Star Trek/Axanar Lawsuit Isn't Going Away Just Yet (gizmodo.com)

New submitter monkeyman.kix quotes a report from Gizmodo: Even though it sounded like we may be getting close to ending the battle between the fan film Axanar and the studios that own Star Trek, the latest court action hints that it's just starting. Last month at a Star Trek fan event, J.J. Abrams indicated that they believed that CBS and Paramount's lawsuit against the fan film Axanar would be settled. At the time, he said that Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin was "outraged by this as a longtime fan" and that they both realized "this was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans." Except that the legal proceedings haven't stopped yet. The parties were back in court today, with CBS and Paramount (the plaintiffs) taking center stage. The state of the case is this: Paramount and CBS sued Axanar Productions for copyright infringement in late 2015. The judge rejected the defendant's motion to dismiss the case, finding that the studios had sufficient cause and provided enough notice to the fan film to proceed. He also dismissed a separate brief, refusing to decide on whether Klingon as a language was copyrightable. The Hollywood Reporter writes: "Now, instead of asking for an extension, Paramount and CBS have filed their own answer to the counterclaim admitting public statements, saying such items speak for themselves, but otherwise acting as though the lawsuit is moving forward. The plaintiffs, for example, deny that the works in controversy represent a fair use of their copyrights. "

Comments

Well then, no Beyond for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I threw my money at Axanar after seeing the first Beyond trailer. Then they dismissed the lawsuit and released a second trailer which seemed much less shitty, so I thought I'd give them a break and go watch it.

But if they want to sue the fan Star Trek productions then I guess I'll go back to not seeing Beyond. I was only going to see it on the fool's hope that it won't be utter shit like Into Darkness was, so I guess I won't be losing much.

I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I called it. What do you have to say now J.J. Abrams?

Re:I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also to note, anyone curious to see J.J. Abrams saying he never liked Star Trek, see this interview with Jon Stewart.

This is a problem with CORPORATE identity

[SkyLeach]

Unlike authors, corporations live forever. They don't give a flying crap in the accounting department how many old fans get pissed off, because fans die. Revenue streams are forever. All they have to do is sit on a trademark (brand name) or copyright (of which Star Trek is both) until things die down. They'll give placebos to the fans a little, but honestly Axanar isn't well-known enough yet to hurt them over the long haul.

They'll just outlive any displeasure.

My biggest argument against all of this is that Axanar is a completely new story in a fictional universe that they bought the IP rights to. It's a social idea hook. It's LONG past the original 35 year copyright span.

The point of that original span was to be the lifetime of the exclusive ownership of a body of work for a reasonable time as defined by the following criteria:
1.) The lifetime of an author to enjoy the rights to his labor without theft.
2.) A reasonable compromise between cultural saturation and ownership. Over that amount of time it is unreasonable for any owner to expect any popular work to remain under their sole control due to the nature of human society.

Star Trek is now a cultural meme. It is a consistent fictional universe with a life of it's own. Attempting to extend ownership of an idea in perpetuity is a lucrative corporate wet dream, but it flies in the face of the way human society works. We evolve based on our shared dreams, desires and cultural ideas. Parents have now introduced TWO GENERATIONS to Star Trek without marketing based on an old ideal created by a now-dead author. Most graduates from high school have watched NONE, NOT ONE of the series of STTOS, STTNG, DS9, Voyager and even Enterprise has only been watched by a few. Ask them.

IP isn't just about the works anymore, it's about language and meme... owning the memories and cultural identities of huge segments of the population... for profit.

Nothing good comes from this.

If this holds up, then William Gibson should have a right to sue Microsoft for trademark infringement, as well as the Wachowskis. After all, their cultural memes came from Neuromancer.