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Television The Courts

Paramount DMCAs 'Star Trek' Fan Project (techdirt.com) 173

Posted by BeauHD from the here-we-go-again dept.
Timothy Geigner writes via Techdirt: Paramount has gone after fan-made works playing off of the franchise for years and years. Even Paramount's release of guidelines by which fans could create fan films served mostly as a giant middle finger to the fandom, so stringent were the rules. This apparently represents the owners of Star Trek's IP being completely deaf to the history of Star Trek and the internet and what the fans have meant to the franchise. And this all continued into the present day.

Recently, a fan-made project called Wolf 359 Project suffered a DMCA takedown from Paramount. If you're a Next Generation fan, that name will likely sound familiar: "The Battle of Wolf 359 hearkens to a classic The Next Generation two-episode event called 'The Best of Both Worlds.' Captain Picard is assimilated by the Borg, and before the Enterprise crew rescues him, the relentless Borg forces fight a battle that kills 11,000 people. Star Trek: Picard Season 3 dealt with this, specifically through the character of Captain Liam Shaw. It was the first time someone described the Starfleet experience during one of the costliest battles in Star Trek history. Star Trek fans are never one to let a good idea go to waste, and The Wolf 359 Project is a fan-written oral history of the battle. The 'book' ran over 500 pages long, and its authors were giving it away for free. However, Paramount issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act strike against it."

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. Second, this is a work being done for free, given away for free, all by fans that are doing what Star Trek fans have always done: create. [...] ]
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Paramount DMCAs 'Star Trek' Fan Project More

Paramount DMCAs 'Star Trek' Fan Project

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  • Not the first time (Score:5, Informative)

    by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:17AM (#63811464)
    Unless you're being super pedantic about the word "described," someone has forgotten "Emissary."

    • Came here to point out exactly that! DS9 was kicked off with a gritty depiction of Commander Sisco losing his shipmates, ship, and his wife during that attack.

    • Came to say exactly this.

    • Add my voice to the chorus of people replying to you saying that they came here to point out the same thing.

      It was rather important to Sisko's backstory and the character arc he went through with Picard.

  • Paramount has nothing but contempt for Star Trek. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:34AM (#63811478)
    They don't understand it, have never respected anything about it, and consider people who like it to be sheep for shearing rather than members of a community they share.

    Fuck Paramount directly in the ear.

    • Re:Paramount has nothing but contempt for Star Tre (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @06:06AM (#63811534) Homepage Journal

      Fuck Paramount, but Strange New Worlds does respect and build on the canon in a way that really adds to the whole Star Trek franchise. Arguably Lower Decks does too.

      We should be careful to separate Paramount Corporate and their lawyers, who are also currently trying to screw over the writers and actors, and the people producing Star Trek at the moment who clearly have a lot of love and respect for it.

      • As long as their material is paywalled, corporate is indistinguishable from creative. I was not impressed with earlier attempts at new series on streaming.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Discovery has been a bit of a mixed bag over the years. Sometimes it's great, other times not so much. I still really enjoy it though, and it's definitely got the core of what Trek is nailed down.

          Strange New Worlds can't seem to put a foot wrong. Great takes on the characters, managing to capture their essence while not having the actors do a simple impression of the originals. It's extremely well written too. If you didn't like Discovery then I highly recommend checking out SNW anyway.

          Lower Decks... At fir

          • I'll check out whatever's available for free without having to create an account.
          • "Prodigy" is one of my favorites. So well made and written. I still can't get into "Lower Decks", it is simply too juvenile, IMO. And oddly, the show put out by Nickelodeon is less juvenile. I watch all of the series, save for "Lower Decks".

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Some of the slightly serious episodes of Lower Decks aren't bad, but yeah a lot of them are a bit juvenile for my sense of humour sometimes. I get the basic joke - if Star Trek was real then people would be experiencing these ridiculous kinds of things all the time. It's just a bit manic and a lot of the jokes miss because I don't have instant recall of every random reference they are making.

