Where in his quote does he say it's a rights issue? We'd need to know where (and why) the guideline comes from before we can really tell what's what. Eaves also had the guideline "No round nacelles" when working on Discovery, and that had nothing to do with rights.
OK, how do we know the round nacelles issue wasn't also to do with copyright - or the radical klingon redesign? In fact it seems that DSC cannot legally use any TOS designs!! Bonkers, I know, but there it is....
Also, there are a ton of comments in the thread, where they clarify that its legal reasons and not creative ones that prevent them using TOS designs. Below are quotes from Facebook.
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Gabriel Charles Koerner John Eaves, was the "25 percent difference" mandate creative or legal?"
Scott Schneider Legal.
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Gabriel Charles Koerner Scott, fascinating. I'd heard this before. Which seems very odd to me, as I would assume CBS owned all legacy Trek assets carte blanche, except the Kelvin timeline films, whose merch still goes through CBS..."
John Eaves after Enterprise properties of Star Trek, ownership changed hands and was devided so what was able to cross show VS tV up to that point changed and a lot of the cross over was no longer allowed. That is why when JJ's movie came along everything had to be different. the alternate universe concept was what really made that movie happen in a way as to not cross the new boundries and give Trek a new footing to continue.
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Scott Schneider Alex Rosenzweig and the 25% is typically the number used when making one product similar to another. It must be at least 25% different in order to avoid copyright infringement. This is common with many products. Ive also come up against this in the past when using inspiration from other ideas that were copyrighted. In fact back on coneheads we used Libbius woods designs for Remulak and production was threatened with a lawsuit because it was too close and we had to change the models "20-25% " to avoid a lawsuit. This is nothing new or exclusive to trek."
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Gabriel Charles Koerner Man, its just baffling, considering that CBS can sell the original Constitution Class design in form of toys, model kits, all manners of licensed merch... but it can't be included in new Trek TV productions?"
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John Eaves Samuel Cockings your asking the wrong guy. I only know there is a division of property and when the task at hand asks for 25% changes or a whole new design I know that what ever it is is not allowed to be used"
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John Eaves after Enterprise properties of Star Trek, ownership changed hands and was devided so what was able to cross show VS tV up to that point changed and a lot of the cross over was no longer allowed. That is why when JJ's movie came along everything had to be different. the alternate universe concept was what really made that movie happen in a way as to not cross the new boundries and give Trek a new footing to continue."
