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CBS/Paramount Sets Phasers To Kill On Star Trek Fan-Fiction With New Guidelines (audioholics.com)
Audiofan writes from a forum post on Audioholics: The Star Trek fan-fiction controversy that resulted in legal battles between CBS/Paramount and Axanar Productions concluded last week. However, CBS/Paramount have finally put forth its long-awaited guidelines intended to clarify acceptable fan-fiction so that it won't get the creative Star Trek fan sued for copyright infringement. But in doing so, it may have launched Star Trek fan-fiction's torpedo casket into space with a solemn salute. To be or not to be is the question which we ask about the future of Star Trek fan film. Some of the new guidelines for avoiding objections when making your own Star Trek movies and posting them to YouTube include: The fan production must be less than 15 minutes for a single self-contained story, or no more than 2 segments, episodes or parts, not to exceed 30 minutes total, with no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes. Part of the non-commercial requirements include: CBS and Paramount Pictures do not object to limited fundraising for the creation of a fan production, whether 1 or 2 segments and consistent with these guidelines, so long as the total amount does not exceed $50,000, including all platform fees, and when the $50,000 goal is reached, all fundraising must cease. The fan production cannot be distributed in a physical format such as DVD or Blu-ray. If the fan production uses commercially-available Star Trek uniforms, accessories, toys and props, these items must be official merchandise and not bootleg items or imitations of such commercially available products.
Just rewrite the dictionary and make whatever you like; If the story is good and all things being equal it will still be enjoyable.
Instead of Federation use Union, Collective, .. If Phaser is copyrighted use laser, pulse pistol.
Instead of Klingon use African American, and so on..
IMO we need new wider variety of scifi anyway.
And the guidelines are "1) don't do anything that takes away our precious money or actually competes with us, and 2) oh yeah, we're forcing you to buy all of our expensive prop junk, too."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I wasn't too thrilled with any of their 'star trek-flavored' movies anyway, and now they've guaranteed that I will never go see one for any reason or recommend them to anyone else for any reason, either. What a bunch of assholes.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The restrictions are just way too limiting. It's a big universe, and CBS/Paramount should "make" space for proper fan fiction, not beam-it-out in wide-dispersal mode.
I for one, will think twice before spending any money on any new Star Trek ventures going forward. Very, very disappointed.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
If yucking it up over some 1960's barely acceptable at the time TV series and the host of less than endearing follow on properties including 5 TV series and even more full length movies is going to be controlled by these rules, sell me some tribbles...
Gee, it's sooo nice that you will now let me make a video using your concept I think I'm going to willingly follow your rules... NOT...
Best Paramount can hope for is to keep tossing out the DCMA letters and suing folks who violate their copyrights, nobody is going to follow these rules unless they want too. Can you imagine? Sir, prove that Tri-Corder in your parody "Enterprise's last emission" that Kirk is using it to ogle that female yeoman in his quarters is really licensed merchandise..... Do you have a receipt to prove where you got it?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Unfortunately, film and recording studios are still extremely naive about what intellectual property policy should be to maximize income. Obviously, the Star Trek fans are what has kept this franchise going for 40 years. You can count on them as an audience, which means a film is going to be a much safer investment than it would be otherwise.
To keep the fan base alive, holding intellectual property this close is simply the wrong policy. Coming to some sort of resolution with fan fiction producers would both preserve the fan base and increase profit (you can license them and allow them to make some money, as well as you).
To think, in the U.S. we just gained the right to sing "Happy Birthday" without intellectual property restrictions. That's how the non-sharing side of the ecology is going. On the sharing side, we have a very healthy Open Source community that has produced software everyone uses (even if they don't know) and that could not be built via the conventional economic paradigm because it can't necessarily be monetized directly. And we have things like Wikipedia that would just be impossible in the conventional paradigm.
Studios need to catch up. So far, they seem to be incredibly resistant to learning.
Bruce Perens.
CBS/Paramount are run by Ferengis.
Don't use Collective, it's probably copyrighted by The Borg.
I'm curious: how many homeless have been housed by your Slashdot comments, since that's apparently the only metric for determining how worthwhile an activity is?
The fundraising issue really bothers me. I know that Star Trek Continues had done some fundraising and was producing 45m episodes that were excellent. The production value was amazing, and they recreated parts of the set that were very convincing.
This may shut that down, without special dispensation from cbs/p.
Fortunately, we'll always have Star Wreck - In the Pirkining. Watch it or full downloads in various formats from archive.org. It's funny, lots of poking fun at star trek, and CBS can't do squat about it since it's a parody, doesn't use their characters or their universe.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I said it last time this topic came up, and I'll say it again now. Its no surprise to me that their rules are so draconian that they would eliminate pretty much all Star Trek fan fiction created thus far, and would make anyone think twice before bothering to create anything new. The reboot is so horrible they can't survive any real competition. Even with just a short at this point, its obvious that Axanar is going to totally blow away Star trek: Fast & Furious In Space.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Good grief. This is a geek genre, for people with honest-to-god attention spans. Fifteen minutes is not a bad length of time to reach the opening credits.
Paramount Pictures can FOAD.
Fund primarily via Bitcoin.
Make it as long as you want, then double, triple, quadruple, etc. the playback rate get it under 15 minutes. I'm sure every hypernerd that watches this shit can play it back at the intended speed. (And no, you won't lose frames if you merely alter the rate.)
