3 Count: Beaming Away

Axanar may take flight after all...

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: CBS, Paramount to Beam Away Lawsuit Against Star Trek Fan-Made Film

First off today, Lance Whitney at CNet reports that the lawsuit against Axanar may be dropped soon as it appears that Paramount and CBS are looking to bring an end to the case and draft a set of guidelines for fan-made Star Trek creations.

Axanar began life as Prelude to Axanar, a short fan-made fake documentary exploring the events of a war that took place decades before the events in the original Star Trek TV series supposedly took place. Prelude to Axanar was crowdfunded on Kickstarter and, after it was successful, the crew behind it took to various crowdfunding sites and raised over $1 million to create Axanar, a feature-length film about the war described in the short film. However, once funding was complete, CBS and Paramount, who co-own the copyrights to Star Trek, filed a lawsuit against it claiming copyright infringement.

The lawsuit has dragged on with a judge recently ruling that it could move forward to a trial. However, J.J. Abrams, the director of the latest official Star Trek films, recently said in an interview that the lawsuit would soon be dismissed. The team behind Axanar responded, saying that they are happy about the news but that, until the lawsuit is formally dropped, both sides will continue litigating the case as to meet court deadlines.

2: Foxtel and Rights Holders Drop ‘Three Strikes’ Piracy Scheme

Next up today, Hannah Francis at the Sydney Morning Herald reports that, in Australia, rightsholders and ISPs have asked the government to put on hold the nation’s “three strikes” regime for a year while both sides reassess the viability of it.

The regime was supposed to take effect in September of 2015 and would have seen rightsholders sending notices to ISPs of suspected infringers and then having the ISPs take varying degrees of action depending upon the number of notices, up to and including disconnecting them. However, ISPs and rightsholders disagreed sharply about the costs of the system, with ISPs refusing to shoulder any of the financial burden.

Now, over six months later, the two sides have been unable to reach an agreement and have asked the government to shelve the proposal for a year. Meanwhile, plans to implement site blocking at the ISP level is ongoing and, while court cases are unfolding, questions over cost burdens continue to hound it as well.

3: Disney Movies Are Headed Exclusively to Netflix This Fall

Finally today, Cady Lang at Time Magazine reports that Netflix has signed a new deal with Disney and it will become the exclusive U.S. pay TV provider for all of the latest Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar movies. 

The deal, which begins this September, will likely encompass a wide variety of films including the superhero films from Marvel Studios, the Star Wars series and the latest animated films by Disney and Pixar.

The move is a major coup for Netflix, which has faced criticism in recent months for its dwindling library and increased competition from both Hulu and Amazon Prime, both of which have been busy beefing up their libraries.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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