Jonathan Lane

DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK: A “near-perfect balancing” of FAIR USE factors! (Part 2)

Last time, we began looking at the intriguing case of the Dr. Seuss/Star Trek “mash-up” book Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! by DAVID GERROLD and TY TEMPLETON. Last November, they got sued by Dr. Seuss Enterprises for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition. The defense quickly filed a motion to dismiss the case. After a brief extension, the judge issued a ruling last month. (For more details, read yesterday’s blog.)

The motion to dismiss centered around the “mash-up” being protected as “fair use.” And while judges do not usually rule on fair use this early in a case, the Honorable Janis L. Sammartino of the 9th Circuit Federal Court did (again for reasons explained in yesterday’s blog).

So did the fair use defense work or not? What did the judge say???

In short, it’s a tie. She called it a “near-perfect balancing of the factors” of fair use. And what does that mean? Get comfy, folks, ’cause Jonny’s gonna do his best to break this down into layperson’s English for you all…

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DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK “Mash-Up” files new MOTION TO DISMISS! (Part 1)

Last week, I wrote a blog about what is rapidly becoming the second biggest copyright infringement lawsuit involving Star Trek in the last year. But this time it isn’t CBS and Paramount doing the suing, it’s Dr. Seuss Enterprises. And the target isn’t a fan film but rather a “mash-up” book that takes the characters, settings, and concepts of Star Trek and presents them in a style inspired by (the plaintiffs say “slavishly copied from”) the classics of Dr. Seuss.

The authors of the mash-up, entitled Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!, include Star Trek “The Trouble with Tribbles” writer DAVID GERROLD and award-winning comic book artist TY TEMPLETON. Together with their publisher, ComicMix, they were sued last November for both copyright and trademark infringement, along with unfair competition, by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the owners of all the works of Dr. Seuss. This lawsuit is seeking $150,000 in damages per infringement (of which there were multiple instances provided in the filing), for a potential judgment in the MILLIONS! And all of this for a small, grass-roots book project that took in only $30,000 in a Kickstarter last September (pledged money that is now being held by Kickstarter pending the outcome of this case) and has never been published.

(If you’re wondering how the non-publication of a book could cost the copyright owners millions of dollars in damages, well, sit tight. We’ll get to that in part 2.)

Anyway, last month, the judge in the case, the Honorable Janis L. Sammartino of the 9th Circuit Federal Court (yeah, the same court where the Axanar case was filed—but a totally different judge), made a series of significant pre-trial rulings. Among these were the dismissal of the trademark infringement and unfair competition portions of the complaint and declaring that the fair use defense was valid but still “too close to call” (my words, not hers) due to a lack of evidence of financial harm.

Many thought the case was pretty much over, but it wasn’t. So what happens now?

If you’re thinking this is gonna be another one of Jonathan’s long legal blogs, you’re probably right. But I’ll be walking you through it in helpful layperson’s English…and I guarantee you’ll come out of it much better informed. Ready?

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I just had an AWESOME fan film week! (personal)

My life isn’t usually all that interesting or exciting…at least, not all in one week. But what a week it was!

(Actually, it was only really exciting if you happen to be a Trekkie interested in fan films. If you’re my wife, it’s more like, “That’s nice, honey. I’m glad you had such a good time. Did you remember to empty the dishwasher?”

And that’s why I’m writing this blog—because I have now emptied the dishwasher, and I really want to tell you guys about the fan film filled week I just had…because you care, right? (Aw don’t answer that; it’ll just kill my buzz.)

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A history of STAR TREK: RENEGADES – 2006-2012 (feature, part 1)

RENEGADES: THE SERIES just hosted a movie theater premiere in North Hollywood, California for their first full one-hour episode, “The Requiem.” But before there was Renegades: The Series, there was STAR TREK: RENEGADES, one of the largest, most ambitious fan film projects ever attempted.

Nearly four hundred thousand dollars in crowd-funding, multiple Star Trek veteran actors reprising their roles from the various TV series, paid industry professionals on both sides of the camera, two years in the making, enthusiastic plans to present this to CBS as a potential pilot for a new Star Trek TV series, and even a gala Los Angeles red carpet premiere at the historic Crest Theater in Westwood.