            • The cadence and sound of the voice actors on Lower Decks just annoys me. Like everyone is coked up and paid by the word.

          • Prodigy was *weirdly* good ,once you get past the "This sort of looks like star wars?" animation style.

            I got bad news though. Paramount axed it.

            And yeah much like the originals a lot of the new trek is hit and miss. They've really only had one season I could say was *truly* bad, and that was the second season of Picard. The first was.... meh, not good but i could watch it, and the third and final season was .... why couldnt they just do THIS from the outset?! Goofy and fanservicey, but I thoroughly enjoyed

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Paramount axed season 2 of Prodigy, but it was nearly complete and they have decided to finish it. It will almost certainly air somewhere, and then after that I understand their contract allows them to sell it to other networks. Maybe if the numbers are good they can even get Paramount back.

            • The MU arc had to be as long as it was for a few reasons. First, it concluded the arc of a major character. Second, it onboarded a new major character who needed a sufficient introduction. Third, it allowed the Klingon War to develop offscreen. And finally, it gave them room to throw in a fun (if pointless) tie-back to In A Mirror Darkly.

              • And finally, it gave them room to throw in a fun (if pointless) tie-back to In A Mirror Darkly.

                Doing something for fun is rarely pointless. Cheers!

            • Season 3 of Picard AKA Next Gen season 8, bah. I didn't want that at all. It felt like watching Laurel & Hardy in Utopia, too much sad reminder they're getting old. And that was on top of it being nostalgia fan service, get back to something mildly new.

        • Streaming is here to stay. Best get used to it. It's actually a much better value than most big-package plans, TBH, although Paramount+ isn't the premier example.
          • Where they screwed up was holding Star Trek hostage. That should have been a freebie. I would have checked out other stuff if I was impressed with their treatment of Star Trek. Instead, they act like it's a prisoner exchange. "Gimme your credit card or Geordie gets it in the visor!"
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Paramount has nothing but contempt for Star Tre (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JackieBrown ( 987087 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @07:51AM (#63811752)

      I hate this too. But this is a problem with copyright rules. I believe there is a clause that states to the effect of "f you do not enforce your copyright restrictions, it becomes unenforceable.

      • Re:Paramount has nothing but contempt for Star Tre (Score:4, Informative)

        by unrtst ( 777550 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @07:55AM (#63811762)

        I hate this too. But this is a problem with copyright rules. I believe there is a clause that states to the effect of "f you do not enforce your copyright restrictions, it becomes unenforceable.

        IANAL but I think you're referring to trademark, not copyright.

        • Copyright can be like that too. Basically if you dont enforce it you open up a defence for others to violate it. If you let fans do movies without permission, then when Fox does ITS star trek folk they can say "Well Judge, they let Axanar do it, how are we different?" and since the law doesnt dipastinguish between fan and professional , the judge is likely going to agree and decide theres unclean hands going on here.

          There IS a simple solution to this though. And fan media creators pay close attention here;-

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dpilot ( 134227 )

            Or the other side of the solution is for Paramount to have a process for this kind of thing. They really should not be discouraging fans in any way, even as they need to protect their copyrights and trademarks legally. This isn't an either/or kind of thing, both can be done at the same time.

      • I believe that means copyright can lapse if totally unenforced, not that you're legally obligated to spam the universe with takedown notices at the slightest provocation to keep the copyright active.

      • Re:Paramount has nothing but contempt for Star Tre (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @12:08PM (#63812416) Homepage

        There is a misconception that enforcing copyright (and trademark) means the holder must shut down any potential violation. That is not so. They do need to respond, but they don't have to shut it down. Paramount could have sent a letter saying "We authorize this, here are some conditions, sign here." or even "This does not violate our copyright because [fair use or parody or whatever reason]." The action they took was their decision, not something they are required to do.

