of an entire book and give it to my class, I've violated copyright laws. I've stolen that author's work without permission or proper compensation. The guidelines for what and how much I can copy as "fair use" are clear.

Maybe that's ignorant of me, but it's the part I don't get. Whatever he's doing, he stole from CBS, and this time, they don't like it. I don't see why profiting or not enters into it.

 

[Karzak]

Tellingly (and perhaps wisely) the Star Trek: New Voyages/Phase II Facebook page has removed all the recent photos from their shoot with Peters and Burnett for the Axanar vignettes they did a few weeks ago.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I have never been able to watch delusion in action -until now

First, no one is signed to star in Axanar yet. Deal memos will be going out this month as we move towards a February shoot. Richard Hatch of course is committed to the project and very excited. Gary Graham is in, as well (and already starred in the Vulcan scene). JG Hertzler, always a huge fan of Axanar, says he can’t wait, and has been talking about how he plans to make Sam Travis look younger (since Axanar takes place about fifteen years prior to Prelude to Axanar). Kate Vernon is also coming back.

No one is signed - but boy look at all these people who are going to do it! You can bet your bippy!

Unfortunately Tony Todd will not be back, though. Tony opted not to come back when we wouldn’t pay the $15,000 day rate he was asking. (We paid a fraction of that for Prelude.)

Oops. I guess you probably should have decided to throw Tony under the space bus a few months ago..and then disclosed his departure to your donors.

Third, this is not a vanity project. A hallmark of fan films is the creator making himself the central character, whether that is Kirk or Pike or whomever. While that is fine for your average fan film, we are shooting a bit higher.

Keep flapping those wings Icarus.

Finally, I want to produce in Hollywood. Sure, acting is fun, but my career is in producing, which is what I am focusing on.
So, I will focus on producing and writing Axanar. I think the project is shaping up to be even better than we had planned!

Someone get this man some help.

 

[Karzak]

Keep flapping those wings Icarus.

 

[David cgc]

This would lead me to an interesting possible scenario for the future, assuming that only Axanar gets sued: if someone else has access to the script, they could then turn around and make Axanar even if Peters can't.

That's not how it works. Otherwise CBS could just steal fan fiction to make their shows. This is why you can't send unsolicited scripts to a show. If they use it and don't pay you they're in trouble because even with their characters it's still your script.

That's also my understanding. The section Ion quoted would seem to be saying that Axanar Productions doesn't get copyright on Vulcans, or Klingons, or the Starship Enterprise, or the story of the formation of the Federation, but anything that wasn't already from a copyrighted work is automatically copyrighted, just like normal. So the Ares and other non-Enterprise ships, the various non-Garth characters, the specific events and dialogue, those are all still copyright Axanar Productions.

It'd actually be even worse than CBS being able to steal fan works willy-nilly* if it had been otherwise. I imagine it would be possible to try to find copyright "seeds" in other works and use them to take over ownership. For instance, "Oceanic Airlines" is a common name for a fictional air carrier. By that logic, the first person to publish a story mentioning Oceanic Airlines (the earliest one I see mentioned on Wikipedia is an episode of "Flipper" from the '60s) could then say that any other story that happened to use that name for an airline violated their copyright, and that they are thus entitled to the whole of the latter party's work since it's an infringing derivative work, an unauthorized continuation of the saga of Oceanic Air.

* Studios have, in fact, been known to steal fan works willy-nilly, even through they aren't supposed to. There was a guy who made several very good 3D models of Star Wars ships that he released for free, and at least twice, official licensed Star Wars products used his models rather than making their own or using official models that had been commissioned by Lucasfilm for other projects. Presumably, the studios using his models in their work were being paid to make new things and now just steal stuff off the internet, but I guess everybody cuts corners. Anyway, while Lucasfilm owned the copyright on the design and concept of the Star Destroyer, the modeler owned the copyright on that specific model because he made it. He couldn't do anything with it without infringing Lucasfilm's copyright, but neither could Lucasfilm use it without infringing his copyright (unless either got permission from the other).

