My understanding is various people are working on it as time permits. It’s incredibly effects heavy though. I have no idea what stage it’s currently at.
JAMES CAWLEY SPEAKS!
- Thread starter HerbFlynn
- Start date
I hate to play the "credentials" card, but this argument is so circular I feel the need to do so. In my previous career I had to deal with both Trademarks and Copyrights with our legal department. In that role I asked our legal peeps to file C&Ds on seemingly trivial little things that encroached on our IP simply because said things made it harder for people to find our official stuff in search engines or in app stores. As such, I've sat in on numerous discussions with actual entertainment lawyers, and the ceaseless back and forth here is mostly armchair quarterbacking by "Google experts" who, frankly, ain't got a clue how this stuff works or why.
Profit or profit motive doesn't matter. Controlling IP means you get to choose how to profit from it or decide not to profit from it. We had lots of IP we did not exploit for various reasons, but we reserved the right to kick the legs out from anyone who infringed on those rights because the property was ours and we had the right to choose what happens with it. If someone wanted to do a knockoff they had to do it in the "fair use" way where it was transformative enough to not be confused with official product or with our brand. And if you stepped on our Trademarks, WHAMMO.
Profit or loss has no bearing on the issues discussed here. CBS owns it. If you infringe on it they may choose to hit you with a legal clue stick, regardless of if you made any money or not, or if you cost them any money or not.
Now, can we stop beating this dead horse?
Profit or profit motive doesn't matter. Controlling IP means you get to choose how to profit from it or decide not to profit from it. We had lots of IP we did not exploit for various reasons, but we reserved the right to kick the legs out from anyone who infringed on those rights because the property was ours and we had the right to choose what happens with it. If someone wanted to do a knockoff they had to do it in the "fair use" way where it was transformative enough to not be confused with official product or with our brand. And if you stepped on our Trademarks, WHAMMO.
Profit or loss has no bearing on the issues discussed here. CBS owns it. If you infringe on it they may choose to hit you with a legal clue stick, regardless of if you made any money or not, or if you cost them any money or not.
Now, can we stop beating this dead horse?
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Thank you. The circular arguments were getting on my nerves. I have taken action to reduce the noise level and at this point, I'm very glad I did.
Probably not.
How about not using their Title or their characters but use similar outfits and a starship that's not named Enterprise. CBS can go to hell about how much time I have for a film, that belongs to the producers and the editors. You can't get sued for the length of a film. They are out of line to even say such a thing.
I think the educational process could be how the film was made; a epk should fulfill that portion after the film.
Lol.
If they were to sue you, the reason they give the court won’t be length of film.
CBS isn't giving people reasons they WILL be sued, they're saying if that if you follow certain guidelines you are UNLIKELY to be sued. They're throwing fandom a bone when they could be as Draconian as LucasFilm or worse, and yet all some people can do is bitch and moan.
Meanwhile, fan films continue to be made.
No offense, but nobody who disagrees with you is going to be convinced by an Argument From Authority that originates from people who have a vested interest in interpreting law in a way that benefits their clients, especially if you cite neither law, nor case, nor specific argument you wish to counter.
Sounds suspiciously like "filing of the serial numbers". How is this different from what Renegades did? (Renegades model might be a good option for you, though.)
Not sure what you mean. They'd be suing you for copyright infringement, not film length. They're simply exercising the civil equivalent of prosecutorial digression. In other words, as long as you're infringing under the law, they can legally choose to sue you or not to sue you without regard to any "rules" anyone sets out, including the Guidelines.
Well, showing how the film is made might be enough for 501(c)(3) status, but you'd probably need to talk to an expert about that. I'm not sure an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) at the end would be sufficient, though, especially if the film takes more than a year to make. Regular blogs and tutorials might help, but I would think your safest bet is to including actual content in the film that can be considered educational. For instance, there are current laws against human cloning. If that was a major topic that your film deeply explored, such as a couple who can't reproduce on their own illegally using cloning technology to create a child, I think you could easily make the argument that it's educational.
I see no reason why people should be grateful when they can still be sued regardless of their compliance. Why should a dog be grateful that you threw him a bone if there's a chance you might yank it out of his jaws and take it back at any moment?
That's demonstrably false for certain categories of fan films. The fact that some part of the fan film community still exists is not evidence of its health.
I would like to make a Trekfanfilm in the same vain like Josh & Jim Johnson's Starship Exeter. Original characters set in the TOS universe, and be on a different Starship Class vessel, and a run time of 50 minutes. Sorry CBS, come and get me for film length but I'm not conforming to 15 mins or 30. If Vic can have a decent run time everybody should.
You should really read the responses before posting the same stuff again
As for the rest, there is nothing stopping you from making such a film. Failure to comply with the guidelines doesn't guarantee you'll get sued, they just list activity that won't
This exactly. I really don’t understand what’s so difficult about the concept.
You realize that real people in real life don't give two shits about the debate club rules that get bandied about on here, right? Seriously, right?
Then raise the money and just do it, for crying out loud.
The difficulty, dear fans, is not in the Guidelines, But in the clueless.
Or somethiing.
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Matthew Raymond: I gather you are replying to me. Spare your keyboard. I set you to Ignore a while back because you're only interested in beating dead horses, and I'm against abusing animal corpses.
It takes a lot to push me to such action, but the incessant derailing of threads to complain about the Guidelines and related matters makes participating in this forum a chore.
It takes a lot to push me to such action, but the incessant derailing of threads to complain about the Guidelines and related matters makes participating in this forum a chore.
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There is a limit to how many times I can hear the same arguments. I'm following Maurice's lead.
