Star Trek fan film faces IP complaint
Paramount Pictures and broadcaster CBS have re-asserted claims that a crowdfunded film which promotes itself as “Star Trek like you have never seen before” infringes the franchise’s copyright.
In a complaint, filed on Friday, March 11, the companies claim that “Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar”, produced by Axanar Studios, uses characters, species, themes and costumes made famous by the hit show without permission.
Axanar raised more than $600,000 for the film from more than 8,000 donors on Kickstarter. It was released in 2014.
On the crowdfunding page, it described the film as “Star Trek like you have never seen it before, showing the central characters of Axanar giving both a historical and personal account of the war”.
The film, a mockumentary, details the events leading up to the first series of the television series “Star Trek”.
A script for a follow up film “Axanar” has been completed and the studio is raising money for the project on crowdfunding website Indiegogo.
Paramount and CBS first filed a claim in December last year at the US District Court for the Central District of California.
However, the companies amended their complaint after Axanar filed a motion stating that they failed to specify which copyrightable elements from the “Star Trek” franchise had been infringed.
In Friday’s updated complaint, the plaintiffs point to use of characters which feature in the franchise including Garth of Izar, Soval and Richard Robau.
The plaintiffs also assert that the appearances of the Klingons and Vulcans, species that both feature in the franchise, are copyrightable and that their inclusion in the film is infringing.
“The Axanar works are intended to be professional quality productions that, by defendants’ own admission, unabashedly take Paramount’s and CBS’s intellectual property,” the complaint said.
“The Axanar works are substantially similar to, and unauthorised derivative works of, plaintiffs’ Star Trek television series and movies,” it added.
Alec Peters, executive producer of Axanar, has defended the work as a “fan film” emerging from “labours of love that keep fans engaged, entertained and keep favourite characters alive in the hearts of fans”.
“Like other current fan films, Axanar entered production based on a very long history and relationship between fandom and studios. We’re not doing anything new here,” he said in a statement published in January.