        Trademark holders can do that too. My favorite example of this is: Tim Langdell (*former* head of the International Game Developers Assocation, the IGDA) held a trademark for his gaming magazine "Edge." He sued an indie developer who made a game called Edge. (Which is the opposite of what he was supposd to do in his role in the IGDA) The defense was that the law required him to defend his trademark, otherwise it risks becoming a generic term (like "Kleenex"). But trademark law did not force him to shut down the developer - he could have either 1) licensed to them, or 2) written a legal opinion stating that a video game named Edge does not violate a trademark on a publication named Edge. Langdell was forced to resign his position - not because what he did was legally wrong, but because it violated the spirit of his position and put a black mark on the IGDA.

        Another example of this is The Pokemon Corporation who shuts down events at conventions, instead of licensing them. Everybody says "Oh, that's a trademark violation" or "oh, that's a copyright violation." But it is only a violation if the fans don't follow the rules! If The Pokemon Corporation sent a marketing person down who said "Hey, you owe us $10, and you have to display the trademark in accordance with our trademark rules" then the everybody would win.

        TLDR: The law does not require IP holders to be jerkwads.

    • They don't understand it, have never respected anything about it, and consider people who like it to be sheep for shearing rather than members of a community they share. Fuck Paramount directly in the ear.

      This is how Paramount views all legacy properties they get to make movies for. They don't seem to get that contempt for the fans isn't the brightest move, nor is it a money-making strategy long-term.

      Gee. I wonder why they keep having financial difficulties?

  • Yet another case where DMCA is clearly being abused. Really, it is past time to attach severe penalties to that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      What specifically do you think they abused? Was this not a derivative work that used copyrighted elements of the Star Trek fictional universe?

      If someone believes they were wrongfully DMCA'ed, they just have to provide a DMCA counter-notice [websitepolicies.com] and wait a couple of weeks.

      • I've started watching "Star Trek Continues" on YouTube. It's a near-perfect continuation of sixties-Trek.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        I was wondering how they were getting away with it, but it's interesting to note there are zero ads on YouTube, on their website or anywhere. All the episodes are free-to-download as torrents. So I suspect they are truly making zero money from it.

        I can't help but wonder if the Wolf 359 Project is some how making money and that's the issue?
        • I remember the golden age of Fan Trek. We had Hidden Frontier (and it's spin-offs, Odyssey, Helena Chronicles and Federation One), USS Intrepid, New Voyages, Starship Exeter, Of Gods And Men, and a bunch more. It was an amazing time. Couldn't happen today.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As usual the media leaves gaping holes in the story you could drive a bus through. The Wolf 359 Project was a free fan art project allowed to operate... right up until they turned it into a commercial enterprise (pardon the pun) by putting up a Google Form asking people how much they would be willing to pay.

  • 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.

    Huh ... almost sounds like it "promote[s] the Progress of Science and useful Arts"!

    And the same evil old white men who wrote that also thought that 7 years, renewable one time for a total of 14, was enough for copyright. They would have been fine with this fan project.

    • Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Thursday August 31, 2023 @06:29AM (#63811574) Homepage Journal

      > that used copyrighted elements

      The Constitutional copyright system prevents unauthorized duplication, not building on a mythos.

      In 1789 that would have been called 'Storytellng'. There is zero chance the Founders intended to outlaw Storytelling.

      Modern wrong fascist "interpretations" should be delt with harshly.

      • The Constitutional copyright system prevents unauthorized duplication, not building on a mythos.

        Even if we assume that the original constitutional intent for copyright did not involve the exclusive rights to create derivative works of an original copyrighted work (which seems unlikely to me), the current law of the land in the U.S. reserves that right to the copyright holder.

        https://www.copyright.gov/circ... [copyright.gov] (page 2)

        As a consumer, I like free stuff. As a producer, I like getting paid for my work. Regardless of our personal stances on copyright, Paramount owns the right to create, and authorize or deny

  • They don't want your fanning. Let it go.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by unrtst ( 777550 )

      I think you mean that they can't take a hint; the people have spoken and they're going to fan.

