{"id":20771,"date":"2015-12-31T04:05:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T12:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20771"},"modified":"2015-12-31T04:08:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-31T12:08:12","slug":"paramount-and-cbs-sue-to-stop-a-fan-made-star-trek-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20771","title":{"rendered":"Paramount and CBS Sue To Stop A Fan-Made Star Trek Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"axanar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike Glyer at File 770 writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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

Paramount has tolerated other elaborate fan productions over the years, such as the crowdfunded fan films Star Trek: Of Gods and Men<\/em>, which received $150,000 in donations in 2006 and Star Trek: Renegades<\/em>, which raised $375,000 in 2014. It maybe that Axanar\u2019s budget, or CBS being on the verge of launching its new TV franchise, caused the companies to pull the trigger.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

When you say \u201cno good purpose is served by keeping it out of the public domain,\u201d what is your idea of a good purpose. You mention Axanar <\/em>trying to make a little money off this property and pay a few people \u2014 won\u2019t CBS and Paramount be providing a lot more jobs and stimulating the economy far more?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I responded to Mike: ((I’ve edited this response a bit before posting here on “Alas.”))<\/p>\n

1) I wouldn\u2019t assume that CBS and Paramount would only make a Star Trek<\/em> TV show if they can have exclusive rights to the Star Trek<\/em> 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\u2019s Fairy Tale, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock<\/em>, and Elementary<\/em>).<\/p>\n

(And by the way \u2013 consider that there are two <\/em>simultaneous hit TV shows based on Sherlock Holmes. That\u2019s good for everyone. If copyright laws didn\u2019t get in the way, why couldn\u2019t<\/em> there be two or more simultaneous takes on the Star Trek universe at the same time?)<\/p>\n

Studios go where the money is. They\u2019re clearly willing to make works based on public domain properties when doing so is profitable. There\u2019s no reason to suppose that Star Trek<\/em> would stop being profitable if Star Trek<\/em> was public domain.<\/p>\n

2) But even if Paramount and CBS decided not to make a new Star Trek series, that just means they\u2019d be making something else instead. Some TV show didn\u2019t get picked up because room in the budget and schedule has been made for Star Trek<\/em>. So from a stimulus-and-jobs perspective, it\u2019s pretty much a wash.<\/p>\n

3) In this way, I\u2019m a libertarian: I favor a free market for old intellectual properties. ((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.)) If CBS can make a better (or at least, a more commercial) Star Trek<\/em> show than the Axanar <\/em>folks \u2013 and they should be able to, given their budget \u2013 then the market will reward them for that. If despite their huge advantages, they can\u2019t withstand competition from Axanar<\/em>, then both the fans and the market would be better served by having Axanar <\/em>available.<\/p>\n

4) By \u201cgood purpose,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

But none of that is happening with Star Trek<\/em>. 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\u2019s<\/em> copyright.<\/p>\n

Instead, at this point, the copyright for Star Trek<\/em> is being used to create disincentives <\/em>\u2013 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\u2019s not good for anyone, except maybe CBS\u2019s stockholders.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

There are interesting comments about the lawsuit on Facebook from Marc Zicree<\/a>, the co-writer of Axanar<\/em>, and David Gerrold<\/a>, who (among other things) wrote “The Trouble With Tribbles” episode of Star Trek<\/em>. (Both links via File 770).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20774,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20771\/revisions\/20774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}