J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin have been brought into the photon torpedo crossfire.
It seems that J.J. Abrams comment during the Star Trek Beyond press tour in May that the Axanar lawsuit were not so prophetic. Not only is the lawsuit that Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed against fan film production company Axanar Productions for copyright infringement late last year ongoing, but Abrams and Beyond director Justin Lin have been brought into the crossfire.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Axanar Productions filed a motion to compel discovery, which would include any communications between Paramount/CBS and Abrams and Lin concerning fan films and the Axanar lawsuit.
Axanar is a crowdfunded, relatively big budget Star Trek fan film about the early days of the war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Abrams had previously commented during a Star Trek Beyond press event that the lawsuit wasn't an appropriate way to deal with fans, and that Lin was not only outraged about the lawsuit, but had pushed the studio to drop it. Abrams said of Lin's reaction and efforts:
I’ll tell the story because he probably wouldn’t, was sort of outraged by this as a long time fan. We started talking about it and realized this was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans.
The fans should be celebrating this thing. Fans of Star Trek are part of this world. So he went to the studio and pushed them to stop this lawsuit and now, within the next few weeks, it will be announced this is going away, and that fans would be able to continue working on their project.
CBS and Paramount want up to $150,000 for every copyrighted Star Trek element in the movies Axanar and the prequel film Prelude to Axanar, stating: "The 'Axanar' Works infringes plaintiffs' works by using innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes."
Whichever side you may fall in the Axanar lawsuit, it's hard to dispute that it is a fascinating case — especially in a year defined by the awkward, sometimes ugly relationship between creators/corporations and fans. This lawsuit may be about Star Trek specifically, but it also sets a precedent for other major franchises and fandoms moving forward — if not in terms of legal copyright issues, then in the larger question of how corporations view fandom: as a franchise-building asset with the right to creating transformative works, as a necessary threat with no right to the stories legally owned by corporate America, or as something in-between.