Crowd funding a fan film legal?
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I am working on a fan film now thats in preproduction and we had an IndieGoGo that was successful. We have said more times than i can count that we are not in any way affiliated with the people who hold rights and it is strictly a fan film being released to youtube and we are not making money off of it. The money raised was only to buy props, makeup, food, etc. It is just a fan film being made by fans for fans and release is free. I am sure if we were selling it and making a profit off of it there be some legal issues though. Then again that chances of the companies seeing it is very slim and for the most part its free advertising for their franchise.
Hmmm.... Here's my take....
The fundraising may or may not be illegal (I really don't know), but the making of the film certainly will be. Profit or no, copyright still protects the owner of the property. By crowdfunding a fan film, you're putting yourself, and your backers money, at the mercy of the studio that owns those rights.
What happens if you take $2000 from your backers, make your film, then the studio puts out an injunction which forces you to take it down and prevents you from distributing it in any way? Not very fair on your backers is it?
In any case, a non-profit, YT only short fan-film would most likely slip under the radar of most studios. Some studios wouldn't even care. But you never know....
The fundraising may or may not be illegal (I really don't know), but the making of the film certainly will be. Profit or no, copyright still protects the owner of the property. By crowdfunding a fan film, you're putting yourself, and your backers money, at the mercy of the studio that owns those rights.
What happens if you take $2000 from your backers, make your film, then the studio puts out an injunction which forces you to take it down and prevents you from distributing it in any way? Not very fair on your backers is it?
In any case, a non-profit, YT only short fan-film would most likely slip under the radar of most studios. Some studios wouldn't even care. But you never know....
Is it illegal? Not sure. If I were to choose, I'd lean towards a yes.
When you run a crowd funding campaign, you have an agreement in place, that if you get funded that you need to deliver what you agreed to deliver.
Another point is fan films and fan fiction is often encouraged by some IP owners, whereas others try to stomp it out. If they encourage the fan films, then you should be fine. It's always a good idea to ask for permission just in case. Take for instance the Star Wars franchise. It protected (pre-Disney) its IP aggressively though it supported many projects (even commercial, for profit projects). I hadn't heard of a crowd funded Star Wars fan film, but I'm sure they'd be some out there.
For them, the flip side of the coin is the potential damage a popular runaway fan film could do for the IP.
You'd be surprised. Most studios have teams (so I've heard) of people scouring the internet, especially YT. Though my understanding if they're more looking for new talent/properties, but they could send it over to their legal team if they saw some issue.
When you run a crowd funding campaign, you have an agreement in place, that if you get funded that you need to deliver what you agreed to deliver.
Another point is fan films and fan fiction is often encouraged by some IP owners, whereas others try to stomp it out. If they encourage the fan films, then you should be fine. It's always a good idea to ask for permission just in case. Take for instance the Star Wars franchise. It protected (pre-Disney) its IP aggressively though it supported many projects (even commercial, for profit projects). I hadn't heard of a crowd funded Star Wars fan film, but I'm sure they'd be some out there.
For them, the flip side of the coin is the potential damage a popular runaway fan film could do for the IP.
You'd be surprised. Most studios have teams (so I've heard) of people scouring the internet, especially YT. Though my understanding if they're more looking for new talent/properties, but they could send it over to their legal team if they saw some issue.
Your home, your car, the money in your bank, your credit history. Picture it gone. Comfortable with that? Then go for it!
As your question was also posted on my promotion thread, I thought I had better say something here too.
In short, the most common answer I got was "We only accept submissions from literary agents we have worked with in the past." any contact after this fell on deaf ears, I wasn't asking anyone else to make my movie, I wanted to insure what I wished to do was allowed to do.
Digging through the internet turned up the same questions asked by other people and much like this no one had a 100% answer to share.
I am crowdfunding a fan film as I am scraping the bottom of the barrel of self funding.
and lucky for me, I do not own a house or a car, have very little in my bank account and an extremely low rated credit history.... I'm going for it.
