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Speaker 1: Broadcasting Live to New York, Bloomberg eleven three oh to Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C, Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg twelve hundred to San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine sixteen to the country, serious XM, chto one,

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Speaker 1: and around the globe of the Bloomberg Radio Plus app

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Speaker 1: and Bloomberg dot Com. This is Bloomberg Law. Star Trek

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Speaker 1: has been a cult phenomenon and a money making franchise

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Speaker 1: for decades. There was the original television series in the sixties,

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Speaker 1: four other television series and another set to debut, and

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Speaker 1: of course, the film franchise thirteen movies from the original

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Speaker 1: series to the Next Generation films to the reboot films.

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Speaker 1: That's why Paramount Pictures and CBS went to court to

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Speaker 1: protect their copyrighted work and stop an unauthorized fan made

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Speaker 1: prequel to the nineteen sixties Star Trek series. Acts in

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Speaker 1: Our Productions raised more than one million dollars for the

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Speaker 1: proposed feature length version using twenty minute YouTube video started

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Speaker 1: zero three. The planet our canis four, found in Newly

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Speaker 1: a century before this research outpost, has grown into a flourishing,

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Speaker 1: full scarce city. It is a shining example federation progress,

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Speaker 1: a California federal judge handed a victory to Paramountain CBS

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Speaker 1: and the copyright infringement case, ruling that Acts and Our

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Speaker 1: Productions cannot claim fair use as a defense, but sending

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Speaker 1: the case to trial so a jury can decide whether

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Speaker 1: the fan film would be substantially similar to the Star

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Speaker 1: Trek films and TV series. Joining me are Michael Rish,

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Speaker 1: a professor at Villanova University Law School, and Aaron Ranahan,

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Speaker 1: a partner at Winston and Strawn who represents Acts and

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Speaker 1: Our Productions. Michael, we can start us off by explaining

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Speaker 1: the judges ruling Sure there was a motion essentially to

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Speaker 1: dismiss the case on some rejudgment basically ruling that this

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Speaker 1: was a fair use by the movie creator, and the

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Speaker 1: judge ruled that this was not in fact a fair

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Speaker 1: use and that that would not be a defense that

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Speaker 1: could be raised at trial. And so essentially there's going

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Speaker 1: to be a trial on whether or not the reasonable person,

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Speaker 1: that is, the jury, thinks that the movie is substantially

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Speaker 1: similar to copyrighted elements of the Star Trek universe. Aaron,

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Speaker 1: what was your position in representing as and are about

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Speaker 1: whether or not this was a fair use? Sure, so

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Speaker 1: fair use is a notorically hard to predict defense. So

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Speaker 1: our position was to argue but the most important element transformativeness,

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Speaker 1: which requires that the work brings something new, or bring

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Speaker 1: a new message, or provide some form of comment that

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Speaker 1: the prelude action are in particular met this element because

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Speaker 1: it was presented in a mockumentary format which had never

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Speaker 1: been seen in all fifty years of Star Trek, and

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Speaker 1: it presented a story about a character that is, for

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Speaker 1: the most part relatively obscure. The court did disagree with

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Speaker 1: us on this, but even J. J. Abrams and and

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Speaker 1: Justin Lynne had never heard of of Garth of Isar.

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Speaker 1: So what our clients twenty minute mockumentary was It wasn't

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Speaker 1: the trailer, It was a short and it actually on

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Speaker 1: its own one a bunch of independent film awards. So

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Speaker 1: it's a very unique kind of new spin on Star

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Speaker 1: Trek which no one had ever seen as far as

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Speaker 1: a mockumentary. And if you go to the Wikipedia definition

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Speaker 1: of mockumentary, it actually defined it as a parody. There's

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Speaker 1: certainly reasonable disagreement about whether prelu Taxon are qualified as

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Speaker 1: a parody or not, but for a reasonable observer could

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Speaker 1: classified as a parody. Then our position was at the

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Speaker 1: court should at least allow fair use to go to

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Speaker 1: the jury, if not find it out right that this

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Speaker 1: work was transformative. Another big part of fair use is

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Speaker 1: to show the impact on the market, and here praylu

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Speaker 1: to acton r has been out since two thousand fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and the planeffs didn't have any evidence that there had

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Speaker 1: been any negative impact based on prailude to actonards that

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Speaker 1: it was actually functioning as a free promotional work. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, our clients are the biggest Star Trek fans

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Speaker 1: and continue to promote the authorized and official Star Trek

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Speaker 1: in their tweets and in any other form. Michael, what

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Speaker 1: was the judge is written opinion? As far as the

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Speaker 1: points that Aaron just made, the judge basically ruled that

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Speaker 1: while it was done differently, a parody requires some sort

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Speaker 1: of criticism or statement about the original and that that's

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Speaker 1: not what this is. So, and I should add that

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Speaker 1: the court was also concerned not just with the short

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Speaker 1: but also with the screenplay of the full movie, and

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Speaker 1: so I think that probably had an effect on how

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Speaker 1: the ruling went. Personally, I think the parody argument is

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Speaker 1: a good one, but I also think that this is

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Speaker 1: not your traditional parody, and I think that's the way

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Speaker 1: the court saw it. With respect to market substitution. The

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Speaker 1: court said, you don't actually have to show market substitution.

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Speaker 1: Once you decide that this wasn't really a transformative use,

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Speaker 1: then you can basically assume that there's going to be

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Speaker 1: some market impact, especially if there's going to be a

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Speaker 1: longer thing. Thank you both. That's Michael Rishi, professor at

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Speaker 1: Villanova University Law School, and Aaron Ranahan, a partner at

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Speaker 1: Winston and Strawn who represents acts and our productions. This

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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg