Paramount DMCAs ‘Star Trek’ Fan Project, Apparently Deaf To The History Of ‘Star Trek’
Paramount DMCAs ‘Star Trek’ Fan Project, Apparently Deaf To The History Of ‘Star Trek’
Of all the things we cover here at Techdirt, content producers going legal on pure fan-made productions that amount to fans expressing their fandom will always be the most befuddling for me. All th…
From the linked article…
So here’s what this essentially is: fans who love TNG filling in the gaps of the original story they love with the unexplored rest of the universe of people who would have been impacted by that storyline. That’s important for two reasons. First and foremost, this doesn’t take anything away from Paramount’s Star Trek production, and in fact does the opposite. The project doesn’t replace the original episodes, but rather builds upon them. In other words, this project could only possibly serve to draw more interest to Paramount’s product, since the book isn’t going to make much sense to anyone who hasn’t seen the original episodes.
Link crossposted from https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/23/08/31/057243/paramount-dmcas-star-trek-fan-project
Shouldn't surprise anyone... Paramount and Disney are two of the big companies for shutting down "infringing" projects.
From 2018:
2017:
2015:
https://www.engadget.com/2015-12-31-star-trek-axanar-lawsuit.html
Nintendo:
“Amateurs”
I feel like putting Axanar in quotes is a huge misunderstanding of the fact that Alec Peters was literally trying to build his own competing Hollywood-level studio off of the Star Trek IP. The guy was selling Axanar coffee and Star Trek t-shirts, taking in donations and trying to hire 'Trek alumni for the cast. He's literally the guy who broke the system for everybody else.
Wasn't the issue with this one that money was changing hands in exchange for a printed, physical book? Like, I know the team wasn't making money, but it's understood in fanfic circles that this is a Bad Idea and this was a very high profile (and, sadly, professional-looking) project.
The work is now on AO3 alongside countless other Star Trek fanfics that exist with no trouble. If they'd done that all along, I suspect there would never have been an issue.
Yeah, they don't do C&Ds on things that aren't actively attempting to profit. Even something as small as a book would break the rules they put out. These are for fan films, but I'm sure they're applying the same logic here.
I feel like nobody remembers Alec Peters and Axanar - everybody forgets the guy was selling Star Trek coffee and literally trying to bootstrap a studio with crowdfunding around the Star Trek IP. They took him to court and released this massive directive of rules and regulations on fan projects and basically nuked anything that was even taking donations.
Stuff like Stage 9 which was an Unreal Engine VR recreation of the Enterprise-D were taking Patreon donations and were also cut down by the regulations. Fun post-script to that, though - the team working on Stage 9 got hired by Fox and MacFarlane to do the same thing but for the Orville instead. It's available on Steam as the Orville Fan Experience.
Most fanfic doesn't cross the line because nobody is exchanging any kind of money. If these guys were printing and distributing that's an easy violation.
Yeah, they don't do C&Ds on things that aren't actively attempting to profit. Even something as small as a book would break the rules they put out.
I feel like nobody remembers Alec Peters and Axanar - everybody forgets the guy was selling Star Trek coffee and literally trying to bootstrap a studio with crowdfunding around the Star Trek IP. They took him to court and released this massive directive of rules and regulations on fan projects and basically nuked anything that was even taking donations.
Stuff like Stage 9 which was an Unreal Engine VR recreation of the Enterprise-D were taking Patreon donations and were also cut down by the regulations. Fun post-script to that, though - the team working on Stage 9 got hired by Fox and MacFarlane to do the same thing but for the Orville instead. It's available on Steam as the Orville Fan Experience.
Most fanfic doesn't cross the line because nobody is exchanging any kind of money. If these guys were printing and distributing that's an easy violation.
Enshitification