Judge: Star Trek fanfic creators must face CBS, Paramount copyright lawsuit
(credit: Axanar Productions)
On Monday, a Los Angeles-based US District Court judge ruled that Axanar Productions, a crowd-funded Star Trek fanfiction production company, would have to face a copyright infringement lawsuit (PDF) from CBS and Paramount, which own the rights to the Star Trek TV and film franchise.
In a blog post about the upcoming trial dates, leader of Axanar Productions Alec Peters seemed undeterred by the news, writing, “I am happy to say our trial got moved up to January 31, 2017… That means, we could win this case and have Axanar back in production in March, 2017. Yes, we will finish Axanar!”
Axanar Productions, which has already produced a short film called Prelude to Axanar and has plans to make a high-quality feature film simply called Axanar, argued in its Motion to Dismiss that CBS and Paramount’s copyright infringement claims are too vague. The production company also contended that some of CBS and Paramount’s claimed copyrighted elements, including costumes, the Starlet insignia, the Klingon language, and the “mood or theme” of Star Trek, were not protected by copyright law.
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