Looked at through the hindsight lens of the constraining limitations of the post-guidelines reality we now live in, it’s hard to imagine that something like STAR TREK: RENEGADES could even have been attempted, let alone successfully completed and released with such fanfare. How on earth (or in space) did they manage it?

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RENEGADES hosts a North Hollywood THEATER PREMIERE of “THE REQUIEM”!

Over a half million dollars. Multiple crowd-funding campaigns. Walter Koenig. Nichelle Nichols. Tim Russ. Elaborately constructed sets. Props. Art design. Lighting. Make-up. Broken air-conditioning in the studios. Countless aliens in hot rubber masks. A year in post-production. Amazing visual FX. Incredible music. And those damn guidelines from CBS and Paramount that forced Star Trek: Renegades to evolve into RENEGADES: THE SERIES.

And then last night, at 7:30 in the Laemlee Theater in North Hollywood, CA, the moment we’d all been waiting for. “The Requiem” was shown for the first time as a full-hour fan film on the big screen in front of an audience of hundreds of fans, actors, production crew, family, friends, and donors…and at least one blogger who crawled through L.A. rush hour traffic for 75 minutes to get there!

The inside of the theater looked like this…

Before the screening, actors posed for photos with fans who’d donated a little extra…

Aron Eisenberg, Tim Russ, Nichelle Nichols, Jason Quinell (donor), Walter Koenig, and Manu Intiraymi

And then it was time to start the film. Things were running a little late, so producer SKY CONWAY’s opening introduction was simply, “Let’s start this thing!”

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Star Trek/Dr. Seuss “Mash-Up” creators received a CEASE & DESIST letter from CBS!

Is CBS switching back from copyright infringement lawsuits to cease & desist letters? It’s hard to read the tea leaves when it comes to a multi-billion dollar corporation, but we may have just gotten a clue.

The year 2016 was a turbulent and uncertain time for the world of Star Trek fan films. It began with a copyright infringement lawsuit against Alec Peters and AXANAR, and then by the summer, fans were presented with a series of fan film guidelines listing the things fans were and were not allowed to do if they wanted to avoid legal action on the part of CBS and Paramount.

But were lawsuits now the “new normal”? Would fan films that violated the guidelines find themselves dragged into court for expensive litigation? The studios weren’t saying. For many years, most fan film producers had (perhaps naively) assumed that the worst that would happen would be they’d get a call (or letter or e-mail) from the studios saying, “Stop what you’re doing.” Even Alec Peters himself figured he’d probably get a call long before ever being served with a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Man, was he wrong!

Ironically, had the studios simply sent Alec a cease & desist letter instead of suing, they could have saved themselves nearly a million dollars in attorneys fees and 12 months of polarizing publicity with likely a similar result of a scaled-down Axanar. But that’s a “what if” scenario that we’ll never see played out in this universe.

But here’s a question: did CBS’s and Paramount’s experience with the year-long Axanar lawsuit leave a bad enough taste in the studio execs’ mouths that they’ve decided to dial things back from battlestations to just yellow alert? Are the studios ready to return to good ol’ fashioned cease & desist letters to get the job done?

The answer to this question might come from another copyright infringement lawsuit going on right now involving Star Trek…and Dr. Seuss!

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The stories BEHIND the stories… (personal)

Why do I do this?

I asked myself that question recently as I was preparing a multi-part blog on the history of the fan production Star Trek: Renegades (you gonna love it!). The retrospective started out as a two-parter…then stretched itself to three…and finally finished up with four parts and more than 7,000 words! Who in their right mind writes THAT much about a single fan film???? (Well, other than Axanar, but they had a lawsuit to write about!)

And it’s not like there’s any money in this, folks. Maybe by the end of the year I’ll take in a few hundred dollars off of Google ads…if I’m lucky. I pay nearly that much just for web hosting and online security!

As I did my research on the history of Star Trek: Renegades—researching dozens and dozens of different websites and articles, blogs and crowd-funding updates, and forums and Facebook pages—I finally realized the reason that I put so much time and effort into writing all these blogs and maintaining this web site…

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AXANAR Comic Book NOW AVAILABLE!

