Paramount and CBS Sue To Stop A Fan-Made Star Trek Movie

Mike Glyer at File 770 writes:

Paramount and CBS have filed a copyright infringement suit against Alec Peters and others involved in making Axanar, a fan-produced Star Trek movie project that raised more than $1 million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Paramount has tolerated other elaborate fan productions over the years, such as the crowdfunded fan films Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, which received $150,000 in donations in 2006 and Star Trek: Renegades, which raised $375,000 in 2014. It maybe that Axanar’s budget, or CBS being on the verge of launching its new TV franchise, caused the companies to pull the trigger.

In comments there, I wrote that “Star Trek was created a half century ago; no good purpose is served by keeping it out of the public domain at this point.” Mike responded:

When you say “no good purpose is served by keeping it out of the public domain,” what is your idea of a good purpose. You mention Axanar trying to make a little money off this property and pay a few people — won’t CBS and Paramount be providing a lot more jobs and stimulating the economy far more?

I responded to Mike:¹

1) I wouldn’t assume that CBS and Paramount would only make a Star Trek TV show if they can have exclusive rights to the Star Trek universe. There are lots of TV shows and movies based on works in the public domain (recent and off the top of my head: Into The Woods, Once Upon A Time, Grimm, Frozen, the BBC’s Fairy Tale, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock, and Elementary).

(And by the way – consider that there are two simultaneous hit TV shows based on Sherlock Holmes. That’s good for everyone. If copyright laws didn’t get in the way, why couldn’t there be two or more simultaneous takes on the Star Trek universe at the same time?)

Studios go where the money is. They’re clearly willing to make works based on public domain properties when doing so is profitable. There’s no reason to suppose that Star Trek would stop being profitable if Star Trek was public domain.

2) But even if Paramount and CBS decided not to make a new Star Trek series, that just means they’d be making something else instead. Some TV show didn’t get picked up because room in the budget and schedule has been made for Star Trek. So from a stimulus-and-jobs perspective, it’s pretty much a wash.

3) In this way, I’m a libertarian: I favor a free market for old intellectual properties.² If CBS can make a better (or at least, a more commercial) Star Trek show than the Axanar folks – and they should be able to, given their budget – then the market will reward them for that. If despite their huge advantages, they can’t withstand competition from Axanar, then both the fans and the market would be better served by having Axanar available.

4) By “good purpose,” I meant encouraging the making of new creative and intellectual works. Insofar as copyright makes it possible for creators to earn a living, giving them incentives to make movies and comics and books and spaceship model kits and so on, then copyright is serving a good purpose.

But none of that is happening with Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry is dead and will not be creating any new works, regardless of what happens with Star Trek’s copyright. CBS has a profit motive and a TV schedule to fill and stockholders to placate, and will be creating new TV shows regardless of what happens with Star Trek’s copyright.

Instead, at this point, the copyright for Star Trek is being used to create disincentives – to make people like the folks creating Axanar shut up and not produce work that they want to produce and – judging by the success of their Kickstarter – fans want to see. That’s not good for anyone, except maybe CBS’s stockholders.

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There are interesting comments about the lawsuit on Facebook from Marc Zicree, the co-writer of Axanar, and David Gerrold, who (among other things) wrote “The Trouble With Tribbles” episode of Star Trek. (Both links via File 770).

1. I’ve edited this response a bit before posting here on “Alas.” [↩]
2. Honestly, I think a free market might be better for newer intellectual properties as well, in many cases. But there’s a MUCH stronger case to be made for strong copyright protections for new works, than there is for copyright protections for half-century-old creations. [↩]