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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. "
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.
Sure, don't watch Star Trek.
Let's see, what will the studio think?
Probably, hey, viewership of our syndicated reruns are down. Either we aren't advertising enough, or people are sick of it, or it's all Axanars fault.
In the first case, they'll advertise more. In the second, they'll pull out of more trek projects. In the last, they'll double down on screwing the Axanar folks.
And do you know why?
IT'S BECAUSE THEY JUST SEE A REDUCTION IN POPULARITY AND DON'T KNOW WHY!!!
That is, of course, if it ends up having a large enough effect to be even noticed by them in the first place.
Here's a choice that's a THOUSAND times better...
Write them a POLITE letter indicating your displeasure at their actions, and that you support Axanar and would like to see a reasonable resolution.
Whatever you do, do NOT threaten them or even imply any kind of legal actions!
That's the mostly likely to get you positive results, especially if you can get people to do it. And by the way, just to be clear, by 'write them a letter', I'm referring to dead tree format delivered by the US Post Office. I know email is quick and easy, but half those old farts running the studios don't know how to open their own email and don't pay any attention to it in the first place. On the other hand, a physical representation of your views written out is something they find much harder to ignore. (If you really want to make them think about it, make it registered mail so you have proof of receipt.)
Just to reiterate, email campaigns are watered down and of little value. Not dealing with the product is invisible to the companies, and if any dip is noticed, they assume it's the market. Actual letters still get their attention. Avoid doing things like be an asshat or threatening them with lawyers because at best that will get you ignored, at worse they'll sick their lawyers on you, but either way you fail.
Remember, you have to TELL them how you feel because they are too stupid to understand it otherwise.
Thank you, and yes, you don't have to use a pen, you can print it out and sign it. (If your handwriting is as bad as mine, that might be preferable.)
That's a very good and reasonable suggestion. And it will fail miserably, even if you could somehow get a lot of people to write a lot of letters.
First, if you think the people who make the decision to sue fan-produced materials actually give a shit about what you think, you are completely delusional. They surround themselves with people who are paid to make sure that the unwashed masses can't contact them. One of their assistants may mention to them "we got a bunch of letters ..........." and that is all they'll ever hear of it.
Second, and most important of all, good old-fashioned greed. When they see fan-produced material, their *ONLY* thought is "this may somehow hurt our profits or hurt our 'brand' (which will hurt our profits), therefore it must not be allowed". Period.
JJ Abrahms and Justin Lin may be big Start Trek fans, the people who run CBS and Paramount are not.
Well, to be fair, come July there will be no Ghostbusters fan left on the planet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
What's sad is the fans have passion and tell better stories and understand the source material better that the studio's hired hacks. Look what a farce the rebooted Star Trek has become. Every reboot really. Funny story: Once a puritan attorney-general decided to shut down the porno movie industry by prosecuting the actresses for prostitution and financers as pimps. He took a test case to court, but the judiciary bukakked all over his face with a finding that made clear the porno movie industry was legal.
Maybe we need a porno parody version of Star Trek with good stories and awesome porn, wouldn't that be every nerds wet wet wet dream? I mean porn has a problem with good stories and sci fi has a problem with good porn so, rule 34.
It would be funny if Paramount tried to fuck this fan over in court and ended up legitimizing fan films.
Fans are the cow that can be eternally milked for cash. A porno version of the prime directive would be the ultimate way to tell paramount to get fucked. Get para mounted.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.