Can't Make This Up: Paramount Says Star Trek Fan Flick Violates Copyright On Klingon And 'Uniform With Gold Stars'
Let's go back just a few months to remind you about two stories that seem fairly unrelated. 
But, that's hardly all. Paramount and CBS literally claim that using any of the following terms are infringing: "beaming up," "transporters," "warp drive," "stardate" or "starfleet" or "phasers." Really. 
To claim making use of words or phrases like that, which certainly remind people of Star Trek, is by itself infringing seems crazy. Ditto for claiming that merely using Klingon is somehow infringing. But, really, when you're throwing everything at the wall, you're going to throw some really stupid shit. How about this one: it's infringing because it has the same "mood and theme" and that's as a "science fiction action adventure." 
Even things like the fact that the Klingon logo is similar is called out: 
And there are a lot of complaints about costume similarities, starting with a "uniform with a gold shirt" with a "particular type of collar": 
Or uniforms with a "cowl neck." Or, "triangular medals on uniforms." Really. 
Believe it or not there's a lot more in there. I'm just highlighting a few. And a bunch of these it's difficult to believe are actually protected by copyright. General similarities in "mood and theme" are nowhere near copyrightable. Costumes, which make up a bunch of the claims, are (as we've discussed in the past) considered by the US Copyright Office as "useful articles" and not subject to copyright protection.
Clearly, the lawyers at Paramount and CBS are trying to argue that by copying many of these non-copyrightable elements, all together, that somehow magically makes it copyright infringement. And, you never know. Courts have been persuaded by these kinds of arguments in the past. And, of course, no one denies that this is clearly an attempt to build a "Star Trek" fan film. So it's obviously based on Star Trek. But there's a real issue about whether or not there really is infringement here, and by throwing absolutely everything into the filing, even things that are clearly not even remotely covered by copyright, it really makes Paramount/CBS look extremely desperate.
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- Story one: at the very end of last year, we wrote about the ridiculousness of CBS and Paramount suing the makers of a Star Trek fan film on the basis of that fan film actually looking like it was going to be good. The key issue, not surprisingly, was about money. Because this fan film had raised over $1 million from crowdfunding, suddenly it must somehow be illegal.
- Story two: a few months earlier, in trying to better explain to people just how crazy CAFC's ruling regarding copyrighting application programming interfaces (APIs) was, we discussed Charles Duan's excellent argument that noted that if such a ruling stood, merely using Klingon could be copyright infringement. The basic argument was that an API is a "created language." But could you imagine a situation in which the creators of such a language would claim that merely speaking it was infringement.
But, that's hardly all. Paramount and CBS literally claim that using any of the following terms are infringing: "beaming up," "transporters," "warp drive," "stardate" or "starfleet" or "phasers." Really. To claim making use of words or phrases like that, which certainly remind people of Star Trek, is by itself infringing seems crazy. Ditto for claiming that merely using Klingon is somehow infringing. But, really, when you're throwing everything at the wall, you're going to throw some really stupid shit. How about this one: it's infringing because it has the same "mood and theme" and that's as a "science fiction action adventure." Even things like the fact that the Klingon logo is similar is called out: And there are a lot of complaints about costume similarities, starting with a "uniform with a gold shirt" with a "particular type of collar": Or uniforms with a "cowl neck." Or, "triangular medals on uniforms." Really. Believe it or not there's a lot more in there. I'm just highlighting a few. And a bunch of these it's difficult to believe are actually protected by copyright. General similarities in "mood and theme" are nowhere near copyrightable. Costumes, which make up a bunch of the claims, are (as we've discussed in the past) considered by the US Copyright Office as "useful articles" and not subject to copyright protection. Clearly, the lawyers at Paramount and CBS are trying to argue that by copying many of these non-copyrightable elements, all together, that somehow magically makes it copyright infringement. And, you never know. Courts have been persuaded by these kinds of arguments in the past. And, of course, no one denies that this is clearly an attempt to build a "Star Trek" fan film. So it's obviously based on Star Trek. But there's a real issue about whether or not there really is infringement here, and by throwing absolutely everything into the filing, even things that are clearly not even remotely covered by copyright, it really makes Paramount/CBS look extremely desperate.
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