Lets back up here a bit CBS/Paramount. You didn't invent Star Trek. You didn't even fund it's creation. You know who did: Lucille Ball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Ball). Yep. That woman. She sunk her company's last penny into it and sold off all her rights to her own TV show to blood suckers like you to do it, until she could not hold any longer and had to sell out completely. If she could have held out another year she would have made it, but not one of you misogynist pigs in the industry would support a woman. So you buy the rights to Star Trek out from under her for a song, and then what do you decide to do? Cancel the show! CANCEL THE SHOW! Only a massive writing campaign by fans restrain you from canceling it, to your recorded dismay, so in retribution you stuff the last season into the Friday night death slot. It wasn't for the massive rerun support of fans you would have shelved the who thing long long ago, in a closet far far forgotten.
Paramount, you have no shame and I'm not sure you deserve any of the proceeds you've made off this franchise. I wish Lucille Ball could sue you, but alas, she has a statue of limitation. Meanwhile you get to keep exploiting her and Gene's legacy endlessly.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Are they doing anything right now to contribute to the franchise. Are they doing anything that is better than the fan made one? The answer is no. Then they should fuck off, move over and let actual interested parties, ACTUALLY DOING THE WORK, get whatever benefits those parties see fit.
You shouldn't be able to copyright a fictional universe. As long as bullshit money rules, copyright has become the spurning of creativity, not supporting it. How many years do they own "star trek" for? beyond the lifetime of most humans?? and even then, its a 60s era remake!! if you cant make enough fucking money off an idea you BOUGHT from a human, in 60 years, whoes problem is that?
A company by its nature can not produce a creative work. Humans do this, and the creative work should then remain the property of humanity, not corporations!
How dare they dictate what people do in their own time, creatively, with their own resources and skills. Fuck CBS. This shit really pisses me off!!
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Your stories can no longer be imaginative and better than our, you must find a way to make them more lame because we don't know how to. Breach these conditions and we will sue you out of existence.
Personally, I think the fan stories are more interesting. I've kind of given up on paramount's version of star trek because it is usually disappointing so I don't see any point in it any more. I think the fan fiction is the only thing keeping their franchise alive simply because CBS make the movies for a wider audience that isn't interested in ST knowing that fans will go for the eye candy.
I think that once CBS lamifies the fan fiction, it's all over for star trek, at least for me, simply because it's just not that interesting or challenging anymore.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Commodore Kirker: Best guess, Zulu. Zulu: Aye, sir. (HMS Corporation fires phasors [hey, Master of Orion II got away with that] at HMS Infallible, missing.) (HMS Infallible shakes.) Genghis: Forward missiles, fire! (Missile launches into space, missing.) This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Paramount is going to do to Star Trek.
Yeah, I can't wait until Major Keerk uses his Maser to take down a charging Klangron warrior before beaming up to his star cruiser and engaging the hyperspeed drive at speed factor 6.
There, I just invented my own Star Trek knockoff lingo!
IANAL, but almost none of the original series or movies used "officially licensed" uniforms or props. They just used whatever the costume department or prop department came up with for an episode. From movie to movie the outfits were always different. Even from season to season, in many cases. What then, do any of the genuine-looking costumes or props have anything in common with the licensed ones which are generally plastic toys, or are made of cheap fabrics that are poorly stitched or just outright glued together? I'm sorry, if Paramount is going to put this bird-cage fodder in their requirements then they, too, need to seriously commit to improving the quality of the products they're trying to force on the fans. The only other logical option is revise the requirement so that people trying to make a believable fan fiction are allowed to use self-made articles of, unquestionably, higher quality than the mass produced garbage and NOT SELL THEM. Because that's how you respect the trademarks and copyrights, to not sell knock-offs to undercut their bottom line. Maybe something for the CBS folks to consider is that THE STAR WARS FRANCHISE DOESN'T DO THIS CRAP TO THEIR FANS. (They do other crap, but not this. ;) )
There is nothing stopping Paramount from working with fan fiction producers, even elevating the really good ones to top production quality with licensing arrangements. There's is clearly more demand then Paramount knows what to do with, which means they are loosing money by their own actions, not the fan film maker's.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Will the comms officer be called Ubuntu?
How about sports?
Do we really need to pay people millions of dollars to hit a ball with a stick and run around in a big circle?
Throwing a ball into a basket with the bottom cut out?
Slamming into one another like rutting walruses trying to pound one guy carrying a ball into the turf?
Kicking a ball then chasing madly after said ball, with the occasional (bad) performance of "He touched me, I am slain!" ?
Or smacking a small white ball then walking towards where you hit said small white ball and repeating the process? Just pick the damn thing up and carry it with you!
noun
1.
anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form.
2.
a thing, person, or matter to which thought or action is directed:
You jest. But the producers of the Star Wreck series (And eventually, Iron Sky) did exactly that. The last installment before they switched to moon nazis vs. Sarah Palin (No, I did not make that up.), was "In the Pirkinning", which chronicles an adventure of the C.P.P. Potkustartti, commanded by Captain James B. Pirk, with the assistance of crew members Commander Dwarf and Commander Info.
Through various somethity hole something anomaly blah blah blah; they eventually cross over into the universe of the Babel 13 space station, commanded by Captain Johnny K. Sherrypie, with first officer Commander Susannah Ivanovitsa, and Security Chief Mikhail Garybrandy, who sometimes also have to deal with the machinations of Psy-Co officer Festerbester.
Hijinks ensue.
Imagine all the people...