Last month, I presented an interview with uber-AXANAR fan TREY McELWAIN, who was planning to release a 4-page (including cover) Axanar comic book. The cover itself was already completed, and Trey told me that his artist (and personal friend) DANIEL FU was working feverishly on the artwork.

Apparently, “feverishly” was indeed the adverb to use, as it is less than a month later and the comic book is now finished! It debuted earlier today in various places on the Internet (it’s a free comic, after all), and I’ve been allowed to feature it here on Fan Film Factor, as well.

Trey greatly enjoyed the creative process, and he told me that he’d really like to produce more comic stories and adaptations of Axanar:

I am not sure what the future holds for “Trey’s AxaComics.” My hope, my dream, is to continue on, and get the Parts 1 and 2 out.

“Trial By Fire,” which I’ve just released, would actually be Part 3, with the Ares going up against the D6. Parts 1 and 2 are going to cover the Klingon Invasion, and the construction of the Ares.

And then when we all get to see Episodes 4 and 5 from Alec, I’d like to follow suit and continue on with the adaptation process! One thing is for sure though, this entire experience has been a blast, and I am thrilled to share it with everyone!

I’ve included lower-resolution images of the pages below. But if you’d like to see the artwork in beautiful higher resolution, feel free to download and view this Axanar Comic PDF file.

Otherwise, take a look right here…

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Becoming a PROFESSIONAL TREKKIE! (biography blog #2)

It’s been a while since I wrote a biography blog…nearly a year and a half, in fact! I’d started out thinking I’d write these regularly, as I’ve had some interesting adventures as a fan: sneaking onto the Voyager and DS9 sets at Paramount, writing the Star Trek reference book Starship Spotter in just 18 days, directing Majel Barrett Roddenberry doing voice-over for four hours…in her living room! The list goes on.

But then I got busy writing about fan films, and suddenly it’s 17 months later with no second entry to follow up on the “to be continued…” that ended my first biography blog. Time to fix that! (I’m even adding a new tab to the main menu that says “BIOGRAPHY” in the hope it’ll inspire me to write more of these entries before another 17 months go by.)

When last we left off, it was December of 1993, and I’d just turned down a job working for MICHAEL OKUDA in the Star Trek Art Department! (Was I nuts???? Read my first biography blog to find out why.)

So instead of doing graphics and animations for DS9, Voyager, and Generations, I stayed with my brother David and grew our fledgling multimedia company, 2-Lane Media, Inc. Over the next two and a half years, we expanded to about a dozen employees doing websites for clients like Disney, Nestlé, Transamerica, and Tenet Healthcare.

But in 1996, we added a new client that would change my Star Trek life forever…

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From SURVIVOR to SURVIVORS – a 7-YEAR fan film journey (audio interview with Matthew Blackburn)

How many people does it take to make a Star Trek fan film?

Think about the actors, writer(s), director, camera people, sound people, lighting people, costumers, make-up, props people, set designers and builders, special effects, visual FX, music composers, editor…and don’t forget all the production assistants and even the folks who bring the snacks, do the catering, or just run our for pizza.

For the “big” productions, like Star Trek Continues or Axanar, the number can be 50 or even 100 people! For some of the smaller productions, maybe one or two dozen.

But for a little fan film released in 2010, the answer was just…FOUR. Titled STAR TREK: SURVIVOR, the 10-minute production featured just four names in the credits, including one name who was the writer / director / producer / star / director of photography / camera operator / editor / music composer / special effects / miniatures / make-up / visual effects / and additional voices guy: MATTHEW BLACKBURN.

Considering the small size of the production team, the fan film itself was quite ambitious…with on-location shooting at multiple locations, a lot of physical acting, diverse and dynamic camera angles, and original music. And while a super-low budget necessitated the use of a few toys and collectibles in place of expensive animatronic monsters or familiar Star Trek actors, the story was darkly engaging, and the acting was surprisingly strong for an amateur production.

Seven years went by, and Star Trek: Survivor seemed content to hold its place in fan film history as a simple one-off project. I’d written a blog about it early on for my FAN FILM FRIDAY feature on the Axanar website, and I was planning on bringing it over here to FAN FILM FACTOR eventually. But before I could, Matthew Blackburn surprised me with a SEQUEL!!!

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