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By CARLOS PEDRAZA | MARCH 14, 2019 | 5 MIN READ
 
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Seuss v. Fair Use: A federal judge has ruled that David Gerrold's Star Trek-Dr. Seuss mashup, "Oh, the Places You'll Boldly Go," did not infringe on the Seuss copyright for the similarly titled book. Judge Janis Sammartino says the "highly creative" book sufficiently transforms the original work, entitling it to protection as fair use. Expect an appeal.

1. CBS Attorney Slams Tardigrades' Lack of Legal Foundation in Copyright Case

CBS and Netflix lawyers hit back at plaintiff Anas Abdin's opposition to its motion to dismiss the copyright infringement lawsuit in which the game developer claims Star Trek: Discovery's concept was stolen from him.
  • Confusing the law: In the filing this week ( 2MB PDF), attorney Wook Hwang says Abdin misapplied copyright law in his opposition last week to dismissing the case.
  • Virtual impossibility: The timeline proposed by Abdin for when Discovery's creators would've had to have stolen his ideas makes it "a virtual impossibility that Defendants would or could have scripted, produced, shot, edited and broadcast its allegedly infringing series in mere months after they immediately saw and resolved to copy this [Tardigrades] game teaser."
  • Nothing in common: Hwang says Discovery's tardigrade "has no features in common" with the elements of Abdin's creature that are protected by copyright. What features they do share are based on actual tardigrades, none of which Abdin can claim as his own.
  • Mischaracterizing Discovery: CBS says Abdin continues to inaccurately describe Discovery's tardigrade in order to make it similar to the game's version, primarily ignoring Star Trek's creature is brown, not the blue depicted in the game.
  • Purported characters' similarities: Abdin's pleading criticized CBS for dissecting his characters to their most generic components (e.g., "blond white male," "African-American female," "redhead" and "darker complexion" male) but Hwang notes those terms are the extent to which Abdin himself specifically described his own characters.
  • "Random and trivial side-by-side similarities": What random similarities Abdin offers "scattered throughout [Discovery and Tardigrades]" are too superficial to qualify for copyright protection, Hwang writes:

“Courts have found certain similarities to exist [with] portions of an allegedly infringing work, but nonetheless held that substantial similarity did not exist because of overwhelming dissimilarities in the works when compared in ‘total concept and overall feel.’”
Suing Netflix: Hwang similarly criticizes Abdin's contention that Netflix is liable for copyright infringement simply for licensing Discovery from CBS.
  • Predicate act: Abdin contends that Netflix accepting copies of Discovery's episodes is an act that makes it liable. Hwang says receiving such copies is not itself an infringing act, so Netflix shouldn't be a defendant in this case.
No Attorneys Fees: CBS says Abdin's attorneys profoundly misunderstand copyright law by continuing to claim they are eligibile for their fees to be paid out of damages, especially since they admit Abdin's late copyright registration disqualifies him from seeking statutory damages. That same provision of copyright law also disqualifies attorneys from seeking fees as damages.

Bottom line: U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield now has all the arguments before her in order to decide whether to dismiss the case. She still awaits evidence from Abdin to support his claim Discovery's creators had accessed his work through the Steam game platform on which it was featured; that's due March 19. Her ruling on dismissal likely follows that.
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2. Axanar's Ares Studio Patreon Continues to Slide

PLUNGING GROWTH The Ares Studio Patreon campaign's growth continues to slide. Click graph to view full size.

The key indicator of progress in the Patreon campaign is how many new patrons join each day, and with how much added to the monthly pledge total.
  • Average new donors each day was as high as 4.9 two weeks ago. Today, it's shrunk to 3.8.
  • New donors giving less: As of today, each donor is pledging an average $34.56. Two weeks ago, the average pledge was $45
The bottom line: Peters' effort to get fans to pay his warehouse rent is underperforming even optimistic projections. He's avoided firmly committing to whether he's staying in the $4,000/month facility with only $1,866 in monthly Patreon pledges, or if he's moving to a smaller and cheaper warehouse costing $2,500 per month.
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Short Takes: Picard show casts Australian actor. No more Star Trek Scribbles.

Australian actor Evan Evagora joins the cast of the as-yet-unnamed Picard Star Trek show.

The actor, of Cypriot and New Zealand descent, looks to be a series regular. He joins recently announced actors Santiago Cabrera and Michelle Hurd. No word on whom he'll portray on the show. From Deadline.
"Yes, Spot, I am aware you do not adhere to boundaries," by Lee Sargent (on Twitter)

Star Trek scribbles: Trying to find the StarTrek365.com website or Twitter feed featuring Lee Sargent's year-long daily cartoon homage to the show? It's gone.
  • C&D: The site and social media accounts are permanently closed after CBS delivered a cease and desist letter to the Australian cartoonist.
  • Sales and Star Trek: Sargent says CBS objected to sales and marketing of Trek-themed artwork on sites bearing the Star Trek name.
  • Commissions: Sargent says he can still accept private commissions but he can't sell anything like "Trek products" on his website.
  • No hard feelings: Despite at least one of his fans comparing CBS' action to the studio's copyright lawsuit against Axanar, Sargent says, "It's no great drama – I've stuck my toe over a line and they've politely asked me to pull it back and that's exactly what I'm doing."
  • Opposite of Axanar: When Alec Peters' "fully professional, independent" production got its warning, he did the opposite of pulling back. Hence the lawsuit.
  • An archive of Sargent's utterly charming Trek cartoons is here.
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In Case You Missed It …

Return of the skant? Join me in a collective cringe at the upcoming return in Star Trek: Discovery of a unisex skirt/pant like that seen in The Next Generation's first season (and then thankfully retired). DSC's otherwise brilliant costumer Gersha Phillips says we'll see the new skant on male crew members before season's end. From io9.

Role model: Two prominent Democratic women politicians reveal they took inspiration as leaders from none other than the character of Captain Kathryn Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both revere the example of the first female captain to lead a Star Trek series. Slate reports.

From one female captain to another, Captain Janeway actor Kate Mulgrew gave a Twitter nod to her fellow captain, Brie Larson's Captain Marvel, for her "trailblazing role … Great to see a female-led superhero movie." From CBR.com.

How SyFy screwed Dark Matter: The creator of the popular but short-lived scifi series explains how, despite its success, the show was tanked because of internal politics at the network. Cosmic Book News reports.

Netflix's looming content crisis: Despite its heavy investment in original content, the streaming service's content licensed from other studios still get nearly ⅔ of its views. Of its top four most-streamed shows, three are licensed (The Office, Friends and Grey's Anatomy) that may well disappear from its offerings; the Netflix Original rounding out that group is Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Almost 40 percent of U.S. subscribers have never watched a Netflix Original show. Its options: Raise prices, spend more on original content. From Forbes.
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We're on Super Geeks and Discovery Review Show, Mycelial Network News

Join AxaMonitor editor Carlos Pedraza every week on the Super Geeks podcast on Subspace Radio, Mondays  at 7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST, and on Mycelial Network News, the Super Geeks Star Trek: Discovery reaction show. 

Miss the shows live? Check YouTube for recorded episodes. Super Geeks and MNN are hosted by George Silsby, and feature Shawn O'Halloran, Sunseahl, Raul Padron and guests like Star Trek authors Dayton Ward and Dave Galanter.
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