Star Trek Fan Film Axanar Lawyers Tell Court About JJ Abrams Claims Of Paramount Dropping Suit, Express Confusion

from the well,-this-is-awkward dept

Over the weekend, the internet blew up over the story that Paramount and CBS were going to drop their silly lawsuit over a professional looking Star Trek fan film. The news was "broken" by the producer of the next official Star Trek film, JJ Abrams, sitting alongside the director of that film, Justin Lin, at a Star Trek fan event. Lin had previously expressed support for the fan film on Twitter, and Abrams claimed that Lin urged Paramount to settle, and that "within a few weeks" there would be an announcement that the case had been settled.

Of course, between now and "within a few weeks," the case is still going on... and the folks behind the fan film, called Axanar, had to file their reply to the amended complaint. And they have. And, as per usual with these things, it goes through and rebuts various claims and then tosses in a bunch of counterclaims. Normally we'd go through and analyze the more interesting/important claims, but given that there's still a pretty good chance the whole case is going away shortly, we'll skip all that and jump to the part where Axanar's lawyers point to the JJ Abrams/Justin Lin statements and basically throw their hands in the air and say "we don't know what to do about this." After highlighting both of their comments, as well as the quote from Paramount "confirming" the settlement talks, the filing notes:

Nevertheless, despite these public comments, the present action remains pending, and Defendants are currently left with uncertainty as to how Axanar may proceed with its film to fulfill the wishes of thousands of fans who have contributed.

Given that pretty much everyone has admitted that there are settlement talks that are far along, it seems like the court should put the case on hold to see how those pan out. It's fairly common to see courts give parties extra time to settle such disputes out of court, and here's a case where that extra time clearly makes a lot of sense.

It still seems likely that the case will settle soon. I've seen some (fairly ignorant) commentary online arguing that because Axanar has filed counterclaims, the case must now move forward, but that's wrong. People are confusing the fact that the parties can settle the case outside of court with the issue of whether or not Paramount can just drop the case. From the statements everyone made, it's quite clear that they were discussing settlements, not Paramount universally backing away. A Star Trek "rumors" site claims that people at CBS are upset about the counterclaims and may continue the case even if Paramount settles (remember, Paramount and CBS co-own the various Star Trek IP). That report also claims that the two companies want the settlement to include the Axanar project being shut down -- which would seem to contradict the claims from Abrams.

While anything is possible, and the revealing of the settlement before it was actually agreed to could make things a bit messier, I find the claims about this difficult to believe. Axanar had to file its response because the case is still going and it was due. And they filed a strong response with counterclaims, because they have to do that, in case the settlement talks do fall apart for whatever reason. They can't go back to the judge and say "Hey, we filed a weak response because we thought we were all chummy now." That's not how it works. And, of course, the lawyers on the other side know this as well. The idea that the high priced lawyers at Paramount and CBS were somehow offended by this seems like a stretch. I may not agree with their views on copyright law, but I'd doubt they're so thin-skinned that some expected counterclaims will suddenly stop them from wanting to settle. Frankly, all the talk about how the counterclaims have sunk the settlement seem like wishful thinking from a group of folks who just hate the idea of Axanar.

Filed Under: alec peters, axanar, copyright, derivative works, fair use, fan films, jj abrams, justin lin, promises
Companies: axanar productions, cbs, paramount

Paramount Apparently Going To Drop Lawsuit Against Axanar Fan Film, Produce 'Guidelines' For Fan Films

from the better-than-the-alternative dept

Since December, we've been following the ridiculous Paramount/CBS lawsuit over a big crowdfunded Star Trek fan film called Axanar. While it is true that by raising over a million dollars on Kickstarter, and getting a professional team and actors behind it that Axanar started to blur the lines between a traditional fan film and a full-on professional production, it still seemed like a ridiculous and anti-fan move to sue. To some extent, it highlighted yet another problem with today's copyright laws, which are woefully unprepared for the fact that the equipment is cheap enough and available enough for "amateur" work to be really, really good.

We'd been covering the case, including the ridiculous overclaiming of copyrights by Paramount/CBS (including claiming a copyright over the Klingon language and "uniforms with gold stars.") Things had just been starting to heat up and the judge was gearing up for a trial... when famed producer/director JJ Abrams announced at a fan event for the next film that the lawsuit was going away.

The folks at Treknews have a video of JJ's statement: In case you can't watch or listen to that, JJ Abrams is on stage with Justin Lin (director of the new Star Trek Beyond) and professional Mythbuster Adam Savage and explains that he and Lin were really bothered by the lawsuit and what it meant for fandom, and urged Paramount to settle:

“A few months back there was a fan movie, Axanar, that was getting made and there was this lawsuit that happened between the studio and these fans and Justin, I’ll tell the story because he probably wouldn’t, was sort of outraged by this as a long time fan. We started talking about it and realized this was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans.

The fans should be celebrating this thing, like you're saying now. We all... Fans of Star Trek are part of this world. So you [Justin] went to the studio and pushed them to stop this lawsuit and now, within the next few weeks, it will be announced this is going away, and fans would be able to continue working on their project”

For what it's worth, the deal is not yet final. Alec Peters, the producer of the Axanar film has said that he wasn't expecting this and wasn't entirely sure what it meant -- but was "frantically texting" with his lawyers. He also says he's promised to name his first kid after Justin Lin, which, of course, now that it's on Twitter must be the same as a binding contract, right? On the Paramount side, the studio told Buzzfeed's Adam Vary that it's true they're "in settlement discussions" but also that they're "working on a set of fan film guidelines." This seems like a very good result for all involved, assuming the details get worked out. It also shows that there are solutions that don't need to involve lawsuits (and perhaps Paramount would have been smarter to have gone down this road first rather than this far into the lawsuit).

Similarly, it's a good thing that Paramount will be releasing fan film guidelines (and it would be great to see others do the same) but the details here will matter. If it's making it easier for people to make fan films, even to the point of granting licenses to allow people to do things without fear of a lawsuit, that would be really great. But what restrictions there are on all of this should be worth watching closely -- especially if the guidelines suggest that fair use is not allowed or still include overclaiming of copyright. I'm actually reminded of the story from a few months ago about the Fine Bros. trying to freely license some of their stuff, which was doomed by the horrible way it was rolled out, along with the Fine Bros.' history of aggressive complaints against anyone doing marginally similar stuff. But at that time, I noted that if, say, Lucasfilm had opened up its assets to fan film makers to create fan films with a free license, with just a promise to share back a small percentage of revenue, that would be quite cool.

So, now Star Trek will be getting some sort of official rules for fan films -- and I'm guessing that they'll restrict any and all commercial releases (which, frankly, is silly). And those details will matter quite a lot. But ending this lawsuit and letting the film continue is absolutely the right move -- so kudos to Justin Lin and JJ Abrams for telling the studio that... and to Paramount for actually listening.

Filed Under: alec peters, axanar, copyright, fair use, fan films, guidelines, jj abrams, justin lin, star trek
Companies: cbs, paramount