I think for New Voyages, it’s become a waiting game to see if Paramount will finally bring them into the family, so-to-speak. I think he’s hoping for ‘official’ status to be given to Phase II, so in the meantime he’s not going to do anything that Paramount would misconstrue as him going against his word.

Since Cawley & Co have been given conditional permission to carry on as-is, I don’t know if he’d be worried about removing ‘Trek’ from the title. Even if he did, he’s using Capt Kirk, Mr Spock, Scotty, etc., and those characters are property of Parmount Pictures. The problem still exists, with or without ‘Star Trek’ in the title. Fair use is never going to apply to New Voyages or Phase II. It’s just a completely different animal. Impersonator or tribute wouldn’t work either, because he’s recreating the entirety of someone else’s work. If he was just doing a fan film with him pretending to be William Shatner, he could probably get away with it.

In the case of The Atomic Punks, they could owe Van Halen royalties if they sold their cover version (that is, a straightforward, more or less note-for-note cover) and made a profit. Most clubs have ASCAP or BMI licenses which allow the broadcast of pre-recorded music as well as the performance of music written by ASCAP/BMI members (in fact, if you simply have a radio on in your establishment and you have paying customers but no license, you can be the recipient of a heavy fine). So bands that play covers, etc. are usually covered by the license. In fact, Van Halen HAVE sued bars in the past when they allowed their songs to be played without having the requisite licensing. Usually the cover band isn’t named in the suit, but rather the establishment that allowed them to play the cover (something that hasn’t always made sense to me, but that’s how it is).

Most Elvis impersonators would be safe as long as they didn’t sell their versions of his songs. Their existence is usually viewed positively by his estate, and just seen as evidence of his lasting appeal. Although I have heard of instances where the estate has more or less ‘blackballed’ impersonators who have questionable material in their act.

if RiffTrax is selling their mp3, alone, lets say for $2.99 I think it was… but before… it was the Phase II audio and video + their mp3 for the same price… and assuming that most of their other products are the same $2.99 price… obv. when we do the math for the “removed” download, they were NOT making money off of JC™.

Now, remember what JC said earlier, “I made an agreement years ago when this project started that we would not make money from it. And by that rule, If I , the guy that spends the money to make the episodes can’t make money, then by God no one will make money from it…. Period. I will do everything I can to enforce that rule. My word is far more important, than my popularity with anyone.”

Notice that JC’s concern is not reaction from Paramount but rather any perception that he went against what he said, AND… that they were making money off it.

So was it worth it? And I am talking from JC’s point of view here in terms of what he was trying to accomplish. And this is the part that I said makes me sad for him a little. Me, I love the New Voyages to death. I want it to be BIG. I want JC to be known globally for the innovator that he is with this. He deserves it.

And what I am saying is that by restricting his own downloads, and by making this RiffTrax company remove that… YES, while he is correct in principle and it serves him in terms of his artistic vision somewhat… I do feel that it undermines the bigger picture for him. It’s an odd balance, innit?

BEST!!

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Do Elvis impersonators have to deal with the Presley estate? I really have no clue. How does that work?

As far as I know… The Atomic Punks, one of the bigger Van Halen tribute bands… do not have to pay the real Van Halen anything to go out and dress up like them and play their songs.

Does it hinge upon the name of the product?

If that is a part of it, then JC is using Star Trek in his title. What if he just shorted it to “New Voyages” or “Phase 2″. Would that help his case for autonomy covered under fair use?

This is an interesting discussion, fellas.

BEST!!

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A court would determine whether Cawley & Co are preforming a parody or just building on an existing brand. What would go against the parody argument is the fact that they’ve so publicly made it clear that it is NOT parody, and in their mind simply a continuation of the original adventures of Kirk & Co. Intent is given considerable weight when determining whether something has tread on a copyright or not.

In Living Color, SNL, Family Guy, etc. do not pay royalties to Paramount. That is considered fair use, and therefore they don’t have to ask permission to do it or use similar characters or circumstances. Although, if they spent considerable time and effort to flawlessly recreate the sets & costumes from the show, it might count against them in the mind of a judge hearing the case.

What seperates that from what the guys at New Voyages/Phase II are doing is that NV build upon established characters, events and storylines to expand upon an existing idea or concept that they didn’t create. Parody, on the other hand, is used as commentary on an existing work, but doesn’t create new stories or scenarios using someone else’s framework. It acts more as a reflection, or reaction TO a work (although, there are cases where a parodic work does, indeed, create new stories using existing characters, etc., but it varies on a case-by-case basis as to how far they can go with it). The RiffTrax (as well as SNl, etc.) would clearly fall under that definition.

