At the end of 2015, a lawsuit was filed by CBS and Paramount against a writer and a production company for a movie infringing upon the copyrights of the Star Trek franchise. The movie is a prequel to the original Star Trek, set 21 years before the first Kirk episode. The movie is titled Axanar and follows a mentor of Kirk who made appearances in the original episodes.

The amazing thing is that this entire production has been funded by crowd-sourcing campaigns, like kickstarter or Go-fund. Through 3 campaigns,the company has collected over a million dollars. The writer and life-long fan said he wanted to show the entertainment world that a studio-quality movie can be made without billions of dollars. He also says that the movie is a love letter to the originals, but are love letters prohibited by copyright law?

In the complaint, CBS/Paramount allege the Axanar movie was directly and unabashedly intended to be derivative of the original works owned by Paramount and CBS. The Companies are claiming direct infringement, contributory infringement and various infringement; and are asking for $150,000 in statutory damages for each Star Trek work that was infringed, reasonable attorney’s fees and costs and an injunction to stop the Axanar group from continuing the film. The claims are against the company, the writer, Alec Peters, and 20 unnamed defendants called Does.

Direct infringement is where there is evidence that an individual intentionally unlawfully copied someone else’s protected work. Contributory infringement is where the individual did not actually commit the unlawful copying but contributed to the infringement. The best example is Napster, where Napster argued they were not copying the music. Technically, their users were doing the actual copying. The court held that Napster was responsible for providing the means and availability of the unlawful copying and could still be charged with infringement.

When I read contributory infringement in the complaint, I thought CBS was trying to sue the group of people donating to the kickstarter. Maybe these Does were only guilty of donating money to a website. This could potentially be ground breaking law, because the crowd-sourcing campaign is a new technology, and has not been pushed through the legal system to work out the legal disputes. Also, “contributing” to a Go-fund, could be found to be contributory infringement, if the funds are used to infringe. I know, this is exciting stuff.

Vicarious infringement is more a baby of employment law. A boss or employer can be vicariously liable for the misdeeds and negligence of their employees. This is based on the policy that the boss should train his workers to avoid risk and obey all laws. So in this setting, CBS is claiming that the Axanar group had the rights and ability to supervise their employees and failed to prevent them from infringing, and should be responsible for the employee’s infringement.

On the Axanar website, the group has a “Captains’s Log” that posts the progress of the film. The last entry is for February, and mentions the CBS/Paramount lawsuit and stopping production until after they file an answer in Federal District Court in California. I assume that the halt on production means that CBS got a preliminary injunction, which means stop everything now, until the case is decided.

If CBS and Paramount have their way, they will have a permanent injunction against Axanar and will collect money to pay them for their  loss and harm. I believe the true loss and harm is the fact that a fan wrote a love letter to a big company and a franchise, and the big company sued them for it.