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Which legal battles stand out in Star Trek?
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00:00In 50 years it turns out that Star Trek has had its time in the witness box, many times
00:04over.
00:05Quite a few of these cases have been tossed out of court owing to the ludicrous nature
00:08of the claims or the failure to provide direct evidence when needed.
00:11Still, others have involved a bitter fight all the way to the end.
00:14With that in mind, I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and here are 10 biggest and weirdest
00:19lawsuits in Star Trek history.
00:2010.
00:21The shoe is on the other foot.
00:22In 1980, Clarks of England, makers of Trek shoes, obtained the license to produce Star
00:27Wars branded sneakers for children.
00:29At nearly the same time, the Glenn Shoe Company announced that it would begin producing a
00:33line of licensed Star Trek branded shoes for children.
00:36Clarks was not happy about this.
00:37This would put the two companies in direct competition with each other in the sci-fi branded footwear
00:42market.
00:43Though initially there was nothing to be done as Clarks did not have the rights to produce
00:46Star Trek products.
00:47It did however have the rights to the Trek label.
00:49They brought a suit to the Southern District of New York and sought to block the Glenn Shoe
00:53Company from selling any of its proposed Star Trek shoes.
00:56However, the suit was denied as the court deemed that the Trek shoes, which were designed for
01:00adults and the Star Trek shoes, which were made for children with images of Mr. Spock
01:04and the Starship Enterprise on them, were not in competition with each other and there was
01:07little chance of confusion.
01:099.
01:10Bootleg tapes are deemed copyright infringement.
01:12In 1981, Les Rabinowitz was brought to court over the illegal distribution of Star Trek
01:17on VHS cassette.
01:18Paramount understandably did not take kindly to him profiting off their product, yet he made
01:22a compelling counterargument.
01:24He stated that the pre-1978 airing of Star Trek had fallen into the public domain as the
01:29entire original series had been exhibited as a general publication without the copyright
01:33notice required by the 1909 Copyright Act.
01:36Perhaps unsurprisingly, the defence failed to impress the court and Rabinowitz was ordered
01:40to cease and desist his sale of the videotapes.
01:42As this coincided with a new surge in popularity after the release of Star Trek The Motion Picture
01:46and the studio was gearing up towards the release of Star Trek II The Wrath of Cannes, this case
01:49brought publicity to the franchise, even if it came at the cost of some diehard collectors.
01:538.
01:54Spock Plates Caused Trouble.
01:56The Hamilton Group is a company that primarily produces limited edition plates.
02:00It was one such plate that caused this legal action to be taken in 1984.
02:04They released an edition featuring Mr. Spock, along with a statement that read,
02:07after a 90 day firing period, these editions will be retired and the masters will be destroyed,
02:12meaning they can never be reopened.
02:14This was clearly to drum up extra interest and ensure a surge in purchases.
02:17However, in 1987, Hamilton put up more of these so-called limited edition plates, which
02:22caused a customer to complain to the National Advertising Division of the Better Business
02:26Bureau.
02:27Hamilton then explained their 90 day firing period did not necessarily state that it would
02:31be 90 consecutive days, so they had done nothing wrong.
02:34However, they did offer a refund to the customer for the price of the plate and agreed to use
02:38clearer terminology going forward to avoid any such confusion.
02:417.
02:42Romulan Punk Rock.
02:43James White is the front man for a punk rock band named the Romulans, formed in 1982.
02:48The name was derived from a combination of Romulus and Romans.
02:51This was a statement on the politics of ancient Rome and how they compared to the politics of
02:54Reagan-era America in the 1980s.
02:56White attempted to register the band's name and logo in 1983, which Paramount Pictures quickly
03:01opposed.
03:02They claimed that Romulans had long been a part of the Star Trek franchise as the original
03:06Romulan commander and ship had appeared in 1966.
03:09Further to this, they had produced licensed material, merchandise and other goods with the
03:13name Romulan on them.
