With a high-profile trial set to start on January 31st, 2017, Paramount Pictures and Axanar Productions, the studio behind an upcoming Star Trek fan film, have decided to settle instead. Paramount—along with CBS—sued Axanar in 2015 for copyright infringement when Axanar raised more than a million dollars through crowd-funding for a feature-length film described as a Star Trek prequel, after producing a well-received short film. The parties released a joint statement on January 20th saying, in part, the defendants had acknowledged “that both films were not approved by Paramount or CBS, and that both works crossed boundaries acceptable to CBS and Paramount relating to copyright law.”
Both parties had filed motions for summary judgment earlier this month, and Judge R. Gary Klausner of the United States District Court for the Central District of California denied both.
The motions had addressed what the court described as “two core issues”: “whether the Axanar Works were substantially similar to the Star Trek Copyrighted Works, and whether Defendants have a valid fair use defense under the Copyright Act.”
The court went over the elements required for a copyright infringement claim: (1) ownership of a valid copyright and (2) copying. Paramount had valid ownership and even without direct proof of copying by Axanar, copying could still be found where the defendant had access to plaintiff’s work and there was substantial similarity between the two. Based on the court’s analysis of the extrinsic test of substantial similarity, which examines “whether two works share a similarity of ideas and expression as measured by external, objective criteria,” the court found that Axanar used elements from Star Trek that were protected by copyright, including several expressive aspects like characters, costumes, setting, plotlines, and dialogue.
The court also determined that Axanar did not have a fair use defense after employing the four-factor test. Under the first factor, Purpose and Character of the Use, the court determined that Axanar’s films were not transformative, meaning they did not add new expression or meaning to Star Trek. Also, even though the movie was going to be distributed for free, there were several nonmonetary benefits for Axanar, including popularity and movie views. Under the second factor, Nature of the Copyrighted Work, the court afforded the Star Trek films the highest of protection, since they were intricate creative works. Under the third factor, the Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used, the court found that Axanar was trying to stay true to the series and took many elements from the originals. “They are an indispensable part of what makes Star Trek ‘Star Trek,’” said the court of what Axanar used and planned to use for its films. “While it is difficult to quantify the amount of the portion used in relation to the Star Trek Copyrighted Works as a whole since ‘the portion’ involves many recurring elements in the Star Trek universe and the Star TrekCopyright Works are numerous, it is fair to say that elements of the Star Trek Copyrighted Works pervade the Axanar Works.” Under the fourth factor, the Effect of the Use upon the Potential Market, the court found that the Axanar films were the type of work that Paramount typically gave licenses to others for, and the timeframe of the TV series covered some of the same as the Axanar movies, which Paramount might have wanted to explore in more depth someday. Weighing the factors in totality, the court determined that all four were in Paramount’s favor.
The court also found that questions of Axanar’s willfulness to infringe and contributory and vicarious infringement of Axanar’s owner were for a jury. With the settlement, Axanar avoids a trial that might’ve resulted in the company being on the hook for millions. A trial could’ve also been a lot of bad press for Paramount, which has been supportive of fan films in the past.
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Does the settlement mean the film will never see the light of day? Not necessarily. The joint statement further said, “Axanar…agreed to make substantial changes to [the film] to resolve this litigation, and also assured the copyright holders that any future Star Trek fan films produced by Axanar…will be in accordance with the ‘Guidelines for Fan Films’ distributed by CBS and Paramount in June 2016.”
The case is Paramount Pictures Corporation et al v. Axanar Productions, Inc. et al, 2:15-cv-09938, Central District of California.
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