Things worked out happily in the end, though, as he did later get commissions to produce art for some Star Wars books and games. It's not an isolated case, though. I recently saw an instance where the new on-line game, Star Trek: Alien Domain, was using Trek fan-art in their ads; they (badly) Photoshopped out the ships from the original pictures and put in their own on top of them.

I imagine the strong writers' unions are why studios and publishers are much more worried about reading fan-fic and creating a legal quagmire than animation studios are about having the same thing happen to them if they grab models or imagery off the internet, even though the two situations are essentially the same. Well, the fan art one is more damning, since for unsolicited scripts, it could even be an issue in the case a coincidentally similar plot being produced causing a fuss, while the animation studios can't accidentally create a model or image that's identical to a fan's version.

 

[SuperSpaceMan]

Dammit people! I finish reading a page and you've got another one going!

Thank you a bunch to anyone who listened in and heard me talk IP (I haven't lived on Long Island since 1995 but I know it comes out at times).

I agree with Smoked Salmon (love that username) in that the particulars of IP law are certainly daunting but the essential truth should be known, not only to anyone who's ever practiced, but to most sensible laymen.

You used a thing that wasn't yours. You did not have permission to use it.

And that's the crux of the biscuit.

There truly is little else to discuss (but I'm not saying to shut down this thread; it's a blast).

Absolutely. People forget that sometimes the obvious is staring them right in the face.

Not that I haven't encountered judges who always see it like that, but the best judges always do.

So it really doesn't matter one way or the other if the project is for profit (for someone or anyone) or not, does it? Profit or non-profit, maybe it's just the scope and extent of this project that caused the crackdown?

That's the part I can't get my head around. Some fan films use Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and everyone else and are set aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. That is certainly a trademark violation if not a violation of copyrights as well. Is it because most of these operations were essentially versions of garage bands (not meant to be disparaging, just seemed like an apt comparison for a small-scale, largely amateur operation) that CBS allowed it?

I don't see why profit matters, just the scope of the "stealing" of another's IP. Even though I'm using copied material for educational purposes and certainly not making any money off of it (maybe even eating the costs of copying), if I make copies of an entire book and give it to my class, I've violated copyright laws. I've stolen that author's work without permission or proper compensation. The guidelines for what and how much I can copy as "fair use" are clear.

Maybe that's ignorant of me, but it's the part I don't get. Whatever he's doing, he stole from CBS, and this time, they don't like it. I don't see why profiting or not enters into it.

Basically, over the past 40 years, the rights holder of Star Trek, be it, Paramount, or now CBS and Paramount... has pretty much taken the following attitude, "You wanna make fan films? Fine, don't make any money, and don't take credit for star trek"

Some people, have interpreted that to mean, they can't profit... so that means Non-Profit....

Really the idea of Not -for Profit in this whole thing is a red herring.... it doesn't much matter... UNLESS Axanar is going to try to say that it's fair use... which is contrary to what they have said up until now.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I have never been able to watch delusion in action -until now

Finally, I want to produce in Hollywood. Sure, acting is fun, but my career is in producing, which is what I am focusing on.
So, I will focus on producing and writing Axanar. I think the project is shaping up to be even better than we had planned!

Someone get this man some help.

Well if he wants to make a go at a producing career, he needs to start acting like a professional. His behavior is highly unprofessional, publicly airing Tony Todd's alleged day rate, among other public rants.

 

[jespah]

Absolutely. People forget that sometimes the obvious is staring them right in the face.

Not that I haven't encountered judges who always see it like that, but the best judges always do.

So it really doesn't matter one way or the other if the project is for profit (for someone or anyone) or not, does it? Profit or non-profit, maybe it's just the scope and extent of this project that caused the crackdown?

That's the part I can't get my head around. Some fan films use Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and everyone else and are set aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. That is certainly a trademark violation if not a violation of copyrights as well. Is it because most of these operations were essentially versions of garage bands (not meant to be disparaging, just seemed like an apt comparison for a small-scale, largely amateur operation) that CBS allowed it?

I don't see why profit matters, just the scope of the "stealing" of another's IP. Even though I'm using copied material for educational purposes and certainly not making any money off of it (maybe even eating the costs of copying), if I make copies of an entire book and give it to my class, I've violated copyright laws. I've stolen that author's work without permission or proper compensation. The guidelines for what and how much I can copy as "fair use" are clear.