Good luck to everyone and their projects.....
for my fan film; this I tried, I went to the top, I explained what I set out to do, I explained what I had, what I wanted to use.... and I'm sure all the big movie making companies, directors, producers, etc, etc, etc hire people to 'filter' what contact they get.
In short, the most common answer I got was "We only accept submissions from literary agents we have worked with in the past." any contact after this fell on deaf ears, I wasn't asking anyone else to make my movie, I wanted to insure what I wished to do was allowed to do.
Digging through the internet turned up the same questions asked by other people and much like this no one had a 100% answer to share.
I am crowdfunding a fan film as I am scraping the bottom of the barrel of self funding.
and lucky for me, I do not own a house or a car, have very little in my bank account and an extremely low rated credit history.... I'm going for it.
Good luck to everyone and their projects.....
Any explanation on how these guys are doing it?
star trek renegades kick starter
Do they have a permission? Is it because they say they are making a pilot? There is no way something of this caliber is going to slip under the radar of the studios.
star trek renegades kick starter
Do they have a permission? Is it because they say they are making a pilot? There is no way something of this caliber is going to slip under the radar of the studios.
This. It's not illegal to ask for money to help make a fan film, but it is illegal to sell your fan film for money.
As fan films are becoming more and more popular the franchise
owners are becoming more and more tolerant of them. Paramount
and the ST world has been particularly open to fan films.
Many people crowd fund fan films. I have yet to hear of anyone who
got sued for doing so.
owners are becoming more and more tolerant of them. Paramount
and the ST world has been particularly open to fan films.
Many people crowd fund fan films. I have yet to hear of anyone who
got sued for doing so.
The answer is no. I work in the game industry and this happens often where a group (or game design studio) decide to launch a kickstarter to make a version of their favorite game from some childhood or whatever and they end up getting hit down rather quickly by Kickstarter before the IP owners even notice.
If they do notice they'll send in the lawyers which a certain company did to a rather popular game remake that was on KS last week. It is very against KS terms of agreement and is against IP laws. To make a fan film you'd HAVE to have a written agreement with them. Also you can't do non-profits with Kickstarter because they make a profit on it as well as Amazon. Only IndieGoGo can do non-profit.
If they do notice they'll send in the lawyers which a certain company did to a rather popular game remake that was on KS last week. It is very against KS terms of agreement and is against IP laws. To make a fan film you'd HAVE to have a written agreement with them. Also you can't do non-profits with Kickstarter because they make a profit on it as well as Amazon. Only IndieGoGo can do non-profit.
It doesn't matter where you stand.
All that matters is whether the copyright owner is cool with it or not. Some care a lot... others don't.
Heh. On one hand it's free advertising for their franchise? ...and on the other hand, you're hoping noone sees it, lest the company find out about it? How's that gonna work out?
.
Leaving aside the whole issue about whether or not it's legal or not to appropriate a copyright owner's work without their permission (it's not), you still have to lie and tell Kickstarter that you do have copyright/IP permission in order to use their service. From their not-very-hard-to-find Terms of Use (that you agree to):
http://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use
Of course, this is all about Kickstarter covering their own butt in case of legal issues caused by weasely filmmakers looking to skirt copyright law... but that's sure gonna look really bad, if you end up in court and the copyright owner has statements from you swearing black & blue to Kickstarter that you actually have permission to do something, when you don't. I believe the techical legal term for that is "about to be thrown to the wolves"... or sumthin'.
Why not take the time to talk to the copyright owners to see exactly what you can get away with?
Picking up here again...
This videogaming article was just published today:
http://cramgaming.com/youtube-getting-tough-video-game-monetization-12989/
Even though it's talking about the gaming video sector, it might be of interest to you, 'cos this is certainly already in the works for essentially any video content with an easily identifiable copyright.
Picking up here again...
This videogaming article was just published today:
http://cramgaming.com/youtube-getting-tough-video-game-monetization-12989/
Even though it's talking about the gaming video sector, it might be of interest to you, 'cos this is certainly already in the works for essentially any video content with an easily identifiable copyright.
Thanks for the concern.