Fan Production Guidelines
- Thread starter nx1701g
- Start date
Anything is possible. I believe it will be left alone, with CBS/P only going after any significant attempts to *cash in* on their IP. There's a lot of money involved in some of the video productions. A text fanfic involves next to no money at all, generally, to write or to distribute, and is protected under fair use law, as I understand it. If someone were to try to publish a work for sale at a scale that is beyond, say, a few copies at a local flea market (not that they should technically do that, either), THEN I could see them getting in trouble.
Technically, as I understand it, non-profit video fan productions are also supposed to be covered under fair use, despite CBS/P's guidelines. The problem is that with so much money involved in some of the larger productions, the non-profit line has become very blurry. If I take $10,000 of my own money and make a production as a labor of love, with all of the money going into film, props, etc, then that's clear enough. But once you start crowdsourcing funds, paying actors and crew salaries comparable to professional rates, *paying yourself a salary*, and/or having significant ongoing assets (sets, studios, expensive cameras and video equipment, whatever) across multiple productions, well, that's clear as mud. Especially if you start doing truly asinine things like hiring your girlfriend for a salary paid out of crowdsourced funds or expensing very nice meals with celebrities. Or claiming that your product is "professional" and more legitimately Trek than what CBS/P creates. You've never claimed your written fanfic is more legitimately Star Trek than filmed scripts written by actual scriptwriters for the shows, have you? 
Star Trek fanfic has been around since TOS was still in production. Unless they plan to search everyone's homes, go through private email, and monitor the postal service, there's not a thing they can really do to prevent people from writing and distributing fanfic.
Shut down online sites and sales of old fanzines? Yeah, they could... but why bother? I doubt that someone selling an old copy of Spockanalia from the late '60s/early '70s is worth legal action. If someone starts selling hundreds of copies on eBay, now that would be a problem. Some people do ask outrageous prices for some 'zines (honestly, $250 for Spock Enslaved is just sheer greed and hoping that someone will be naive or desperate enough to pay such a ridiculous amount), but I don't imagine they get many buyers.
If they do, then I'm rebranding my work as Star Wanderer (C) 
You can always write fiction for Star Fleet Battles. They have a valid license with CBS/Paramount, so no worries there. But they have exacting demands that everything in the story must 100% comply with the game's rulebooks, and nothing in the story can contradict established SFB history. Oh, and as SFB is Trek-but-not-Trek, there are some differences that might seem confusing to die-hard Trek fans.
I follow a few favorite authors on a couple of fanfic sites, and of course I'm partial to the material that my sig leads to (no, I'm not one of the authors; just a long-time fan since the 1980s when fanfic was in print 'zine form and considerably harder for Canadians to get hold of than it is now).
Most of the fanfic I write isn't Star Trek. For some reason all my Star Trek stuff tends to veer off into some satire/parody realm whether I want it to or not. My one attempt at a serious story turned out awful. Thank goodness there was only ever one copy of it in existence, written in longhand.
Most of the fanfic I write isn't Star Trek. For some reason all my Star Trek stuff tends to veer off into some satire/parody realm whether I want it to or not. My one attempt at a serious story turned out awful. Thank goodness there was only ever one copy of it in existence, written in longhand.
For me, it's getting to the point where I may give up on writing trek fanfiction altogether whether they extend the guidelines to prose fiction or not, and it's not because I object to the guidelines. I think they were necessary and the owners of Trek had every right to impose them.
What's utterly killing me is the reaction of fan film fans who act like CBS and Paramount snuck into their homes in the middle of the night and killed their pets. There are fan films I like and love, but if the guidelines cause those films to change or end it shouldn't put me on virtual suicide watch. The despair and angst being displayed by some is over the top. As for anger, too much of it is misplaced. Being angry at CBS/P for protecting their copyrights is like lynching a homeowner for putting in an alarm system.
Do I think the guidelines might someday be extended to fan fiction? I don't know for sure, but I'm prepared for it, the way I'm always prepared for the owners of any fandom I write fiction in to someday lay down the law. If guidelines are issued, I will abide, or stop writing trek fiction. Period. It's not that hard.
What's utterly killing me is the reaction of fan film fans who act like CBS and Paramount snuck into their homes in the middle of the night and killed their pets. There are fan films I like and love, but if the guidelines cause those films to change or end it shouldn't put me on virtual suicide watch. The despair and angst being displayed by some is over the top. As for anger, too much of it is misplaced. Being angry at CBS/P for protecting their copyrights is like lynching a homeowner for putting in an alarm system.
Do I think the guidelines might someday be extended to fan fiction? I don't know for sure, but I'm prepared for it, the way I'm always prepared for the owners of any fandom I write fiction in to someday lay down the law. If guidelines are issued, I will abide, or stop writing trek fiction. Period. It's not that hard.
