Conquer Club

Was thinking a Star Trek map could be cool. Set up the different well known planets in the Star Trek universe with their moons as places to take over as well as space stations and such.

copyright.

Although using names of real stars and planets wouldn't be against the copyright, you'd have to come up with different names for races and ships. No Romulans, Klingons, Warbirds, Enterprise, etc.

I have been kicking around another idea or 2 for a new map to develop possibly, and the idea I have close to this would be the local group of star, within about 12 light years of Sol there is about 20 star systems, some of them fairly well known, others not so much. Although, Wolf 359 would be recognizable to most Star Trek fans

*bump*

The idea of Romulans or Klingons or Warbirds or Enterprise are no more copyrightable than my balls. This was a good idea, has anyone gone anywhere with that?

J.On.The.Spot21 wrote:*bump*

The idea of Romulans or Klingons or Warbirds or Enterprise are no more copyrightable than my balls. This was a good idea, has anyone gone anywhere with that?

http://www.chillingeffects.org/fanfic/n ... NoticeID=7

This is pretty clear about what is copyrighted. You're correct in observing that the names, Romulans, Klingons, ect., are not trademarked. But to use them in the context of anything Star Trek is copyright infringement.

Nice link, you only proved my point.

Single words and short phrases are generally not protected by copyright, even when the name has been "coined" or newly-created by the mark owner.

I.E. Any of the names of races or galaxies...

The most significant factor in this analysis is the effect on the market. If a copier's use supplants demand for the original work, then it will be very difficult for him or her to claim fair use. On the other hand, if the use does not compete with the original, it is more likely to be permitted as "fair use."

Obviously our map wouldn't effect the market...

Anything else?

In the lead-up to the release of Star Trek: First Contact, then-president of Paramount Digital Entertainment David Wertheimer stated that Viacom was targeting sites that were "selling ads, collecting fees and selling illegal merchandise."

Jennifer Granick, a San Francisco criminal lawyer who went on to champion cyber rights, felt that the unofficial sites should be covered by the fair use doctrine in U.S. copyright law. In a 1998, UCLA associate professor Howard Besser claimed the entertainment industry as a whole was, and cited Viacom's actions toward Star Trek site webmasters as an example of, "exploiting concerns over digitization and attempting to reshape the law by strengthening protection for copyrights holders and weakening public rights to access and use material."

The individual words may not be copyrighted, but if you were to put any of them in the context of space (sorta a requirement to do a proper Star Trek-themed map), it would immediately be looked upon as copyright infringement. Remember the present policy of Big Media in regards to the internet: guilty until proven innocent. If they think you're doing wrong, you're doing wrong unless you have a killer good lawyer. And on a site like CC that actually pulls revenue (in the form of Premium Membership), all claims of "just a fan site" disappear. So final word, unless you want to rename everything or go out and get a copyright pass from Paramount, this likely won't go any further.

J.On.The.Spot21 wrote:Nice link, you only proved my point.

Single words and short phrases are generally not protected by copyright, even when the name has been "coined" or newly-created by the mark owner.

I.E. Any of the names of races or galaxies...

The most significant factor in this analysis is the effect on the market. If a copier's use supplants demand for the original work, then it will be very difficult for him or her to claim fair use. On the other hand, if the use does not compete with the original, it is more likely to be permitted as "fair use."

Obviously our map wouldn't effect the market...

Anything else?

The problem is, there are copywrited Star Trek computer games, so Paramount could claim infringement on those "original works". While "Romulan" itself is not copyrightable, nor "Klingon" nor "Andorian" nor "Enterprise"... when you put those words together, it smacks "Star Trek;" they become less applicable as words and more applicable as "theme" and thus, potentially infringes.

Likely to be caught? Perhaps not. But why would CC take the risk?

Easy enough to slightly modify the names; Romulans become Remu (Plural of Remus, from "Romulus and Remus"). Klingons could become Pantees (nm, sick joke from a high school skit I was in where we called the Klingons "Clingons" using clingy pantyhose)