Stargate FAN FILMS banned by MGM

[Leeburt]

Hi guys. ( i'm the maker of the call it a stargate series )
I've just had a letter from a law firm, stating that in the UK i'm not allowed to use the stargate name etc.
( I did have an email from someone in the USA saying they was happy for me to keep making them )
But in this case it's MGM in the UK that has contacted the lawyers.
It's rather funny as the end of says they await a repsonse on how to repay MGM.
I think they haven't watched my films and i think they think it's a big company ( insted of a no budget fan film )
Of course the normal way it will go will be me saying "what about the thousands of websites that have stargate logo's on"
I will comply with them and remove all stargate stuff because I believe it will gain more of a following now it's banned than it ever did while online.
I know share sites have them out there.
Thought I'd share this with you guys as some of you have mentioned you are interested in making Stargate fan Films.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Rowan]

Ah... darn!

Keep us posted, Leebert.

Rowan

 

[Leeburt]

Just spoke to the law firm.
( i'll give this in brief )

I agreed to remove my films, but said i can't stop the filesharing site.

They said it's not just me, MGM are stopping lots of sites and are going to keep stopping more.

I said i'm unemployed and make the films for fun and can't compensate MGM.

They said they would pass the information to MGM in the USA and will get bac to me.

I tried to convey that I made them for the love of stargate and not to dishonor it.

more news when i get,
thanks

 

[Rowan]

Scary!

Scary news, Leebert! Please keep us in the loop and informed. What's happeneing to you may sadly be the new wave of the future for fandom.

Rowan

 

[Dave]

I had actually wondered before how come they hadn't got to you sooner.

Certainly, Viacom would have come down like a ton of bricks if it was a 'Star Trek' film, and Fox was gestapo-like with anything 'Buffy' or 'X-files' related (when Fox had scifi shows it didn't cancel.)

I mistakenly thought it was because they liked your films

Didn't you say that the guys on set watched them?

Of course, you are not dealing with anyone involved in making the show. You are dealing purely with Lawyers and Accountants. To them it isn't anything other than $. They probably have never even watched the programme.

Maybe you could appeal to the people actually working on the show who commented before on how much they liked your homages.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Looks like time for a new campaign to me... :angryfire

Preservation Movement of Stargate Fandom Against Corporate Tyranny - P.M.S.F.A.C.T.

Or just P.M.S. for short. Ought to put the willies up 'em! :naughty:

I'm wondering how far the old, old system of 'change the name and do the same' would work.

And what would happen if lots of people just compied the files and put them up on their sites, so that for every one fan site, there were hundreds - like cutting the head off the hydra. Which would be appropriate for Stargate - or Stargate, The Early Seasons anyway, when it was still mythology based.

Best wishes,
Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[Hatshepsut]

You know, the more I think about this, the angrier I become... :angryfire

For many years now, M.G.M. has benefitted from all the free publicity created by hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. Talk about biting the hand that feeds it!

I mean, if you consider the amount of time and effort that the fans have given the show, it must add up to millions of dollars worldwide, even if you based it on the minimum wage rate.

So-- Mobilize the Masses!

How would M.G.M. react if it was on the receiving end of hundreds of thousands of invoices for all that work?

Obviously they wouldn't pay, but it might bring home to them just how much they owe the fans, and that show business is a two-way thing. In fact, they need us far more than we need them.

So Leebert, how about contacting this law firm and passing on to them a request from fans for the address of M.G.M.'s Finance Director to whom they will be putting in counter-claims for reimbursement of their time and effort in promoting M.G.M.'s products...? :evil:

You might like to suggest that M.G.M. is running scared because their 'product' isn't as good as the work the fans do for free... :evil:

Best wishes,

Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[Leeburt]

Thanks for the support.
The sad part of this was there was an artilce in Vanity fair about some friends who made an Indiana Jones fan film and Steven Spielberg shook hand with them even after they admitted bootlegging his film. ( From what I read there story is being brought my film company to make into a film )

And then you have little old me who makes these out of love for stargate

I have had a few well wishers suggest i re-edit and re-title them " Call it a Space Gate"

One guy said title it " Call it a Space gate and I'll sue ya "

tis a sad day for true fans

 

[Dave]

If it is only the name "Stargate" they are complaining about, I wonder how much of a copyright they actually have on it's use?

According to Stanford edu

Copyright will not protect the titles of a book or movie, nor will it protect short phrases such as "Make my day." Phrases such as "Show me the money" or "Beam me up" are not protected under copyright law. Short phrases, names, titles or small groups of words are considered common idioms of the English language and are free for anyone to use.

