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George brings on Sai, Christophe, and attorney Mark Randazza to talk about the LCS’s decision to file an amicus brief in Paramount v Axanar.
Links and Resources:
- LCS press release (with links to press articles)
- Amicus brief (and exhibits)
- The Dentons legal memo
- The Visual Artists Rights Act (- Wiki — closest thing the US has to moral rights, not applicable to conlangs)
- Klingon Style
- Techno Llama (contains a discussion of the proper Klingon term for “intellectual property rights”)
Finlay
What is this about? I have gotten about halfway through the podcast and you still haven’t provided any background to the court case you’re all talking about! I can get the basic details but you’ve kind of assumed everyone has heard of what you’re talking about and launched straight in.
(It’s ironic then that Sai takes the time to provide background detail to the listeners when you mention common vs. civil law systems)
admin
Axanar is a crowd-funded fan film set in the Star Trek Universe. The same people had previously made a film called Prelude to Axanar, but the current film, Axanar, is making a lot of money and Paramount decided to sue them to stop the project. Paramount is making a broad range of copyright claims, including a “substantial similarity” claim that we get to further on in the podcast. But the LCS is only concerned that Paramount is claiming copyright to the Klingon language.
The reason we don’t go much into the other aspects of the case is that they really don’t concern the LCS and there’s really only the Klingon claim that’s relevant to conlanging at all. I’m sorry we didn’t set it up so much. We are all pretty close to the case and weren’t thinking of anyone listening who might not have heard of it.
Andy Nelson
It makes a lot of sense that you would dedicate an episode to this. I don’t visit the LCS website all that often – like, EVER – but I do check up on this podcast. This is something important and relevant to conlanging, at least in the United States (where I assume this is going to court), and touches on issues rarely discussed but certainly relevant to “the people who create” conlangs. Of course, conlangs rarely feature in lawsuits, but it would be nice if it stayed that way. I fully support the LCS’s position, and certainly hope that this case will end well for conlangers, regardless of how well it ends for either Paramount or Axanar.
admin
Yeah, in the US. Keep in mind that the LCS has only really studied this issue as it pertains to US law. Sai gave some ideas in the podcast about some non-US concepts like moral rights, but the position as regards US law is much firmer.