According to io9 J.J. Abrams announced that Paramount Pictures' lawsuit against Axanar Productions was "going away.".
The report comes from a Star Trek event in Los Angeles, at which the trailer for Justin Lin's new film Star Trek Beyond debuted:
io9 was at the fan event, where Abrams noted that Star Trek Beyond's director, Justin Lin, was outraged at the legal situation that had arisen.
Axanar is a kickstarter-funded fan film covering events preceding the original Star Trek, and the team responded to the io9 article with cautious optimism
While we're grateful to receive the public support of JJ Abrams and Justin Lin, as the lawsuit remains pending, we want to make sure we go through all the proper steps to make sure all matters are settled with CBS and Paramount.
Paramount's legal manoeuvrings, and IPR claims, have been covered previously on Soylent.
Related Stories
In a move that shouldn't surprise anyone, Paramount is claiming ownership of all Klingon ships and the Klingon language.
The ongoing lawsuit between Paramount Pictures, CBS Studios and the crowdfunded Star Trek spin-off "Prelude to Axanar" is raising some interesting copyright questions. The spin-off makers argue that several of the Star Trek related elements they use are not copyrightable, but the movie studios clearly disagree.
Earlier this year Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed a lawsuit against the makers of the Star Trek inspired fan film, accusing them of copyright infringement.
The dispute centers around the well-received short film Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar and the planned follow-up feature film Anaxar.
Among other things, the Star Trek rightsholders claim ownership over various Star Trek related settings, characters, species, clothing, colors, shapes, words, short phrases and even the Klingon language.
That'd be "verengan toDSaH Hutlh batlh" for those of you without plqaD glyphs in your font.
"The Ferengi idiot without honor" - Ed.
A legal battle is heating up between the producers of a Star Trek fan film, Anaxar, and Paramount (the corporation that owns Star Trek). Paramount is suing the film producers, claiming not only trademark over the iconic alien races and the look and feel of their equipment, but also copyright ownership of the language they speak. This became interesting when a lawyer, representing Pro Bono the Language Creation Society (LCS), filed an Amicus brief arguing that Klingon has moved beyond the point where anyone can logically own it, and has taken on a life of its own. For bonus points, part of the brief was written in Klingon.
Paramount Copyright Claim on Klingon Language Challenged in Klingon Language; Paramount's arguments lack reason, or "meq Hutlh."
Is Klingon A Living Language? That's For (Human) Courts To Decide (NPR Broadcast recording and transcript)
Why a lawyer wrote a legal brief partially in Klingon (listen to the recording for this one, it's particularly funny and to-the-point)
Paramount, for its part, predictably stands by its claim; they say that they made it, and Klingons aren't real anyway, so they should be able to own copyright on the language.
This argument is of interest to the tech world as well, as some of the same arguments can be made regarding computer language. A person or corporation can create a computer language, but what control then does it give them over how that language is used? The brief touches on various famous software cases such as Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc and Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai Inc. The broad issues of whether copyright can/should be applied to a language as a whole affect both the Constructed Language community and the world of programming.
The LCS' page covering the Axanar case has an impressive list of further reading on this topic; the Internet has made this into a meme and discussion of it has gone viral.
Just when it looked like the Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp. lawsuit against Axanar Productions over the Star Trek: Axanar fan film was winding down after both J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin said last week that it would "go away," Axanar Productions has filed a countersuit against Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp.
The counterclaim was filed on Monday, and it runs twenty-eight pages in length.
A statement from Axanar explained why the counterclaim was necessary. "Yesterday, Axanar Productions, through its law firm Winston & Strawn, filed a response to the first amended complaint filed by CBS Studios and Paramount Pictures. The response includes a Counterclaim for Declaratory Relief that previews Axanar Productions' fair use defense, provides substantive background on how Alec Peters operated in good faith in his dealings with the Plaintiffs, and describes Alec's fruitless four year struggle with CBS to obtain fan film guidelines.
Axanar is looking for a recovery of attorneys' fees and cost, as well as "additional relief the court finds 'just, proper, and equitable.'"
In defending Axanar's use of the Star Trek playground, the defense provided Peters' history as a bona fide Star Trek fan dating back to the original airing of the show. They went all the way back to Peters' childhood, giving a story of Peters' watching the show as an eight-year-old boy. "Mr. Peters is a lifelong Star Trek fan. Starting with the very first Star Trek teaser appearing on NBC in the summer of 1966, Mr. Peters has seen every episode of Star Trek many times over. When Mr. Peters was just eight years old and NBC moved Star Trek to 10:00 p.m., his mother would put him to bed at 8:00 p.m., but would wake him up at 10:00 p.m. only so that he could watch Star Trek, before putting him back to bed again."
The counterclaim also mentioned the support of Abrams and Justin Lin, saying "even Plaintiffs' own producers and directors have recognized the importance of fans to Star Trek, and have publicly renounced and called for an end of the lawsuit against defendants."
The defendants gave their reason for the counterclaim as the "defendants are currently left with uncertainty as to how Axanar may proceed with its film to fulfill the wishes of thousands of fans who have contributed."
