This is topic Star Wreck (Looks hilarious, but how is this not copyright infringement?) in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.
Well, looks as if the release of the latest installment of Star Wreck is set for about a week and a half. I'm not sure there is any way to describe what this series is... part spoof on Star Trek, that's for certain. The universe tends to be full of species such as the Plingons and the Korg, and characters such as Pirk. The latest movie, which if the site is accurate will be released to DVD, involves Star Trek spoofs invading the universe of the Babylon 5 spoofs... Of course the entire series is Finnish, and is filmed in such, but that is a small matter.
If I have a question somewhere in this post, is how can they get away with making money off these two series without being found guilty of... just about every copyright infringement law there is. I know some allowence is give to spoof movies, but most of the visuals are straight rips from the tv shows and movies.
A second question is how many other people have even heard of this web cult classic before this, and have been keeping up with the general evolution of it from a scripted 2-d video game to bad animation, to what looks to be fairly impressive computer generated sequences?
The info and trailer can be found here, and the trailer should be viewed if only to hear "photon torpedos" called "light balls."
Feyd Baron, DoC
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Parody is not only allowed, but in many ways almost required, to use material from the original work. And parody is not just given "some allowance", but near-ironclad protection.
Also, international copyright law is sometimes a bit trickier, and that's a Finnish film.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, and police generally don't pursue copyright violation, so unless the copyright holders go after them, they won't have anybody stop them.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
The Hustler magazine versus Fallwell case (of all things!) made it clear that even real life personalities can be parodied...to say nothing of fictional concepts.