Your analysis is quite valid, and James Cawley is truly the best in the “non-business” of Trek tributes.

But a question occurred to me: Can “Star Trek: New Voyages/Phase 2″ also be considered a parody?

Did “In Living Color,” Saturday Night Live,” “Family Guy,” and all ad nauseam pay royalties for their Trek spoofs, which were watched by millions, and made money? What about the Shatner parodies of Kevin Pollack or Frank Caliendo?

Do they pay? They get paid big bucks for what they do. But James and all the others who invest blood, sweat and tears into their jighly detailed fan ventures do not. What’s the difference?

Well, if I understood the scenario correctly, the reason Cawley was eager to stop the sale of both the mp3 & video is that he feared it would lead to a crackdown from Paramount on fan films.

In other words, Paramount would see RiffTrax selling the combo mp3/vid and would think ‘Hey, what if this becomes a regular occurrence when it comes to fan films?’. They then get panicked, and in an effort to protect their trademarks & copyrights, they shut down the fan films pronto.

So no, it doesn’t really prevent someone from making money off a derived work, but it might give Cawley & Co. more breathing room with Paramount Pictures. It does speak to the professionalism of his group, because if this was me & two of my buddies in the back yard with phaser pistols, I doubt Paramount would think twice (nor do I think RiffTrax would have bothered).

While I don’t personally care for fan films (or New Voyages) as a whole, I do recognize the painstaking effort that JC & others put into these productions, and it’s a result of those professional efforts that raise the profile of these Phase II episodes beyond where they would normally be (as well as keeping them in the sights of Parmount’s laywers).

JC sees this and says, “wait guys, I’m Cawley Entertainment™, and it ain’t that simple”. RiffTraxx at that point simply removes the video version and replaces it with their .mp3 (for the same price?) – and gives out the link to new voyages where the video (and audio) can be obtained for free. This can now be synched up with the RiffTrax only .mp3 very easily.

Although it adds a step, it does tend to beg the question of what was accomplished here? Did JC really stop them from making money off his product? The answer is no and no, because the question precludes the notion (and this is the part that I did not get until now) that RiffTrax is really only “selling” their product and is piggybacking off someone else. These guys took the time and talent to sit back and record these .mp3 tracks – based on whatever they were watching but still – you are correct that this is their property, a “new” product. Does the ipod dock made by JC Penney not dock with the ipod made by Apple? I see no cease and desist in that scanario. It happens every day and is perfectly legal.

Again, I think what we are seeing here is JC’s attempt to lasso the moon that he hath created and, in effect, what he may be doing at times is a full-on stranglehold in the attempt. Parody is not only a sign that you’ve “made it”, it also extends awareness and interest in your brand. There are companies out there that would pay big money for that kind of exposure. I cannot see why allowing RiffTrax to do what they had originally done is a bad thing, if you are the man in charge of Cawley Entertainment or any other company.

In summary, I think that JC™ being the one man shop that he is can perhaps be a detriment to what he is trying to achieve as an artist. I believe his motives to be pure. I respect in him the idealistic principles that he values above all. But I think to some degree that these things fail him at times. And that makes me a little sad.

BEST!!

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If you’re referring to the video sample clips, since those are under a certain length they don’t violate copyright. It’s a bit like the 30 second MP3 clips on iTunes – the reason they’re 30 seconds is that’s the time frame that you can sample a song without having to pay for it, legally, for either previewing purposes (iTunes) or podcasts, etc. Otherwise, iTunes would have to pay the labels/artists every time you listened to that 30 second stream.

Also, no, they aren’t using audio from Phase II or any other production. The RiffTrax files are merely the commentary from Mike, Kevin, Bill, etc. There is an audio cue in the files containing bits of dialogue from whatevever movie is being riffed, called Disembaudio. It’s just a synthesized voice that says a line of dialogue so you can make sure the audio riff lines up with your movie.

That they charge for it is actually another protected aspect of parody and fair use. If you look over previous legal precedents, courts have protected parody even when it is sold for profit and contains a significant portion of the original work.

And from I can see over there… using both audio and video from the Star Trek feature movies? Do they have some sort of agreement with the studio to do that? If so, how much?

There are too many variables here that I am unaware of.

And it looks like nothing is free over there… they charge for everything.

ay caramba.

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