The producers of the crowd-funded Star Trek film, Axa0nar, continue in their attempts to have the lawsuit filed by Paramount and CBS, dismissed.
In December, Star Trek rights holders brought a lawsuit up against the producers of Axanar for “using innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes.” The producers, led by Alec Peters, responded with a motion to dismiss which challenges the suit on two different grounds.
The Axanar producers first demanded that the lawsuit against them be more specific, citing the differences in plots and characters between all of the Star Trek movies and episodes of the television series. The second aspect of the motion to dismiss cites that Paramount and CBS are separate entities and would thusly own different copyrights within Star Trek. The Axanar producers assert that knowing what each entity owns is vital to their investigations of these allegations.
Two weeks ago, the plaintiffs responded with a more detailed complaint, prompting the defendants to defend each use of a Star Trek quality. The producers justified their motion to dismiss by attacking the plaintiffs’ claims of ownership. Among other things, the defendants asserted that the pointed Vulcan ears and the famous Klingon language could be used by anyone. According to the defendants the pointy ears look cannot be protected because they are “not original to Star Trek, and has appeared in many fictional fantasy works depicting imaginary humanoid species predating Star Trek, including, but not limited to, vampires, elves, fairies, and werewolves, as well as in many animals in nature.” The defendants also state that Klingon “itself is an idea or a system, and is not copyrightable.”
