NuTrek 3 is Good Trek and Suicide Squad is a Bad Movie

By CaulynDarr

Sometimes a movies makes the whole series better, other times it makes everything worse.  Some minor spoilers may or may not follow.  You have been warned.

CBS & Paramount Finally Release Their Fan-Film Guidelines

by SandWyrm

I have no idea where the Axanar settlement talks are going right now, but CBS and Paramount have collectively released a new set of fan-film guidelines. Many of them are reasonable, some are a bit irksome, and a few are downright awful.

So I'll just go ahead and list them here, while I snowmobile my comments in. If you want to look at the original page of rules without my comments, follow this link.

Anyway, on with the snowmobiling...

A Priceless Axanar Lawsuit Parody

by SandWyrm

It's just too good not to share.

Legal Briefs are Much Better in the Original Klingon (Axanar Update)

By CaulynDarr

doink, doink

Paramount thinks they own the Klingon Language.  The Language Creation Society begs to differ. They have enlisted the help of First Amendment bad-ass Mark Randazza.

Is Trek a Dying Enterprise? (UPDATED)

by SandWyrm

With the recent brouhaha over Axanar, I got to wondering how the Trek franchise is actually doing from a financial standpoint. I mean... The 2009 reboot supposedly revitalized the franchise in a big way, right? Or is the truth, after looking at the historical budgets and gross returns, more disturbing?

Axanar: Round 2, FIGHT! (UPDATED)

by SandWyrm

Anyone remember this classic 1992 3DO/PC game? Clearly infringing!

In our last episode, CBS/Paramount had decided to sue Axanar Productions over their clearly infringing (to some extent) fan-kickstarted movie project to tell a story about a Trek-Universe battle that was mentioned once in passing by Captain Kirk during TOS. Even though there are over a dozen OTHER fan projects out there, from movies to episodic series, that infringe on Trek copyrights and trademarks at least as much, if not more than Axanar does.

But then Axanar countered with the assertions that CBS/Paramount's lawsuit wasn't specific enough in its claims (which it wasn't), that the ownership of certain IP elements is uncertain due to the split of CBS from Viacom (which owns Paramount), and that they can't be sued for an infringing work that they haven't even completed, much less published yet. Fair Enough.

Well, CBS/Paramount has pressed on, and has filed an amended lawsuit (thanks to David Heagney Jr. for the link) that includes much more specific copyright claims. While at least a third of them seem reasonable enough, most wander into GW vs. Chapterhouse territory by ridiculously claiming ownership of ideas, instead of specific expressions of those ideas.

Let's take a look at a selection of CBS/Paramount claims, and talk about what is, and is not defensible under copyright.

Star Trek: Axanar Fan-Film Sued?

by SandWyrm

I'm not sure how I missed this happening over a month ago, but it seems that CBS and Paramount have decided to sue Axanar Productions for the Star Trek: Axanar fan film they've been producing.

"The Axanar Works infringe Plaintiffs’ works by using innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes," states the complaint.

Well, yeah. Duh. We all knew that. But there's a problem for CBS/Paramount, because they've allowed a legal gray area to form around these fan productions for some time.

I'll Just Leave This Here...

by SandWyrm

Now if only I liked Star Trek: Attack Wing... Oh well.