I don't know why I bother. Okay, this is the last thing I'm saying on this point. APE, this movie is decidedly NOT professional, by definition. It's very high quality, yes, but he can't and won't make any money off of it.
I don't know why you bother either, you obviously don't understand anything about copyright law, so I very much hope this is the last you're saying on this point too!!
You fail to realise that a movie does not have to be professional and the OP doesn't need to make money out of it (or even need to try and make money out of it) for the film to violate international copyright law! You seem to be confused by the idea that generally copyright holders do not sue in court if the copyright infringer has not made money out of their copyright infringement. However, copyright infringement is against the law, period, regardless of whether the copyright holder decides to sue them for damages! Is this clear?? The OP's trailer has broken the law, even if the OP is a student and this trailer was submitted as course-work, he has still broken the law! There is no question that he has broken the law, the only question is whether or not the copyright holder (Paramount) want to exercise their legal right to issue a C&D notice, actually sue the OP, just ignore the trailer's existence, or even, just ignore it for now (and reserve the right to sue at a later date).
In that sense, he's not really stealing anything.
I don't know what sense you are talking about but I'm talking about the legal sense! As I've just stated, the OP has already wilfully infringed (stolen in effect) copyright and intends to do so again by making a feature. Just the name of his trailer is a copyright infringement, let alone the content!
No one is being harmed by it.
You can't possibly know that for certain and even if you did, it is still NOT your or the OP's decision of who is or is not being harmed!! You don't even know the content of the OP's film yet, how do you know if part of his plot harms Paramount's character development, is abusive, racist, defamatory, will interfere with any of Paramount's own marketing or could cause Paramount's Intellectual Property harm in ANY other way (as judged/decided by Paramount, not you!)?
As the name suggests, at it's most basic that's exactly what copyright is: The right to copy intellectual property. The OP has copied intellectual property which does not belong to him and has broken the law, period. It is entirely up to the copyright holder to decide what they feel is harmful, not you, not the OP and not anyone else!
If anything, the Trek franchise benefits greatly from fan fiction, helping to keep their fan-base excited.
Even if this is true (rather than just your opinion), it's entirely up to the copyright holders how, if and when they want to benefit the Star Trek franchise and/or excite their fan-base, NOT YOU!!! How many times do you need to be told Cracker?
If you made a film and then someone came along and copied all your characters, their names and the environment you had created, the name of the film and even stated it was based on your idea, would you not want any say in who could copy your intellectual property or how they could portray it? What if they turned it into a porn film, anti-islamic propaganda or anything else which you personally might consider objectionable or which you might consider harms your reputation, your film or it's sales, even though they might consider it harmless? Wouldn't you want the right to decide for yourself what constitutes "harmless" for your own IP? This question is hypothetical though, because whether you want that right to decide or not, it is already yours in law!
Cracker, your advice is ignorant of and ignores the law, it is therefore reckless and does not help the OP at all! Unless of course you consider encouraging a filmmaker to break the law is in some way actually helpful to them?
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