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Re: NEWS: Paramount is Shutting Down Trek Websites!!!
Lee Burwasser <lburwasser@crs.loc.gov> writes:
>sjroby@netcom.com (Steve Roby) wrote:
> [[ snip ]]
>>Ever hear of a company called Disney? If your daycare centre has a
>>mural featuring their characters and they hear about it, you will be
>>hearing from their lawyers very quickly.
>>
>>You can bitch about Paramount, or you can learn the context in which
>>this is happening. Acquaint yourself with the concepts of intellectual
>>property, trademarks, copyrights, etc. Learn how Disney deals with
>>similar situations. I've heard that Lucasfilm has also been keeping
>>fan activities under close scrutiny since the first Star Wars movie.
>>Paramount has actually shown some restraint.
>>
>>It's like this: Star Trek is NOT your property. I don't care how
>>much you have done to keep the show alive, by collecting action
>>figures or novels or videos or computer games; whether you've
>>created web sites or fanzines or posted works of great insight
>>and wisdom on r.a.s.*; whether you bought the show in syndication
>>for a TV station, if you happen to work for one. None of that makes
>>Star Trek your property. Being part of the Holy and Noble Collective
>>of Star Trek Fandom gives you no legal claim to Star Trek.
>>
>>All of us feel that Trek is in some way ours. But it has always
>>been a commercial enterprise. Gene Roddenberry himself created
>>the first organization designed to cash in on Trek fandom, Lincoln
>>Enterprises.
>>
>>If you don't want Paramount hassling you, create something of your
>>own.
>Not quite. Unlike Disney and Lucas, Roddenberry encouraged fannish
>activities all through the late '60s and '70s. (That I know of: for
>later news, get someone in the media camp.) There is a very strong
>precedent that while actual _Star Trek_ properties (scripts, stills, &
>so forth) are off limits without explicit license, work derived from
>properties (fanfic, fanillos, filk, et cetera) are permitted so long as
>they are not published for profit. There's a whole different set of
>rules for unique objects of art (paintings, sculptures, & the like) that
>I never learned because I don't paint or sculpt.
>If online fandom ever gets its act together, it can put up a fight for
>derivative works. That is, you can't scan a _Trek_ still or a clip into
>your webpage, but you can scan your own drawing of _Trek_ characters &/or
>sets, & to use another fan's drawings of same, you only need the
>permission of the other fan. Similarly, you can't put a script or a
>chapter of the _Writers' Guide_ onto the net, but you can post your own
>fanfic or filk, and that of other fans who give you permission. And you
>can quote up to 500 words from scripts or guides in process of reviewing,
>criticising, or otherwise discussing the material.
> (That last means that when I quoted from "Metamorphosis" to settle a
>newsgroup debate, I was not violating copyright, since I quoted less than
>500 words, and it was in the context of a debate over the episode.)
>So: Is online fandom going to get its act together?
>--
>Lee Burwasser lburwasser@crs.loc.gov
>Landover MD USA
>*working stiff -- don't blame me for policy*
Lee has a valid point. The thing is, online fandom is in many ways
a very different beast from the older forms of fan activities. It's
the first one in which fans can easily use copyrighted source
material, in the form of sound files, graphics, and so on. It's
a lot easier than trying to get a useable picture from a magazine
through a Gestetner for your fanzine, I would imagine.
Second, and possibly more important: finding an officially
licensed product in a store has always been a hell of a lot
easier than finding a copy of Kraith or a fan artist's sketch.
On the web, that's not so. It's as easy to find an unofficial
Trek site as it is to find an official one. And the unofficial
one may be better designed and have better content, with the
added advantage of not requiring MSN membership.
In short, the web has made it possible, for the first time,
for Paramount to encounter highly visible appropriations of
its intellectual property, and challenges to its own goals
of finding computer-based markets for said intellectual property.
Of course they're going to react. But there's still plenty of
room for fans who can learn and follow the laws involved here.
Steve
--
sjroby@netcom.com http://www.well.com/www/sjroby
"Standing here like a loaded gun waiting to go off
I've got nothing to do but shoot my mouth off"
-- Black Flag describes the Usenet experience
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