  • We clearly need a storytelling universe that is free of the fascist copyright regime.

    Unfortunately due to /Byrne/ it would need a permissive license in many juridictions.

    Has such a project already begun?

  • You can't buy that kind of fan dedication. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @06:46AM (#63811622)
    This is why you don't let lawyers run your company. Lawyers and MBAs. They don't understand how to build. Only how to tear down.
  • The pilot episode of DS9 via flashbacks explores the personal experience of Captain Sisko (though he was a commander in the pilot) during the battle of Wolf 359. Specifically, the traumatic event when this ship he is serving is about to explode while he frantically tries to save his wife but is dragged away by a fellow officer after his son is saved. The pilot explores his resentment towards Captain Picard for his forced involvement as Locutus of Borg.
    • As I vaguely recall from +20 years ago, I don't think Sisko ever forgave or trusted Picard again. That is what made DS9 interesting to me. We didn't have a rosy conclusion to the relationship. Some episodes hint that Picard is teetering on the edge of going full Borg, so Sisko might have been right.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thomst ( 1640045 )

      Disco Ninja noted:

      The pilot episode of DS9 via flashbacks explores the personal experience of Captain Sisko (though he was a commander in the pilot) during the battle of Wolf 359.

      The captain of a naval vessel is always referred to as "Captain," regardless of his actual rank. Likewise, a visitor or passenger whose actual rank is captain on a naval vessel is accorded a courtesy promotion to admiral for the duration of his/her visit, so as to remove any possibility of confusion over who is in command of the ship.

      This is one of the many, MANY points of military culture that every Star Trek iteration since TOS reliably gets wrong.

      As for Amimojo's praise of SNW's "faithf

  • No doubt they did it so they can take the idea and turn it into some malnourishing gruel not even Krusty the Clown would put his name to.

  • The parody laws should easily cover this as fair-use. Who can claim grievance from harm, or standing, including loss of profits or dilution of IP? (I am not a lawyer). This is like bothering to sue kids that make their own Halloween Star Trek costumes instead of buying cheap, imported plastic stuff at Wal-Mart. Judges don't take kindly to frivolous lawsuits.

  • That's the message from Paramount. These fans spend so much energy on something fictional. Energy they could use on something productive like write to their representative to do their job. Instead these idiots get lost in fantasy. Serve them well as a wake up call!

  • We have Paramount+ right now only because they begged us to stay when our free trial ended. They gave us three more months for free.

    What we learned from the trial was that it wasn't worth paying for. Not only is the amount of interesting content pretty much limited to Trek, but they play unskippable commercials for shows I don't want to watch at the beginning of episodes. Thankfully they mostly only play once, so if you stop them and then restart the episode you can effectively skip them. Every so often the

  • Did they have better scripts, plots, acting and storylines than Paramount's next installment of Star Trek?

  • They Can't Compete With Fan Fiction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @08:52AM (#63811902) Journal

    Star Trek as a franchise has gotten so bad in recent years that they fear that fan fiction will completely out-compete them. And they're not wrong. Literally ANYTHING is better than the garbage they have put out since 2009. They might as well sell the property to Disney at this point. It can't get any worse.

    • [Paramount] might as well sell the [Star Trek] property to Disney at this point. It can't get any worse.

      Having Star Trek and Star Wars under the same ownership would raise eyebrows at any competent antitrust agency.

    • Re:They Can't Compete With Fan Fiction (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:33AM (#63812172) Homepage Journal

      Strange New Worlds is fantastic. I don't think anyone could reasonably argue otherwise. It's well written, well acted, looks and sounds fantastic. Unless you just don't like sci-fi there's no reasonable complaint to be made.

