Quote:
Originally Posted by shawnhcorey
Not true. As long as you are making quality shows, you can sell them. Look at how many times King Arthur or Robin Hood has been redone. Copyright is not required to sell entertainment. Quality is.
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Quality stories will hopefully sell (though Firefly and many other Sci-Fi shows and movies like it are a good demonstration that proves that quality alone does not guarantee success), but the point is that allowing others to use your Intellectual Property to make money is just bad business. There is every reason to believe that letting just anyone make a bunch of Star Trek movies or books or comics would dilute your own control over the license and cannibalize your own sales.
Of course I want more quality Star Trek, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm objecting to that. But as a creative person myself, I can also see the merit in allowing the owners of a franchise or fictional world to exercise some control over who gets to make money on that IP.
For the average consumer who isn't already a Trek fan (who is exactly the sort of person you have to woo to have a really successful film or TV show release), it would be really easy to get confused if there were a bunch of movies and other bits of media coming out with the Star Trek name on them. If those ever got to a large enough scale, you would run the real risk of having people not sure which bits of Star Trek are part of which canon, and as a result, people might not go to see the latest movie or whatnot because they are just too confused about what this whole Star Trek thing is. That's not something that anyone can prove definitively one way or the other, but it's a legitimate concern and I think that, as a fan, I'm worried about the long term health of the franchise enough to give Paramount some sympathy on that score.
I do wish the response would be something more like throwing money at Axanar and the people who have brought it this far and just turn the whole thing into an official coproduction with the Star Trek name on it for real, because the project looks fantastic and I've been a fan since I first heard of it. But I have no idea what legal or behind the scenes issues may be in play, so I hesitate to condemn definitively the actions they've taken.
Since you're the OP, I'm assuming this isn't derailing this thread too unacceptably from its original intent. If so I apologize, and I'm happy to start up a new thread to continue the discussion. Either way I do love me some fan-made Star Trek, and the talent an passion that these people have is inspiring, so I'm always happy to hear when we're getting more of it.