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New York Court Sees No Fair Use in <i>Star-Trek</i> Inspired Fan Film
The Star Trek franchise so far includes six television series (more than 700 episodes) — and another that launches this year —plus 13 feature-length motion pictures, all accompanied by a merchandising juggernaut. Over the last five decades, Star Trek characters, stories, dialogue, and even an invented language ascribed to alien characters, have become culturally pervasive. The enormous value of the TV and film franchise is matched by the desire of its owners, Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios, to protect it.
Cultural pervasiveness, however, has side effects. The creative story-telling that fueled the passion of fans inspired a number of them to expand the Star Trek universe on their own through “fan films,” which can challenge the property owners' efforts to maintain the integrity and appeal of their franchise. If unchecked, unauthorized derivatives could lead to an eventual loss of the copyright and trademark rights that underlie the value of the property.
Paramount and CBS Studios evidently have struggled to strike a balance between exercising tight control over the Star Trek brand and allowing space for fan filmmaking. In December 2015, the franchise owners brought a copyright infringement action against the would-be corporate producer of a professionally staffed Star Trek feature-length film and its president who, to quote presiding Judge R. Gary Klausner of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, went “where no man has gone before in producing Star Trek fan films.” Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Axanar Productions, 2:15-CV-09938 (C.D. Calif.)
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