thewayne | Paramount DMCAs the Wolf 359 Project

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*sigh*

Pity that The Money really doesn't listen that much to the fan base, they'd make a lot more money. Instead, they pull stuff like this and close down projects that they didn't explicitly authorize that cost them nothing and make fans happy.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/30/paramount-dmcas-star-trek-fan-project-apparently-deaf-to-the-history-of-star-trek/

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From:

silveradept

There's probably some amount of legal obligation to do what they did, because the law currently favors and protects those who are litigious about their copyrights, and especially if Paramount intends to create something official in and around that time period for consumption. It feels a lot more like how much various authors tried to control the existence of fanworks while they were alive, including many a litigious threat against any that were found. When those authors died, of course, the fanworks simply came out of hiding. It would do Paramount much more good to learn from the examples of the authors before them and figure out a way either not to see things they don't have to, or to at least explain that their takedowns are because there's going to be some thing official and they regrettably have to clear the space to ensure that there isn't anything competing with their official material, and that nobody gets any brilliant ideas to sue them about elements they would claim were stolen from unofficial works.

It's a stupid decision on their part to just go after something because it's big and popular. They really needed to have a business reason for it.

From:

thewayne

It is pretty much as you point out: if you don't defend your IP, you're at risk of losing it. And Paramount does defend its IP, you'd think they could have found a better solution here. I think the top brass were ambivalent as long as the bucks were coming in, and when the attorneys brought it to their attention, the decision was 'squish it' with little consideration to fan impact.

But you're right, it'll probably continue as an underground project and re-emerge some day.

You know about the Star Trek Hotel project in Vegas? They had EVERYTHING lined up. Property, designs, backers, all they needed was the top guy at Paramount to say yes. He wasn't a science fiction guy and not a big fan of Star Trek and he said no. End of dream. It would have made money hand over fist, but he wasn't interested.

From:

silveradept

I'm entirely unsurprised at how much the people in the C-suite ignore or decide against ideas that would make them a significant amount of money because they don't actually like their fans or care about them more than whether or not they're spending money.

Someone has saved Wolf 359 and is taking it to somewhere that Paramount won't be easily able to see it, and they'll keep working on it until it's time to release. It'll probably end up on AO3.