New Book about TOS: These Are The Voyages

[Kinokima]

^ the information that Shatner was considered a good catch because he was promising new actor & the Gene Roddenberry rewrote a good number of scripts (at least in the first 2 seasons) is not new info.

I don't know what people claim on message boards but this information is out there. I believe I read both in Nimoy's autobiography for one thing.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Having read the memos in TMOST and having read here - and perceived in the dialog - that GR rewrote almost everything S1, I never had the dude pegged as do-nothing.

Obviously not everyone has, but a LOT of posts I've read of late, also some of the later stuff by other writers, sought to diminish his contributions to the series. Many people have gone as far to suggest he came up with the idea for the series, wrote a failed pilot and everyone else saved the concept. Bzzzt. Wrong. Also, for a guy who did so much work, he rarely claimed official credit. Whatever he wound up claiming after the fact, he was a major force in the series.

^ the information that Shatner was considered a good catch because he was promising new actor & the Gene Roddenberry rewrote a good number of scripts (at least in the first 2 seasons) is not new info.

I don't know what people claim on message boards but this information is out there. I believe I read both in Nimoy's autobiography for one thing.

I realize that, but it's usually not presented with as much detail or backed up by critical reviews of his work leading to the series. And today, most people just dismiss him as, at best a ham and worst simply a bad actor.

 

[trevanian]

And to those of you throwing your accusatory stones out there have you ever downloaded anything off the web? Do you have downloaded copies of Star Trek episodes on your computer? or pictures? sound bytes? or anything Star Trek that you have not paid for? If so then quit your hypocrisy and clean up your own act before you go around making such damning claims. I bet everyone of you have illegal content in your possession! P
Kevin

No, I have never downloaded anything illegally. I've never pirated video or audio in analog form either. I respect the rights of originators.

Now if you're so sure everybody does this, it sounds like you must be guilty of it. Does that make your view on all this seem more discerning, or more suspect?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

This whole conflict is nuts. Lawyers could spend years in and out of court trying to win the photo rights argument, and when a decision was issued by a judge, it would be subject to appeal. In the end, the side with more money and patience would win, which is the legal equivalent of "might makes right."

And for what?

Some small reproductions of pictures that are freely available on the Net, and that Star Trek History does not really own, should not be the basis for judging this book.

 

[trevanian]

So you don't see any ethical issue here, just a legal one?

 

[SpHeRe31459]

So you don't see any ethical issue here, just a legal one?

Exactly. I think the point that started this tangent of legal stuff was mainly just that it's unethical to not simply put a credit where it seems credit is due in the proper places in the book.

Legality is another matter entirely, and it seems pretty clear that nothing is for certain enforceable here, just some gray area that would require money and time to get it into a court for a decision.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

And to those of you throwing your accusatory stones out there have you ever downloaded anything off the web? Do you have downloaded copies of Star Trek episodes on your computer? or pictures? sound bytes? or anything Star Trek that you have not paid for? If so then quit your hypocrisy and clean up your own act before you go around making such damning claims.

This is a flawed argument. What an individual has or has not done for personal use is not relevant here. This is about using allegedly misappropriated content for profit, a rather different and more serious matter.

 

[GSchnitzer]

This whole conflict is nuts. Lawyers could spend years in and out of court trying to win the photo rights argument, and when a decision was issued by a judge, it would be subject to appeal. In the end, the side with more money and patience would win, which is the legal equivalent of "might makes right."

And for what?

Some small reproductions of pictures that are freely available on the Net, and that Star Trek History does not really own, should not be the basis for judging this book.

But you do understand how it could be really frustrating for StarTrekHistory and birdofthegalaxy to spend their money to purchase these clips, and spend their time and money restoring the clips, spend their time and money to "make them freely available on the Net" so that others can enjoy them, and forgo for themselves any kind of income in doing all this--only to have someone else come along and use the exact same pictures and sell them in a book, right? You do see that StarTrekHistory and birdofthegalaxy evidently could have monetized these very same pictures years ago just as this publication is now doing but that they intentionally refrained from doing so, right?

 

[trevanian]

Think we've got the makings of a TNG ep here:

The Measure of a Watermark

 

[stcanada29]

But you do understand how it could be really frustrating for StarTrekHistory and birdofthegalaxy to spend their money to purchase these clips, and spend their time and money restoring the clips, spend their time and money to "make them freely available on the Net" so that others can enjoy them, and forgo for themselves any kind of income in doing all this--only to have someone else come along and use the exact same pictures and sell them in a book, right? You do see that StarTrekHistory and birdofthegalaxy evidently could have monetized these very same pictures years ago just as this publication is now doing but that they intentionally refrained from doing so, right?