      • Strange New Worlds is fantastic. I don't think anyone could reasonably argue otherwise. It's well written, well acted, looks and sounds fantastic. Unless you just don't like sci-fi there's no reasonable complaint to be made.

        I like how they've tied in TOS storylines, such as Pike’s accident and a Spock from The Cage that is not yet the cold logical one in TOS.

    • Is “woke” the word you’re looking for?

  • The only reason we still have Star Trek today... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Harvey Manfrenjenson ( 1610637 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @09:48AM (#63812064)

    ...is that after TOS was cancelled in 1969, the fandom kept it alive. They just kept on writing fan-fic, publishing fanzines, and holding conventions. (The first big Star Trek convention was held in 1972, even though there was absolutely zippo happening with Star Trek back then). According to people like David Gerrold, this was something new and unprecedented; usually if a show got cancelled, the fan base moved on.

    I have fond memories of reading Star Trek fanfic in my teens/twenties. The highlight was "Star Trek: Door Repair Guy", which was a sort of Terry Pratchett-like series about (you guessed it) the guy who does maintenance on all of those sliding doors. There was also a pretty good series called "Only Human", which took place in an alternate universe where Q never got his powers back after "Deja Q".

    I'd stack either of those fanfics up against the "official" Star Trek novels, even though some of those were written by established and semi-well-known authors like James Blish.

  • And now we have a short IQ test.

    Paramount is to Star Trek fan support as:
    a. Bud Light is to falling off a cliff
    b. Target is to children's adustable clothing sales
    c. Disney is to remaking Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with non-offensive dwarves of color

    Choose a, b, or c, or oh hell, all three above.

  • OK, I know it's fun to say big mean corporation (Paramount) loves to screw over the fans because they just don't get fandom, but it's being alleged elsewhere that there is a very good reason why Paramount went after this website. As stated above, Paramount came out with some pretty draconian rules for Star Trek fan films. This was because one very successful fan film had its producers decide to leverage the success they had raising money into starting a production house that would produce more things in the future, not necessarily Star Trek related. They got sued because they sold coffee mugs, t-shirts and so on with logos from their Trek project, so essentially they were making money off Trek, if somewhat indirectly. It's worth noting that the main guy behind this fan film ended up publicly admitting he was in the wrong as part of a settlement with Paramount.

    So why would Paramount go after this "free" book? It's being alleged on Reddit that the website had a Google form asking people if they would be interested in paying for a print copy of the book. That is what got them the takedown notice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jsonn ( 792303 )
      Sending a take-down for trying to publish a book is just as silly. Yes, they would have to negotiate with Paramount on a license, but that's much easier to do for all involved parties if you have a realistic idea of the demand.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Fan films aren't new to Star Trek. They have guidelines for fan films ( see: https://www.startrek.com/fan-f... [startrek.com]). And if you follow the guidelines, there shouldn't be any problem. I think the real story here might be, a fan made film, that didn't follow guidelines, and now is made that Paramount said "no."

  • and the horse they rode in on. This tempts me to start writing some fanfic :-( I certainly won't be the first. Do a search for "Star Trek fanfic" for a huge list of archives. Like https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/... [fanfiction.net]

  • Not that I support the action, but could their reason be that *if* hypothetically they created a wolf 359 miniseries and it sounded a lot like a fanfic, they could get sued by the fans?

    Not a justification, still stupid, but I'm searching for the why.

  • Keeping in mind that ideas and names cannot be copyrighted (names can be trademarked though) — what exactly is Paramount claiming has been copied? It seems unlikely that anything of a copyrightable length/nature would be in a fan-fic book.

  • ... so stringent were the rules.

    As Yoda would say .... :-)

  • Paramount didn't DMCA the text of the book (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:01PM (#63813206)

    They only objected to the book's use of direct screen captures/images that are Paramount copyrights. They did not have any objections to the text content of the book.

    Don't let reality stand in the way of your righteous indignation, though, please continue.

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