03:14The trademark trial and appeal board ruled against Paramount in this instance.
03:18They found that while the company had produced these items as described, they had failed to
03:22do so while copyrighting the name Romulan.
03:24Therefore, they found that White was free to register his band's name and logo.
03:28Thus a new era of pointy-eared punk rock began.
03:316.
03:32A sexy federation of planets.
03:33Joanna Lindsay, author of Warrior's Woman, was sued by Sharon Green, author of The Warrior
03:38Within.
03:39This synopses starting with Warrior's Woman.
03:41Experienced in combat, but not in love, the beautiful untouched Amazon flies with Martha,
03:46her wise-cracking free-thinking computer, to a world where warriors reign supreme, and then
03:50into the arms of the one man she can never hope to vanquish, the bronzed barbarian, Shallan
03:55insider.
03:56And, The Warrior Within, on assignment to a primitive planet where women are valued for
04:01their pliancy and eroticism, Terry encounters the huge barbarian Taman, a blonde behemoth
04:06who appreciates her in an entirely different way from the men on her homeworld.
04:10Torn between attraction and rebelliousness, she begins a journey that will shape her life
04:14and the lives of those around her.
04:16While we immediately source copies of these novels, Green's lawsuit stated that Lindsay's
04:20Centura League of Confederated Planets was entirely too similar to her own Central Amalgamation.
04:26This, among other things, was the basis of her argument.
04:28The court threw out the case.
04:29They argued that Star Trek had beaten both authors to the punch with their United Federation
04:34of Planets.
04:35Besides, they continued, A Central Alliance of Worlds was hardly something that could be
04:38trademarked by any one author.
04:40No really, has anyone got any copies of those books?
04:435.
04:44DirecTV Goes to Court
04:45The famous ad from 2006 parodied Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country.
04:49In it, William Shatner reprises the role of Captain Kirk, poking fun at the older movie.
04:53Chekov asks the captain if they should raise their shields, to which he replies, again with
04:58the shields?
04:59The ad was designed to boost sales for DirecTV.
05:01However, Time Warner took issue with the statement from the other company was advertising
05:05that their quality was superior to all other forms of television.
05:08They took DirecTV to court.
05:10Time Warner's argument was that the ad was a case of false advertising.
05:13The district court ruled in their favor, stating that it was a case of literal falsity.
05:17TV was claiming that its picture quality was superior to what was commercially available,
05:21which was not the case at all.
05:22The case adopted the false by necessary implication doctrine which the Second Circuit affirmed.
05:274.
05:28Roddenberry v Roddenberry
05:30Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry divorced his wife Elaine in 1969, which was around the
05:34same time that the original series ended.
05:36The document was mostly handwritten and in it Elaine was promised one half interest in
05:41future profit participation from Star Trek.
05:43In 1996, after Gene had passed away, Elaine brought a suit against his estate, managed
05:48by his widow Majel Barrett, to collect her dues.
05:51She argued that there had been no limitations on what the one half interest meant and that
05:55she was due income from all of the Star Trek movies, merchandising and current series.
05:59The court disagreed that she was due anything from the movies or merchandising, though conceded
06:03that she be entitled to revenue from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine as they were
06:07continuations of the original series.
06:10However, this decision was overturned by the Court of Appeals, as they found it unlikely
06:14that either party had intended this agreement to go beyond the original series, which in
06:181969 was considered a financial failure.
06:20Future movies and spin-off shows were unimaginable at that point, so they ruled that Elaine was
06:24not due anything.
06:263.
06:27Identity theft of a dabo girl
06:29In 2002, Chase Masterson, real name Christiane Carrafano, discovered that someone had created
06:34a fake profile for her on Matchmaker.com.
06:36The profile described certain sexual exploits that she liked, as well as stating that she
06:40wanted a man who could dominate her both in and out of bed.
06:44The profile included her photo, home address and telephone number.