Is there anything preventing these sites from monetizing those photos now if they wanted to? Maybe they could create a big coffee table book with color pics instead of small B&W ones like this book has. How does the fact that this book is using these images - just like old magazines had some of these pics in them years ago - prevent these sites from also using them? It sounds like in all the reviews people are buying the book for the writeup and not the pics. And I don't think any site "owns" the copyrights to these images - restoring an image is commendable but doesn't affect ownership. If CBS didn't copyright them, as appears to be the case - can't anyone use them freely? And if they were copyrighted by CBS and needed to be properly licensed, wouldn't the publisher be aware of that and be now acting very foolishly by just reprinting them all in an unauthorized book? It's hard to believe the publisher wouldn't thoroughly ascertain the legal status of these photos before making the decision to include them in the book.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

But you do understand how it could be really frustrating for StarTrekHistory and birdofthegalaxy to spend their money to purchase these clips, and spend their time and money restoring the clips, spend their time and money to "make them freely available on the Net" so that others can enjoy them, and forgo for themselves any kind of income in doing all this--only to have someone else come along and use the exact same pictures and sell them in a book, right? You do see that StarTrekHistory and birdofthegalaxy evidently could have monetized these very same pictures years ago just as this publication is now doing but that they intentionally refrained from doing so, right?

I see what you're saying. Maybe the book's captions and acknowledgements should have been more generous.

Or better yet, the book should have skipped the photos altogether, because as we now see, they are just causing a trivial distraction from the text of the book, which is its only selling point in a world where big, color, higher-res web images are free.

As startrekhistory's own legal tab admits, they don't own the material any more than Lincoln Enterprises ever did. They are just making a "fair use" argument.

The very same legal rationale, fair use, can be argued for the Voyages book.

On top of that, making money has nothing to do with it. Back during the heyday of peer-to-peer music sharing (remember Napster), the big record labels went ballistic and sued like crazy, despite no money being made. What mattered was, are you diminishing someone else's ability to make his rightful income. And that isn't happening to startrekhistory or birdofthegalaxy. They have no rightful income to diminish.

And on top of that, the author won't be getting rich from this project. If you figure the amount of time he spent writing his book against the money he will make, especially on a "net" basis, the money is embarrassingly small. Based on past cases I'm familiar with, he probably worked a year for about $13,000.

And he had to do all the work up front and now he hopes to get paid even that much.

He'd get farther financially if he spent the year working at McDonald's or Walmart. As with startrekhistory, he is essentially giving the ST community a thing of value at some personal sacrifice.

 

[Harvey]

Changing gears a bit for the moment, the book claims (pg.184) that Bruce Hyde (Lt. Riley) can be seen at the helm in 'The Man Trap' in a pick-up shot taken during 'The Naked Time.' Can anyone confirm this with a screencap?

 

[Melakon]

One gesture the book publisher or author could make in future editions, would be to add the site or its owner to whatever list of acknowledgements is already in the book, saying the pictures were from their "personal collection".

 

[stcanada29]

One gesture the book publisher or author could make in future editions, would be to add the site or its owner to whatever list of acknowledgements is already in the book, saying the pictures were from their "personal collection".

On page 545 of the book, at the start of the BIBLIOGRAPHY section, the following sites are listed under the heading Websites:
www.startrekpropauthority.com
www.memoryalpha.com
www.startrek.com
www.startrekhistory.com
orionpress/unseenelements

 

[stcanada29]

Changing gears a bit for the moment, the book claims (pg.184) that Bruce Hyde (Lt. Riley) can be seen at the helm in 'The Man Trap' in a pick-up shot taken during 'The Naked Time.' Can anyone confirm this with a screencap?

You can visit www.trekcore.com and see many hundreds of screencaps from all the TOS episodes and subsequent series/movies and research this on your own. Not sure if you are aware of trekcore - it's a great site.

 

[Harvey]

Well aware of Trek Core -- they have been kind enough to let me use I ages from their site on my blog. Couldn't find Hyde in their screen captures, and couldn't find him scrubbing through the episode on Netflix,but it is getting late and my eyes are tired.

 

[Maurice]

This is not a trivial argument. It's about the principle of the thing.

Frankly, given this kind of stuff, I wouldn't blame the Star Trek History site if it stopped posting material entirely. Why do the hard work of restoring these photos if someone can just swipe them and use them in a commercial product, no matter if it's going to make a profit or not. You just don't TAKE the hard work done by other people and use it as you see fit.

And that's my last post in this topic as I'm through wasting time with the apologists here who brush this off.

 

[Racer_X]

Changing gears a bit for the moment, the book claims (pg.184) that Bruce Hyde (Lt. Riley) can be seen at the helm in 'The Man Trap' in a pick-up shot taken during 'The Naked Time.' Can anyone confirm this with a screencap?

Edit: Nope, I was wrong, I looked at the wrong episode. If he's in The Man Trap sitting at the helm as the book states, you can't see him in that scene; the camera never pans over that far.

 

[Myko]

The filename says that's a screenshot from The Naked Time.

 

[Racer_X]

Oops, you're right, I looked at the wrong episode, my bad. So I just watched that scene of The Man Trap that the book says Bruce Hyde is at the helm, but they never show the helm, only the navigator - which is probably why the book makes it sound like a revelation, as we couldn't see him anyway.