You can sell fan-films?

[Major Wes Janson]

<A HREF="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 64400&rd=1" TARGET=_blank>E-bay Interesting find</A><P>OK. this thing in only on there for 6 days.<P>I'm sort of intrigued, as I am starting to collect Mara Jade stuff, but reading what it is about, I don't think it is any good. At least story wise. <P>I do have to give them credit, a 35 minute DVD with a decent caseart...<P>Can they do this though? Sell it?

[ur_greatest_nemesis]

Lol apparently they can. In my opinion it looks very unprofessional and would be a waste of time and money to buy. Besides...i think i've seen that for download at TFN.<p>[ 01 August 2004: Message edited by: ur_greatest_nemesis ]

[JC]

<I>Two mavericks must help Jedi Mara Jade get the Death Star plans into the hands of the alliance.</I><P>I thought she was working for the Empire around this time period. OOOPSIE!

[Darksaber]

yep you can download it<BR> <A HREF="http://www.theforce.net/theater/shortfi ... ndex.shtml" TARGET=_blank>http://www.theforce.net/theater/shortfi ... x.shtml</A> <P>or here<BR> <A HREF="http://www.theforce.net/tdr/tdrdownload.shtml" TARGET=_blank>http://www.theforce.net/tdr/tdrdownload ... ><P><BR>oh and you can get the DVD cover from<BR> <A HREF="http://www.cdcovers.cc/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.cdcovers.cc/</A> <P>just search for<P>Star Wars Episode Iii.v The Dark Redemption<p>[ 01 August 2004: Message edited by: Darksaber ]

[Ol]

No you can't sell a fan film as it breaches copyright if you do - I'm not sure about covering costs but that doesn't apply in this case.<P>Also this film is free to download from TFN and this is a scam.<P>As for the film itself - not bad as fan films go - the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense but it's all good fun.

[Executor32]

It's just like when someone sold a copy of the Bid for Power mod for Quake 3, hawking it as a new Dragon Ball Z game that required Quake 3 to play. He sold it for $50 USD, too. <P>I feel sorry for the schlep that got suckered into buying it, though.

[Atx]

Dark Redemption was one of the first Star Wars based Fanfilms out there and it was one of the first to get a cease and desist from Lucasfilm for , well...basically trying to profit off of it. <BR>Merchandising was the problem here mainly...don't recall them selling copies of it. <BR>I think the main thing here is terminology in that fanfilms are not able to be sold since they are 'fan' films...if they weren't based on anything copyrighted to begin with then they would be indie films and totally original...but then there are parodies and artistic ownership rights and its all very confusing after a while.<p>[ 03 August 2004: Message edited by: Atx ]

[Chris]

Just like anything Star Wars, you can sell parodies as that is protected by US copyright law. You cannot sell things that have previously copyrighted or trademarked things in them like ATX said unless you have permission or it's a parody. <B>Covering costs is _<I>not</I>_ an excuse for piracy,</B> especially if it's not the filmmaker who is distributing the film.<P>So I'd encourage anyone out there to not buy these things at conventions or on ebay as they only encourage these pirates and put studios like Warner Brothers increasingly on edge about fan activities. Because Warner Brothers felt threatened, they asked Comicon to not show any fan films featuring Warner characters like Superman and Batman at its convention. So Comicon banned fanfilms, period.<p>[ 04 August 2004: Message edited by: Chris ]