Will pay for Nova class variant mesh (USS Rhode Island)

[Lonewriter]

no, not SFM. It's on another mesh site which I won't be going back to.

[Lonewriter]

If ianyone is interested, biotech is doing my mesh for me and it can be seen at
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/3...s-hawking.html

[Jedilaw]

Normally, I wouldn't jump in at this late stage, because of the whole Necro-osting taboo, but this thread caught my eye and since I am the only person (that I know of) on SFM who has actually litigated copyright suits, and written legal articles about copyright issues with fan-made work, I wanted to clear up some issues:

1) Technically, paying someone to create a derivative work (i.e. fan art based on the Trek IP) is not a copyright violation;

2) However, every time you load that derivative work onto your PC, you are infringing: there are numerous cases in which the act of loading a piece of infringing software into memory was treated as an infringing copy being made. Infringing art will be treated the same way. You load that mesh, it gets copied into RAM, you are infringing.

3) The person making the unlicensed derivative is infringing copyright. When you are talking about work you do as a hobbyist, for no financial gain, the Fair Use doctrine will (probably) protect you. But start charging money for work that is derived from Trek, without a Paramount license, and welcome to the Land of Infringement.

4) "Paying for the labor and not the IP" is almost 95% certain not to work as a defense. Why? Because the "labor" you are performing is the infringement. Creating a derivative work without a license is a copyright violation. Fair Use is a defense, but doesn't mean no infringement occurred, only that the infringement is not actionable (subject to legal penalties, in other words).

5) Whoever said "2% difference is enough" knows no copyright law at all. Period. Determining infringment is a fact-intensive analysis, and has to be done case-by-case, so blanket statements like "make it this different" are flat wrong.

6) One last point, sure to piss off some of you: if you create an unlicensed derivative work, you cannot own a copyright in that work. That perfect reproduction of the Enterprise Refit you modeled? You don't own it. Paramount does, if they want to. Your neato-keen new design that is obviously based on the Trek universe? Paramount owns that to.

7) Just because Paramount, or Lucasfilm, or whichever company hasn't sued does not mean they can't or that they won't. Both Paramount and LFL went through a period of nasty fights with fan websites in the mid-90s, and seem to have decided on some form of accomodation (apparently they don't want to totally alienate the fan base). But accomodating a fan site (which would likely include SFM, given the number of derivative works here) and accomodating someone getting paid to create unlicensed works are two different things altogether.

**NOTE: Yes, I have researched these questions specifically; No, this is not legal advice; No, I am not your lawyer; No, you are not my client.