And yes I know today is Guy day and I missed this week’s installment of Movie Madness. I was in bed quite early last night (6 PM) and have a lot I’m trying to get done today and this weekend unpacking wise.
But there will be some Sir Guy later today and I’m sure I’ll get around to Movie Madness as well.
Either way… this came through my email about an hour ago and it might change the way we fan… I hope not. But it bears watching.
In short, CBS -who owns Star Trek – is suing several individuals over a fanfilm made. It could be dicey. What do any of you think? Will it affect our art, our youtube films, our – gasp – fanfiction???
Anyone?
here… have some Guy while you wait…
zee's muse 
Doubtful that it will have much effect on us. The rightsholders have had different relationships with their fandoms. Much of Armitage’s work is still rights controlled by BBC. They have had a tendency to crack down on youtube on things that have been broadcast on BBCA, esp RH stuff — but in my experience, mostly straight clips from the series longer than 30 seconds rather than vids. Fanfic is pretty clearly a derivative work, as long as you don’t try to profit from it, there hasn’t been a problem. SONY did pursue rights claims / DMCA
sorry — sent DMCA notices to people who transferred images of Hobbit stuff from books to the web — some of our circle were affected by this, primarily Perry, I think.
The issue here is that a group of fans is trying to make entirely new Star Trek material based on copyright elements of the story and profit from it. (Comparable to the disputes over The Hobbit and what pieces of the story can and cannot be shown in the films).
I’ve been writing fanfiction for so long and I’m still on several yahoo groups that were started when Peter did the original trilogy. We’ve always been a bit antsy when it came to this.
It doesn’t help when really shitty writers alter a few things and then sell it and make millions and their heads get swelled thinking they can actually write.
*coughcough* thank goodness no one I know!
Sorry, not SONY — Warner Bros.
hehehehe