Age of the Geek

By: 
Travis Fischer

Boldly going where copyright law hasn't gone before
     A column about copyright law and Star Trek? Is it Christmas again?!
     Actually, this is a column I’ve been wanting to write since around Christmas, but haven’t had a chance to until now.
     It probably won’t surprise you to learn that there is no shortage of Star Trek fan-films out there. Modern video editing equipment means any Trekkie with a video camera, a computer and a handful of patient friends can put together their own space adventure.
     The quality of these fan projects can switch. Sometimes they are little more than two guys in costumes talking in what is clearly their living room hallway. Other fans have stepped up their game by bringing in green screen effects and rudimentary CGI.
     Every so often you’ll get a fan project with some better production values and talent. Veteran voice actor Vic Mignogna’s “Star Trek Continues” may be technically be a fan project, but the fans involved are entertainment professionals with the skill and resources to faithfully recreate the classic feel of the original series.
     Traditionally, CBS and Paramount Pictures have been kind to the various Star Trek fan films that have popped up over the years, giving them guidelines on what is and isn’t acceptable. After all, it makes little sense to antagonize and alienate fans of the franchise by shutting down their fun.
     But then came “Star Trek: Axanar.”
     Following a very successful short film, the Kickstarter for “Star Trek: Axanar” raised more than $600,000, which Axanar Productions has used to finance a full fledged studio with professional equipment and staff.
     Which is where CBS and Paramount drew the line.
     Just before New Year’s Eve, CBS and Paramount filed an injunction against Axanar Productions for copyright infringement.
     And as much as it pains me to see a really good looking Star Trek movie get shut down, particularly when the only other alternative is the upcoming ‘Star Fast, Trek Furious,’ I have to agree with the copyright holders here.
     It’s one thing to put on a costume and film yourself playing with a toy phaser. It’s another thing entirely to raise a half-million dollars and start a professional production company using a franchise that doesn’t belong to you. I don’t doubt that the Axanar production team are all huge Star Trek fans, but it’s clear that these are also industry professionals using the Star Trek brand to further their own careers.
     Which brings us to an odd little quirk of the crowd funding economy.
     The golden rule of copyright and fair use is that you don’t profit off of licensed material. You can make a Star Trek fan film, but you can’t profit off of it. That seems pretty straight forward, but things get complicated when crowd funding enters the mix.
     From a practical standpoint, the only difference between crowd funding and selling something is the order of the transaction. You can’t produce a fan film and then sell it for money, but you can ask for money and then use that money to produce a fan film.
     For example, YouTube enthusiasts are probably aware of TeamFourStar. They are a group of “DragonBall Z” fans responsible for “DragonBall Z Abridged,” a non-profit fan-based parody that redubs and edits the show in humorous ways.
     TeamFourStar does not monetize their videos for ad revenue nor do they sell their videos in any form. Legally, they can’t or they’d be shut down pretty quickly.
     That said, there are 20 T-shirts you can buy right now based on the jokes they’ve made parodying the show. The crew also makes $10,000 a month from donations to their Patreon, of which a dollar comes from me.
     So technically, no. TeamFourStar does not sell “DragonBall Z Abridged.” I just give them a dollar every month out of the kindness of my heart while they continue to upload videos that are totally not-for-profit.
     Thankfully, TeamFourStar has a much better relationship with their respective legal rights holder than Axanar Productions has with CBS and Paramount.
     As of now, Axanar Productions has suspended fundraising and production in the hopes that a mutually beneficial agreement can be made. Hopefully everything will work out for the best, but in the meantime I think we can look forward to more cases like this developing as the legal system catches up with the new economy the Internet has created.
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and does not own a Star Trek uniform, but did once have a toy phaser.

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