Maybe that's ignorant of me, but it's the part I don't get. Whatever he's doing, he stole from CBS, and this time, they don't like it. I don't see why profiting or not enters into it.

Basically, over the past 40 years, the rights holder of Star Trek, be it, Paramount, or now CBS and Paramount... has pretty much taken the following attitude, "You wanna make fan films? Fine, don't make any money, and don't take credit for star trek"

Some people, have interpreted that to mean, they can't profit... so that means Non-Profit....

Really the idea of Not -for Profit in this whole thing is a red herring.... it doesn't much matter... UNLESS Axanar is going to try to say that it's fair use... which is contrary to what they have said up until now.

Yep. Profit doesn't enter into it.

The $1 M+ figure (a) got CBS/Paramount's attention; (b ) made it a lot harder to claim this is simply some fan film; and (c ) created a pocket for the plaintiffs to go after.

Joe's garage Trek, made on a $300 budget with a cellphone camera is also in breach. But CBS/Paramount (which may yet issue a C & D even to them) does not go after them because (a) they're small and are more likely to fly under the radar (even the most diligent of copyright holders will miss something - and tiny things are a lot easier to miss); (b ) with a shoestring like that, it's hard to claim it's anything but a fan film; and (c ) there is no pocket, except for stuff like mythological Joe's car, his house, and his retirement fund or boat or his grandmother's antique brooch if he's got either.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I have never been able to watch delusion in action -until now

Hilariously, aren't they using the TV Guide trademark in that image of Hatch?

Idiots.

 

[cultcross]

So, Tony Todd retweeted the Hitler vid.

He has truly taken the gloves off on Twitter, it's rather glorious.

 

[Squiggy]

So, Tony Todd retweeted the Hitler vid.

He has truly taken the gloves off on Twitter, it's rather glorious.

#dontfuckwithkurn

 

[SuperSpaceMan]

So it really doesn't matter one way or the other if the project is for profit (for someone or anyone) or not, does it? Profit or non-profit, maybe it's just the scope and extent of this project that caused the crackdown?

That's the part I can't get my head around. Some fan films use Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and everyone else and are set aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. That is certainly a trademark violation if not a violation of copyrights as well. Is it because most of these operations were essentially versions of garage bands (not meant to be disparaging, just seemed like an apt comparison for a small-scale, largely amateur operation) that CBS allowed it?

I don't see why profit matters, just the scope of the "stealing" of another's IP. Even though I'm using copied material for educational purposes and certainly not making any money off of it (maybe even eating the costs of copying), if I make copies of an entire book and give it to my class, I've violated copyright laws. I've stolen that author's work without permission or proper compensation. The guidelines for what and how much I can copy as "fair use" are clear.

Maybe that's ignorant of me, but it's the part I don't get. Whatever he's doing, he stole from CBS, and this time, they don't like it. I don't see why profiting or not enters into it.

Basically, over the past 40 years, the rights holder of Star Trek, be it, Paramount, or now CBS and Paramount... has pretty much taken the following attitude, "You wanna make fan films? Fine, don't make any money, and don't take credit for star trek"

Some people, have interpreted that to mean, they can't profit... so that means Non-Profit....

Really the idea of Not -for Profit in this whole thing is a red herring.... it doesn't much matter... UNLESS Axanar is going to try to say that it's fair use... which is contrary to what they have said up until now.

Yep. Profit doesn't enter into it.

The $1 M+ figure (a) got CBS/Paramount's attention; (b ) made it a lot harder to claim this is simply some fan film; and (c ) created a pocket for the plaintiffs to go after.

Joe's garage Trek, made on a $300 budget with a cellphone camera is also in breach. But CBS/Paramount (which may yet issue a C & D even to them) does not go after them because (a) they're small and are more likely to fly under the radar (even the most diligent of copyright holders will miss something - and tiny things are a lot easier to miss); (b ) with a shoestring like that, it's hard to claim it's anything but a fan film; and (c ) there is no pocket, except for stuff like mythological Joe's car, his house, and his retirement fund or boat or his grandmother's antique brooch if he's got either.