06:48Masterson soon received disturbing and threatening phone calls, along with less insidious, yet
06:53still unwanted, messages from Star Trek fans.
06:55She brought a suit against Matchmaker.com for defamation and invasion of privacy, but
06:59the district court dismissed the claims.
07:01The defence argued that, even though much of the information had been provided as answers
07:05to the site's personality form generators, that alone did not leave them an information
07:10content provider.
07:11The website was then immune from any responsibility under Section 230 of the Communications Decency
07:16Act, even though the court conceded that the consequences of such immunity were deplorable.
07:212.
07:22Nimoy v. Paramount
07:23In 1972, Leonard Nimoy met Henry Fonda on the set of The Alpha Caper, after which they
07:28remained friends.
07:29Three years later, Nimoy and his wife Sandra Zoffer joined Fonda and his wife Shirley May
07:33Adams for dinner after a performance of the play he was appearing in in Darrow.
07:37During this dinner, Fonda asked Nimoy what he thought of the Spock billboards all over
07:41town.
07:42What billboards?
07:43Nimoy replied.
07:44He had seen Spock's face on merchandise for quite some time, yet never given it much thought.
07:48However, the sexual nature of the Heineken ad, in which drinking beer makes Spock's ears
07:53rise, he found to be in bad taste.
07:55He discovered that Heineken had not received permission to use his likeness, though he also
07:59found that Paramount had not been paying him for merchandising rights in several years.
08:03He sued the company, going so far as to hold up any production on Star Trek The Motion Picture
08:07until the case was resolved.
08:09With the help from Jeffrey Katzenberg, a payment was delivered to Nimoy and the case was settled.
08:131.
08:14Axanar
08:15The Axanar fan film production is probably the most well known lawsuit surrounding the franchise.
08:20Fan productions have existed for years, yet Alec Peters' prelude to Axanar drew the ire
08:24of CBS.
08:25Peters released a 21 minute film that was to lead into a 90 minute feature, however there
08:29is more to this than a simple ish case of straightforward copyright.
08:34Around the same time that Prelude to Axanar was released, there were several fan projects
08:37in production, such as Star Trek New Voyages, Star Trek Continues and Star Trek Renegades.
08:41The latter was billed as a new pilot, which was then switched to a web series.
08:45CBS took the Axanar production to court, citing several issues.
08:49The scene set on Vulcan, released in 2015, was deemed indistinguishable from the content
08:54they had already produced.
08:55Pre-production was underway under Star Trek Discovery, which certainly shared story elements
08:59with Axanar, including the Klingon war itself.
09:02Also cited was the use of the Klingon language and ships, along with the Vulcans.
09:06Seeking a settlement, the Axanar team offered the production to CBS free of charge, yet this
09:10was rejected.
09:12In 2016, CBS then released a new set of guidelines for any fan production to follow, though the
09:17restrictions they imposed were described by Peters as draconian.
09:21A short time later, J.J. Abrams spoke at an event promoting Star Trek Beyond, during which
09:25he announced that the lawsuit would shortly be going away, however this did not turn out
09:29to be the case.
09:30CBS proceeded with the suit, and both parties settled in early 2017, with an agreement that
09:35was very similar to the first one proposed back in 2015.
09:38Though the original plan of a 90 minute film was out the window, two 15 minute episodes
09:42were permitted.
09:43While the release of these episodes was delayed by over a year due to COVID-19, there is good
09:48news to come.
09:49In summer 2021, the full 2 hour audio drama of Axanar will be released on their website
09:54read by J.G.
09:55Hertler.
09:56And that is everything for our list today.
09:57Do you reckon we missed anything?
09:58Please drop it into the comments below.
10:00Please don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
10:02And remember that you can catch Trek Culture over on Twitter at Trek Culture.
10:05You can catch myself at Sean Ferrick as well.
10:08Whatever you do till we see you again, make sure you look after yourselves and live long
10:11and prosper.
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