Had Paramount and CBS planned on dropping the suit, it will not be possible at this time due to the counterclaim being filed this week. The plaintiffs now have three weeks to answer this latest legal action, and then the defense will have three weeks to respond.
The full counterclaim can be found here.
I found this article that explains CBS's real reason for the Star Trek fan film crack down. They say they are trying to stop huge money making productions full of ex-Trek actors (Renegades probably) and they will ignore any small productions now and in the future.
Quoted from the article:
Van Citters stressed that the guidelines were not designed to quash fan films... "That's not what we're trying to do here," Responding to compiled fan questions, Van Citters explained that CBS won't be going after pre-existing Star Trek fan films which don't adhere to the new guidelines, nor will it be actively reviewing and policing new ones for compliance.
The question is, can they be trusted not to sue any group making a fan film after the new rules came out?
Previous SoylentNews Coverage on the topic:
- Paramount's Lawsuit Against Star Trek Fan Film is "Going Away"
- Axanar Files Countersuit Against Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp
- CBS and Paramount Issue New Guideline for Star Trek Fan Films
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @06:30PM
What about the poor, needy MPAA? The MPAA should go after JJ & Axanar so they can feed their starving underprivileged kids.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Sunday May 22 2016, @06:42PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:41PM
My assumption is a change in personnel. Old manager thought it was great and helped build the brand. New blood thinks like a cog.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday May 23 2016, @08:36AM
No, it's in keeping with their previous policy. The grandparent is slightly wrong. They were not lenient towards projects that did not make a profit, they were lenient towards projects that did not ask for money. The former would require someone to audit the accounts of said projects. Axanar is paying actors, paying special effects folks, and asking for money. This crossed the line - other projects have been run entirely by volunteers (including some of the original cast).
This is a particularly important distinction because of Hollywood accounting. Very few movies make a profit, though certain individuals involved make huge amounts. It's very easy to set up a 'fan' production using entirely professional staff, pay the producer and director huge amounts, and then make no profit. Should this get a free license?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 23 2016, @06:14PM
Yeah, but the other productions (Star Trek Continues and Star Trek: Phase II) both "asked for money" by soliciting donations. Their costs weren't that high of course since they used amateur/volunteer actors and a lot of self-financing, and probably got the FX work done for free, but they did ask for donations to offset the principals' personal expenses. Building all those sets was expensive.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday May 24 2016, @08:47AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 24 2016, @03:42PM
Phase II takes donations here [startreknewvoyages.com]. I've donated small amounts to both productions. Unfortunately I can't see their blog entry right now as their site is blocked for me, but as I remember it, their statement on donations is something to the effect of attempting to offset their production expenses (as I said, building those sets costs money), and they don't make any profit or pay any salaries. I seem to remember reading that James Cawley spent $100k of his own money initially.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:06PM
IANAL, but it seems that lawyers (to be now known as Lusers) and 'bright lights' (now to be known as Idiots) need to stay away from the decision making: someone gets a great idea and says "lets invite the fans into this world and we will call this world.... this world" and things go great guns and the thing explodes and does good.
Then the Lusers and Idiots get involved, and the original, great, money making/fan spreading idea gives way to the "let's squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze EVERY LAST FRACKING DOLLAR FROM THIS SOMBITCH", they push away the creators, which helps push away the fans, and then they are left with pushing down Windows 10 updates whether you want it or not and pushing the fans onto linux and mac and
Wait.... where was I???
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @01:35AM
fucking pottering.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:19PM
An idea is to create a fund where any entity that tries unsubstantiated legal attack will be responded by the collective financial power to deter any such action.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:20PM
Star Trek Beyond's director, Justin Lin, was outraged
I googled around and its very unusual although not unheard of for a stage director to get IP rights. Usually that's signed away in the contract to get a paycheck although sometimes stage directors keep rights to the stuff they do (a lot of who says what while standing where type stuff).
So something like the canonical conference at the rail between kirk, bones, and spock smells of something a stage director like JJ Abrams COULD copyright (but probably signed away in exchange for a paycheck).
Anyway if the director doesn't have the rights, then his opinion really doesn't matter anyway.
The fact that all three directors of different movies agreed is nice, but its totally irrelevant to legal. Its as if all three recording studio chiefs agreed, well thats nice but who cares.
Its possible that JJ could testify at a hearing, if it came to that, that he never pushed for stage director rights because he didn't think it was copyrightable. Which would save the folks being sued. It would probably piss off the guy who hired him quite a bit.
It gives publicity more than actually helps anyone legally.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday May 22 2016, @09:51PM
You don't need to own the rights to be outraged.
Both of these guys (Lin and Abrams) carry enough weight that if they said "Fuck you, find another director", it would hurt more than having a fan film would (which is pretty easy since the film will probably just end up keeping fans interested and attracting new ones).
Lawyers, accountants, and MBAs can't seem to think beyond the next quarter, and most aren't even very good at that.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:32PM
CBS Paramount could easily license them for a small fee and let them play in a sort of Expanded Universe / Star Wars Legends sort of way. Most mainstream moviegoers aren't going to get mixed up by this, and it might just yield some fruitful ideas for the future.
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