If I was going going to do Joe's Garage Trek, it would be Jason's Space Odyssey... and I would do everything I could to make sure it didn't have any Star Trek elements in it... that way, as bad as it's gonna be, I could still monotonize it on You Tube... and hope that one was just so bad, that it went viral and I made something off of it...

But that's just me...

 

[Jedi_Master]

I have never been able to watch delusion in action -until now

Finally, I want to produce in Hollywood. Sure, acting is fun, but my career is in producing, which is what I am focusing on.
So, I will focus on producing and writing Axanar. I think the project is shaping up to be even better than we had planned!

Someone get this man some help.

Well if he wants to make a go at a producing career, he needs to start acting like a professional. His behavior is highly unprofessional, publicly airing Tony Todd's alleged day rate, among other public rants.

Indeed. The echo chamber he has constructed is not helping his ego issues. Wake up Alec, none of those folks religiously supporting you on Facebook are going to help your career.

 

[Ion]

This would lead me to an interesting possible scenario for the future, assuming that only Axanar gets sued: if someone else has access to the script, they could then turn around and make Axanar even if Peters can't.

That's not how it works. Otherwise CBS could just steal fan fiction to make their shows. This is why you can't send unsolicited scripts to a show. If they use it and don't pay you they're in trouble because even with their characters it's still your script.

That's also my understanding. The section Ion quoted would seem to be saying that Axanar Productions doesn't get copyright on Vulcans, or Klingons, or the Starship Enterprise, or the story of the formation of the Federation, but anything that wasn't already from a copyrighted work is automatically copyrighted, just like normal. So the Ares and other non-Enterprise ships, the various non-Garth characters, the specific events and dialogue, those are all still copyright Axanar Productions.

That makes much more sense, and I think I see what I missed in my original reads. Of course, I missed it twice, so I'm not sure what that says about my comprehension.

I would assume that would also mean that CBS (assuming they for some bizarre reason wanted to) could not make Axanar unless the courts assign them the copyrights as part of the assessed damages or something (and I have no idea if things like that even happen). It's not like Alec Peters is likely to ever let it go himself.

Oh well. So much for ever seeing Axanar. As squicked as I was by the activities of the people behind it, I really did think Prelude was well done, and would have loved to see the finished product.

 

[Karzak]

So, Tony Todd retweeted the Hitler vid.

He has truly taken the gloves off on Twitter, it's rather glorious.

It really, really is.

 

[BillJ]

That's also my understanding. The section Ion quoted would seem to be saying that Axanar Productions doesn't get copyright on Vulcans, or Klingons, or the Starship Enterprise, or the story of the formation of the Federation, but anything that wasn't already from a copyrighted work is automatically copyrighted, just like normal. So the Ares and other non-Enterprise ships, the various non-Garth characters, the specific events and dialogue, those are all still copyright Axanar Productions.

How can one copyright something that is just a rearranging of previously created IP?

 

[seigezunt]

This is perhaps the hardest thing for me to take in all this mishegoss. I really respect David. Or have. I just have to engage blinders or something, because that's just tacky and wrong.

And again why I've grown cold on this project, as it seems to have been declared the True Trek for True Believers.

I missed that - Gerrold actually called Abrams "Jar Jar?"

Well, you can do a lot for people, but you can't give a guy class.

Dear Mr. Gerrold,

Could we have a little professional courtesy here? Regardless of your feelings about his productions, Mr. Abrams has repeatedly demonstrated a capacity to put together successful high profile releases. These sort of personal attacks are in line with with how the Axanar group responds to things they don't like. It's almost as bad as Alec Peters revealing Tony Todd's rate. That's nobody's business.

Neil

It's also false. I can't stand JJ Trek, bu Axanar being everything I want to see as a response? That's just insulting.

Exactly. For other fans of the original TREK, such as myself, the new films hit all the right action-adventure drama notes that were in the original series.

And Axanar isn't something I've been craving. This production needs to stop talking as if it represents ALL TREK FANDOM.