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This money could go a long, long way toward improving cultural activity among "every day joes" in the west, as opposed to lining the pockets of suits running the corporate media machines that are stealing our culture by preventing it from ever ending up in the public domain. Sure it's lame Star Trek fanfic, but taking an active part in making it is better than sitting like a lump on the couch.

Apparently you've never seen Star Trek: The Voyage Home. Easily the funniest Star Trek I've ever seen- until Come What May came out.

A friend of mine told me about a series of Star Trek that just released a pilot episode and is being looked at. It seems to be a continuation of the original series and will use amatuers as the crew and everything.

The one I am referring to is the Star Trek - New Voyages site.

Even though I share the same name as one of the actors who played in Trek, I'm not much of a follower. Maybe some others on Slashdot who are in the know could validate this?

How will the characters be portrayed?

The original Star Trek characters are so well known that the task of recasting the parts seems impossible. We are not casting people who look or act like the original actors. What we don't want is a parody - an actor imitating William Shatner doing Kirk for example. We want actors who will be able to remind us of our old friends, but bring to the characters a new life, a fresh interpretation, not a stale imitation. The cast we are assembling are actors first - and a few have only now begun viewing TOS episodes. But what they bring to the table is talent and vitality. They will be believable as these characters and will be as effective as any Trek cast thus far! In addition, the cast will be seen in a "21st Century" light. Our crew has grown as they reach their 4th year together!

No Copyright or Patent laws may be bad, but going too far the other way is just as bad. I can understand the *AAs wanting to make money on their products, but today's copyright law is about maintaining control (in practical terms) forever.

P2P sharing is just a small part of the picture, technically all fan fiction is illegal without permission from the copyright holder, yet fan fiction is one of the results of "content" becoming part of our culture. Why should (not for profit) fan fiction and fan web sites be illegal? That is why original copyright law was limited to 14 years -- it allowed the creator to profit from his or her work while allowing for the work to be freely used by everyone after a period time.

We should go back to a reasonable (14 year) copyright. Why should works such as D.J. DangerMouse's "Grey Album" be considered "illegal art" or projects such as Star Trek: New Voyages have to exist as long as Paramount doesn't mind (I'm not sure what their arrangement is with Paramount, but 5YM is not for profit).

Businesses and creators can make a reasonable profit without having to own our culture forever. I'm sure the Beatles have made a ton of money on their music in the 30 plus years that it has been around, and I'm sure Paramount has made a load of money off of Kirk, Spock, and the original Enterprise.

It is time to bring "IP" law back to reality.

New Voyages has fan-created Star Trek episodes with all donations going to The Space Shuttle Children's Trust Fund

I'm surprised that 5yearmission.com hasn't been mentioned yet. Free Star Trek spin off episodes and the proceeds go to a good cause.

They should really let the fans be the writers.

There actually is a lot of fan produced Star Trek out there.

Hidden Frontier, Starship Exeter, Star Trek: The New Voyages., and some others that I don't have the URLs handy for.