I never understood why Paramount hates it's fans so much. It is bad enough that they sue anyone who makes fan fiction but why do they Want to give us an STD.

Because if they don't pursue copyright, they will lose it.

That's Trademarks. Copyright you can ignore and not lose.

Huh, learned something today. Thanks!

Star Trek is trademarked, though, so I guess my point still stands. they *had* to pursue it.

You copyright a work. A specific work. You trademark a brand. So any one Star Trek work is copyrighted. Star Trek itself, the name, the insignias, anything that is an identifying mark of their brand is part of the trademark. You don't even have to directly infringe to infringe. There's a catchall called market confusion. If the average person would look at your product and think it is Star Trek, then there are grounds for market confusion.

Note, however, most trademark suits are settled out of court and sealed, but typically involve some exchange of money, a mutual existence agreement, and an agreement creating boundaries and limits about what each party can do.

Axanar was far from a fan film. The producers admitted their goal was to raise money to produce movies that could compete with other studios. CBS/Paramount only started to crack down when Axanar started selling merchandise with Star Trek properties on it for profit.

They also kept Tony Todd listed as a leading actor on the project for about a year after he dropped out.

ah well Axanar producers fuck up then. and fucked things up for everybody else, apparently. this is why we can't have nice things.

Yeah, I'm in favor of Fan Films being able to make whatever they want, but Axanar got greeeeedy.

in their Indiegogo FAQ, they had this little gem:
“Q: What is Axanar Productions?
Axanar is not just an independent Star Trek film; it is the beginning of a whole new way that fans can get the content they want, by funding it themselves. Why dump hundreds or thousands of dollars a year on 400 cable channels, when what you really want is a few good sci-fi shows? Hollywood is changing. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other providers are redefining content delivery, and Axanar Productions/Ares Studios hopes to be part of that movement.”

Which kind of contradicts the “fan film” statement.
And in their Kickstarter campaign, they said, “We have two potential locations we are negotiating for to serve as our sound stage in Valencia, CA, just north of LA. This will be the permanent home of Axanar Productions and allow us to do more than just Axanar, from other adventures in the Star Trek universe and beyond.”
So they were, in fact, securing a long-range lease on a studio space that they planned to use to make for-profit productions, using money donated to them for their “labor of love”. And also money that was ‘donated’ by fans who got, in exchange for their ‘donations’, Starfleet patches and model kits of Klingon warships (which are apparently still available for purchase). None of which was licensed from Paramount, and the boundary between “selling merchandise” and “accepting donations and providing ‘perks’ to people who donate” is mostly semantics.

Kickstarter backers are also getting copies of the film on DVD in exchange for their donations. Which is pretty much just selling copies of the DVD under another name, something absolutely verboten by Paramount.


The might have been ignored, but they raised a million dollars thru Kickstarter/indegogo, which is the type thing that gets attention.

Axanar was doing things that Paramount specifically forbade, raising money by selling bootleg merch to fund their own production company, flaunting their professional credentials until such time as they became inconvenient, and using an actor’s likeness to promote a project he wasn’t attached to



I've been to lots of conventions and seen a few fan films. A fan film is a labor of love trying to tell a story, not run a business.

This was the equivalent of people borrowing your house for a party while out of town, selling tickets, not giving you a cut, then getting mad when asked to stop.


CBS/Viacom have also been historically more permissive of fan films then most major studios. Try making a million dollar star wars fan film, selling DVDs of it, and selling custom made lightsabers, and modified tie fighter models and see how long either Lucas or Disney would have/will give you.

So not cool.

So, is the film completed? Will the full version be floating around somewhere?

I'd rather get the re-cut Star Wars films.

Well at least it'll be better than the three reboot movies.