3 ms·
The general line between fan fiction (or any type of fan work) and a professional one is whether the production is trying to make money. That's why fan films a
by CM30 11y ago
The general line between fan fiction (or any type of fan work) and a professional one is whether the production is trying to make money.
That's why fan films and series are likely to be shut down if they try and market them via Kickstarter or Patreon or a similar service or distribute them on a service where money is involved (like Steam, or as a published work on Amazon).
If they're trying to make money from this Star Trek film and don't have permission from the franchise owners, then it's not particularly surprising that they're being sued. It's a similar situation to a certain Zelda movie that got shut down when it tried to sell tickets to cinema screenings.
- throwanem 11y agoThere's a reasonable distinction to be drawn between trying to make money off the production, and using Kickstarter to crowdsource the capital necessary to make the production at all. As far as I can tell, Axanar has remained solidly in the latter camp. Is there anything to show otherwise?
- CM30 11y agoEven using Kickstarter to raise capital seems to cause problems for fan works. Probably because while the finished 'product' won't cost money, the copyright owners think of it as someone making money off their property. Same with Patreon. In the world of Nintendo fan works alone, both Star Fox the Animated Series and Super Mario Bros Z got their Patreon accounts suspended for trying to raise money. Do I agree with? Not quite, but the general rule seems to be any exchange of money for any part of a fan work is problematic unless the original is in the public domain.