I have been mostly indeffirent on this issue up until now. I did feel that Axanar crossed or at least came close to crossing lines of what was reasonable. These quidelines are absolutely ridiculous.
As far as I'm concerned, Axanar definitely crossed the lines of being reasonable, but these "guidelines" are extremely constraining and flat–out ridiculous when taken as a whole. Some of them make sense, *e.g. 4, 7, 8, and 10,) and some of them make partial sense, (e.g. parts of 3, and parts of 6's non–commercial requirements,) while others make almost no sense, and seem like arbitrary attempts to stick it to the Axanar production crew. (e.g. Not having "Star Trek" in the name, but having "A Star Trek Fan Film" in plain text, not allowing professional actors to appear in a fan film, etc.) I'm completely fine with a limit on fundraising, and the limit provided is very generous, but these guidelines don't appear to have been created in good faith by CBS Inc. and Paramount Pictures, and don't seem like they actually garnered the input of a good portion of the people who have been producing fan films, given that things like DVD/Blu–Ray copies have frequently been part of the fundraising effort for fan–films, and a rather significant aspect of what gets people to donate to them.
They could have easily said no fan films at all, but they didn't.
Axanar pushed it to far, and with Trek returning to TV soon, it isn't surprising that they don't want people to be confused by fan films that could be mistaken for official Trek. Don't forget that the general public is pretty ignorant as to what is official and what isn't. Especially when a lot of fan films have the actors reprising their old roles again.
True, they could have easily said no fan films at all, but they'd have basically shot themselves in the foot like they did around the time ENT entered production when they tried to distance themselves from the fans before. I completely agree that Axanar went too far, but Trek viewers aren't the complete morons that CBS Inc. is basically trying to paint them as with these guidelines. I've yet to see a Star Trek fan that wouldn't type a title into Google if they weren't sure if it was official or not and be able to find the answer in about five seconds. Additionally, if CBS were targeting the general public, they wouldn't be shoving their new series onto a no–name subscription streaming service that could still very well fail, and would instead be sticking it on "America's Most–Watched Network™" where far more people would be likely to see it. If fans are confusing fan films with official work, that says more about the quality (or lack thereof) of recent officially released material than it does about the quality of Trek's fan–films. If anything, it suggests that CBS should be hiring people who've been producing fan films that are good enough to be confused with official material and not trying to prevent further fan–films like them from being created.
Personally I think Star Trek Continues should be the model of the upper end of what's acceptable. I would also like to see them take the productions that rise to the top like STC and distribute them through their channels and help fund them. They could have a whole Star Trek fan film section on their new CBS app. There's definitely potential for them to turn this into a positive rather than a negative.
This would be something I could get behind; take the best fan–films and either offer them in a semi–official capacity after they've risen to the top, or hire away some of their creative talent for official work on Trek–related projects, but do something that's seen as a positive instead of a negative. Before these guidelines were released, Trek fanfilms were effectively the gold standard of what fan films should look like; if you'd asked me why Trek fan films were better than any other franchises fan–films, I'd have told you that it was because CBS and Paramount had been generous enough to give their fans a very big sandbox to play in, and had allowed for full–fledged episodic productions at the high–end and traditional shorts at the low–end. Trek's fan–films typically varied in length, style, budget, and just about everything in–between, which made them diverse and incredibly unique. You had things like Renegades, Continues, and New Voyages, all of which were episodic, and then you also had more traditional shorts that were typical fan–film fare. What these guidelines do is basically kill off any of the more interesting fan–films that were able to break out beyond a traditional short film format.
As for the 15–minute limit, the problem with it is that it's incredibly restrictive, and basically makes every fan–film look the same, which is why most franchises have fan films that are painful to watch while Trek had some really amazing gems available. And yes, I'm aware that it can technically be a two–part 30 minute fan–film, but that presents a whole additional set of issues. (Can both parts be shot simultaneously and split into two 15 minute parts just for distribution?) The scale of Trek's fan–films was impressive, and now it's going to be far less so, specifically because everything has to come in at under 30 minutes maximum, which prevents us from having the amazing episodic fan–films that we've had up until this point. Additionally, you're only allowed two parts and those can total up to 30 minutes, so even if you have a great idea that would only need 24 minutes, but would make sense as a three–act "play" split into roughly eight–minute parts, you can't release it as such because it would be three parts instead of two. While you could still chop it in half and release it as a two–part fan–film, an abrupt arbitrary stop in the middle of act two would be cringe–inducing, and completely ruin the pacing. I completely agree that some guidelines are needed, but what was released yesterday is flat–out insane. I'd even be fine with CBS saying "no fanfilms from -insert specific portion of the timeline here- because they would compete with our upcoming show," but what they're doing is far more restrictive than that, and not in a way that's going to generate any real creativity.
I wouldn't call guidelines that essentially shut down every major fan film production reasonable. I will agree there are some very reasonable points though. I think with a few modifications these could be good. Limiting productions to 15 minutes seems fairly arbitrary and really curtails the ability to have a good well thought out story on the other hand I think limiting fundraising to $50k seems a very generous guideline. I do think there's potential with these but they need some work. Until that happens I just have no interest in supporting Star Trek. CBS most certainly does have something to lose though, the more times they go to court over this the more opportunity there is for things to fall out of their copyright and into public domain. I don't think anyone really want to see that happen.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you s8film40, these guidelines are just too heavy–handed in their current form, despite having potential. I don't like the arbitrary 15 minute limit, but I agree with you that $50,000 is a very generous fundraising guideline. As much as I hate Alec Peters for going way over the limit with Axanar, I don't like CBS's reaction being to basically go after their fans, especially given that Paramount tried to be excessively litigious when ENT was first released, and it only further angered the fans who were already unhappy with the official production of the time. Going after fan films now is just going to piss off the people CBS needs to have encouraging everybody else to drop $6 bucks a month on CBS All–Access, and not going to do them any favors in the long run if it costs them viewers as well as potential lawsuit losses. Peters may be a dick, but all CBS has to do is go after a fan filmmaker whose much more sympathetic and the entire fanbase that would normally have their back will be at their throat instead, and that's not good for anyone involved. I don't like them effectively killing episodic Trek fan–films, especially when it would be so much better if they could figure out a way for those films to continue being made while they (CBS) managed to make some sort of small profit off of them.