Last Saturday, the fan film world was shaken once again with the first fan project to publicly announce they were shutting down because of the situation regarding legalities with CBS and Paramount. They were not contacted by either CBS or Paramount; they simply decided to avoid the risk of getting a call. Although the new series Star Trek: Constellation had not released any video yet (so it is difficult to know how far along they were), the project did seem to be fairly well into pre-production.
On Monday, another fan project in pre-production, Guinan: The Series, announced that, rather than shutting down they, they are re-branding themselves with a new title, The Listener: Spectral Awakening, and now only saying that they were “inspired by Star Trek.” In this way, they hope to avoid being perceived as using any copyrighted material, as they will be focusing their stories on Guinan’s home planet, a setting that was never actually seen on any Star Trek series. (And I doubt CBS can copyright frisbee hats.)
Continue reading “A Tale of Two Fan Films (reacting to the CBS/Paramount “crackdown”)”