I only ask because about twenty years ago I used to work here:

Multimap of Stargate, Ryton on Tyne

 

[PTeppic]

The problem may not be copyright, per se, but trademark. According to the DVD packaging, Thomasina Gibson's "approved" book series and even (in about one place) Keith Topping's "unofficial" book, the term "Stargate SG-1" is stated as being "TM". Presumably in the US, Canada, UK and as many places as they could afford to, since I think Trademarks have to be registered whereas copyright is implicit. IANAL!!

AIUI with the trademark they can pretty much swing at anyone who is producing anything under that label, even as a fan product. Not sure how much context goes with it - I recall a legal case against a Russian satirical version of Harry Potter, since that included general characterisations as well as deliberately similar names.

You can probably use the generic sci-fi term "stargate" for any space portal, or indeed in any other context. But add the SG-1 then it gets messy, as would adding a symbiote carrying alien and three humans working from NORAD etc.

 

[Rowan]

FWIW

Originally posted by PTeppic
You can probably use the generic sci-fi term "stargate" for any space portal, or indeed in any other context. But add the SG-1 then it gets messy, as would adding a symbiote carrying alien and three humans working from NORAD etc.

Or, to put it another way:

'stargate' with a small 's' is simply a discription.

'Stargate' with a big 'S' becomes a specific thing.

Rowan

 

[Hatshepsut]

But surely a Goliath of a company like M.G.M. suing skint fans over something they've put a lot of hard work into at their own expence would garner some terribly bad publicity? :dead:

They have everything to gain from fan fics, fan flix and fan art and b----- all to lose. Ungrateful b******s!

Best wishes,

Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[PTeppic]

Lawyers seem to assume that everyone "borrows" trademarked names and items to make money out of it (or self-accreditation and publicity etc.)

They don't seem to comprehend that in certain areas of such activity it is being done to honour the original article...

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by PTeppic
Lawyers seem to assume that everyone "borrows" trademarked names and items to make money out of it.

They are also concerned about 'Brand Dilution'. (The act of devaluing a brand by ignoring the very qualities that make it special.) It would be the same if you wrote some software and called in 'Microsoft' or made a drink and called it 'Coke'.

I take onboard Hatshepsut's comments, but legally they don't hold water.

My point was, like Rowan, I'm not sure they can trademark 'stargate'. They have trademarked 'Stargate SG-1', but a stargate is a scifi concept that was around before 1990. Dawes has just posted a thread about a US government psychic remote sensing program called 'Stargate', and the village on Tyneside I mentioned earlier. Can they stop them using the name too?

There is only one 'Coke' but there are many 'Cola's.

 

[PTeppic]

Originally posted by Dave
Can they stop them using the name too?

Not in this context but I have a feeling I have heard of pre-existing traders being prevented from using their own name in a wider context, because it would clash with a multi-national who gets "priority" over the name... might just be domain name rights - can't remember

 

[Hatshepsut]

I wasn't really thinking of the problem in legal terms (although stupid laws can be changed) but more in the moral or ethical sense.

M.G.M.... There they are - immense company, oodles of money - seeking to trample over the 'little guy' who is borrowing something of theirs for the purpose of adding, albeit in quite a small way, to the sum total of human happiness.

He does this at his own expense and makes no profit, yet this immense company which is being deprived of nothing and loses nothing (certainly not in comparison with the aforementioned oodles of money they make daily) seeks to trample over him with hob-nailed boots.

It's kind of like a multimillionaire taking a shotgun to a penniless nature lover who's had the nerve to put a few extra plants in a small dark corner of his garden.

In effect, it is actually M.G.M. which is seeking to deprive the fans - that's you and me! - of the pleasure we get from the freely available efforts other fans. Then they will expect us to add to their oodles of money by buying all their merchandising.

I think this kind of thing sucks. Big Brother, where art thou?! (I'm speaking in the 'Nighteen Eighty Four' vein here, not Channel 4.)

I remember a case a few years back, possibly in the Northumberland/Durham area, where the owner of a small individual cattery was dragged through the courts by the mighty 'Toys R Us' because she whimsically called her cattery 'Cats R Us'. She lost.

This is now another company added to my black list of firms I will never buy anything from. I suspect I'm not alone here, so these sledgehammer/nut cases really seem counter-productive.

Best wishes,
Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[Hatshepsut]

You might care to check out Fair Use: Parody:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html#2

and:

http://www.whoosh.org/issue62/ecks2.html

particularly paragraph [06]

Hope these help. I think there might well be a 'fan backlash' if the lawyers try to pursue this case.

I am told that lawyers tried to have a go at Harry Potter fics until J.K.Rowling herself sent the lawyers a 'cease and desist' notice. Gotta love her for that one!



Best wishes,
Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[Vera]

I don't quite understand, why MGM is so arrogant. If someone doesn't want to infringe copyright and trademark things and ask them for permission and wants pay for it (see my thread about copyright), they don't even bother to answer or react. But if someone made a fan film, publish a book etc. they're sending lawyers. It's frustrating. :-(