Thanks for the examples! I haven’t seen much Enterprise, but Ambassador Soval does indeed sound like a specific character, from a recent series even. Your other examples - UFP, Romulans, Vulcans, etc are the sorts of things I am more skeptical of any ownership. I think there are lots of great areas here. If I show something that looks like a Klingon without referring to them by name, are they Klingons? Not even all of the official Klingons look similar.
I am not claiming anything, but I think it’s reasonable for companies to provide some sort of evidence when they claim that an idea is property. Why they refuse to do so conclusively is that it limits their potential grab. Rather than be specific, it seems like they like to advance precedents that they own as much as they can get away with.
Is there even any sort of giant database which the average person can use to find out who owns or licenses what aspects of what media? With all of the big money and controversy about protecting IP, one might suppose that something like this would exist.
Are you gonna tell a Klingon warrior he’s singing off-key? You’re more brave than I am…
Getting back on topic:
Yup, this is the issue. And I can’t really blame Paramount for reacting to the money-making angle. But, over-reacting by trying to copyright every single aspect of their IP could have a chilling effect on other fan efforts, and I don’t like that at all.
Axanar is the story of Garth of Izar, the legendary Starfleet captain who is Captain Kirk’s hero. We met Garth in the third season TOS episode “Whom Gods Destroy.”
Au contraire! The Federation did indeed do a deep dive into intellectual property law in the Voyager episode “Author, Author.” (Totally not making this up.)
The Doctor has written a novel, which scurrilous Federation citizens have obtained and now wish to publish against his will. In court proceedings conducted via subspace, a UFP arbiter totally punts on the question of The Doctor’s personhood (which is correctly understood to be the real issue) but decides that whatever the fuck he is, he’s at the very least an “artist” which is the relevant term under Federation IP law.
In other words, bad cases making bad law, the Federation inadvertently established that not all artists are necessarily people. (The episode closes with a scene of dozens of enslaved holographic copies of The Doctor working at a mining colony, each clearly as intelligent and sentient as The Doctor. Since the EMH template is capable of creating art, but EMH clones can also be enslaved, this suggests that the Federation might soon be doing a brisk trade in legal slave-produced artwork.)
The court further ordered that all copies of The Doctor’s holo-novel be “recalled,” suggesting–since holo-novels are fully digital–that the Federation has absolute and unquestioned root-level control over every bit of data within its borders. If they didn’t, such an order would be both ridiculously hard to enforce and deeply offensive to Federation citizens who felt any ownership of the data on their terminals.
In other words, this tedious pile of gagh was a better-than-average Voyager episode.
this happens all the time for games. and there are well financed companies for whom this is their whole business model.
for an example, just look at how many flappy bird clones there are. the problem is, even if your little game does well, you’re not experienced enough to sue, and rarely do you have the money.
so basically, regardless of how it’s intended, copyright works as a hammer for big companies. everyone else gets nailed.
( im sure there are exceptions, but by and large this seems the way copyright works. )
edit: curious if their only money is from kickstarter - which would seem still a “fan film” - or, if they are currently trying to sell the competed film.
Anyone else disappointed in Klingon Opera? Whenever we heard a little bit, it always struck me as too musical. I wanted to hear some ungodly caterwauling, which Worf would listen to raptly, taking in every subtle nuance.
Well “The effect of the use upon the potential or fair market value of the copyrighted work” 17USC107 is one of the four factors in making a fair use determination. But as others have pointed out, copyright exists to promote progress.
I’m still trying to figure out why they seem to love Shakespeare so much. It seems like most of his plays wouldn’t even make sense to a Klingon.
Macbeth: A warrior murders the king in order to usurp the throne. Klingon reaction: Where’s the problem? All hail King Macbeth!
Romeo & Juliet: A star-crossed couple put aside the blood feud between their families for love and die tragic deaths as a result. Klingon reaction: Yeah, that’ll happen.
King Lear: An aging monarch struggles to decide which of his three bickering children should assume the throne after his death. Klingon reaction: Which ever one kills the other two in honorable combat. Duh!
Titus Andronicus: A power struggle between two families leads to an increasingly dark series of events including murder, rape, torture, mutilation, filicide and cannibalism. Klingon reaction: Oh, a comedy!
Hamlet: A prince struggles with the question of whether or not to avenge his father’s death. Klingon reaction: What is this I can’t even
I recently rewatched 6 and I’m not sure I accept the references in it as canon anymore. That movie was trying way too hard with the literary references. (It ends with a reference to Peter Pan. )
That said, if the Klingons were really all up on Shakespeare, it’d likely be because of the epic deaths in the face of futility. A certain reading of Hamlet could be very appreciated. I can even see Shakespeare being introduced to Klingon diplomats as a way of introducing (Western) human culture.
(As others have stated more eloquently elsewhere on BBS lately, Star Trek is often bad at nuanced approaches to other species’ cultures. Need more Klingon historians, for example.)
IMDB says that there are at least 3 non-Trek movies that have included spoken Klingon. Did the producers of each get permission from Paramount to do that?
I suppose that such small snippets of Klingon could be found as fair use, especially in that context, and that there isn’t a doctrine in copyright that failure to defend it vigorously is tacit admission of invalidity. (That’s more a trademark law thing.)
“Progress” as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution was built on the notion that creators needed to be economically incentivized in order to make creation worth their while. The fundamental idea behind copyright was that it gave rights holders exclusive control over their creations, especially over derivative works.
You can’t divorce the Constitution’s idea of progress from the inherent and exclusive economic control of creative work that is granted by copyright — except insofar as the law’s definition of fair use limits that exclusive control in the interest of such things as criticism, commentary, scholarship, etc., which is much more like the idea of “progress” you likely had in mind.
We offer a backgrounder on copyright law and how it applies to the Axanar case at our wiki documenting the Axanar lawsuit —
For Axanar, a self-proclaimed derivative work of Star Trek, to demonstrate that its infringement falls under fair use, the court will have to weigh four factors. The most important is the infringing work’s effect on the market for the rights holders’ own derivative work.
It’s here where Axanar may run into big trouble, given the extensive commercial operation it created to generate revenue for its production company.
Background on that commercial operation, which includes a full line of apparel, books, DVDs, Blu-rays, patches, five blends of coffee, starship models, posters and artwork, not to mention an online fulfillment and shipping service, is available at our website documenting the lawsuit —
Actually, the legal complaint filed by CBS and Paramount alleges quite specific copying of Star Trek elements not just vague look-and-feel. Like 28 pages of side by side comparisons between Axanar visuals and Star Trek works.
The defendants themselves in podcasts, blogs and media interviews detail exactly where and how they copied Star Trek because their aim was to create “the first fully-professional, independent Star Trek film. … For you, the Star Trek fan, Axanar is a return to the type of Star Trek all of us grew up on. … Axanar feels like Star Trek because it is made by two of the biggest Star Trek fans in the world.”
In fact, the plaintiffs’ most recent legal brief specifically mentions that many of its allegations of fact come from Axanar’s public postings on social media.
We detail the infringement and commercial aspects of the Axanar production on our wiki documenting the copyright lawsuit —
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