We discussed recently how George Lucas relinquished control of the Star Wars franchise, selling it to Disney. As Leigh noted in that piece, critics have long chastised Lucas for the control he exerted over his films, as well as the meddling he did on the classics so many hold dear. While that criticism is certainly valid, one area where Lucas seemed to be open -- in many ways bucking the Hollywood trend -- was with fan-made content, such as fan films and fan fiction. In fact, Lucasfilm to a great extent embraced fan fiction, even going so far as to hold contests for such content. The fact that Lucasfilm gained rights ownership of those fan-made films led to some criticism, but at least the company wasn't suing the jedi tunics off of its own fans.
These aren't the defendants you're looking for.
Image source: CC BY 2.0
But now some folks are wondering about the fate of all this fan-made content, and how future fan content will be received, now that the Empire Disney controls the franchise. Dennis S. writes in about a piece on this topic at Ars Technica, which reads less like a question about fan-made content and more like a propsective eulogy for it.

In 2007, Lucasfilm even released tools that would more easily enable remixing of Star Wars content. A top Lucasfilm lawyer, Jeffrey Ulin, began speaking at conferences and to the media about the value of fan mash-ups and remixes. Those works were "part of keeping the love of Star Wars and the franchise alive... We're really trying to position ourselves for the next 30 years," Ulin told the Wall Street Journal in 2007.

Certainly, Disney fans who make their own movie featuring Mickey Mouse are more likely to get a cease-and-desist letter from a Disney lawyer than an award. After all, it was Disney who famously lobbied Congress to extend copyright terms in 1998, so much so that some dubbed the new law the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Perhaps no single company more than Disney bears more responsibility for the sorry state of the US public domain, which hasn't seen any significant works added to it in decades. For the most part, culture after 1923 has been frozen in a state of private ownership—mostly owned by the large media corporations that began rising at about that time.

It's very difficult to argue with the precedent that the article lays out. Star Wars enjoys what may well be the biggest franchise fanbase ever. Part of that fanbase is so fanatical that they want to take part in the fun, sharing with one another their own creations and extensions of the Star Wars story. Many believe it's this same enthusiasm that has built up the Star Wars brand to such an amazing degree, but Disney's history suggests these contributions may no longer be welcome.

Frankly, that may pose a bigger problem than one would imagine. Obviously the Star Wars brand is big enough at this point that whatever content Disney releases is likely to be a hit...but will it grow as fast as it could if Mickey Mouse goes all emperor over the people? There's a serious risk in alienating folks over this kind of thing. Star Wars fans aren't stupid. There's a reason there's been a fair amount of hand-wringing over the sale of the franchise to Disney, seemingly much moreso than other sales like Marvel. This is a community that likes to contribute their own work to the story. I would say that such contributions are integral to the fanbase. If Disney acts to block that kind of thing, as they have in the past, the fans may well rebel against the Empire Disney and its Senate boardroom.

Disney surprised everyone today by announcing that they've struck a deal to acquire Lucasfilm—famously 100% owned by George Lucas—and all its valuable film properties. Lucas himself is stepping aside, and Lucasfilm Co-Chairman Kathleen Kennedy will become president of the company under Disney.

As if all this wasn't enough of a shock for Star Wars fans, Disney has also announced that they will revive Lucas' abandoned plans for Episode 7 and aim for release in 2015. One can't help finding some irony in the statement from Lucas:

“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”

As most of us know, fans of Star Wars and other Lucasfilm properties have loudly criticized Lucas for retaining tight control on his old works and, worse still, meddling with them by releasing updated versions to replace the beloved originals. There has long been a wish that Lucas would let Star Wars "live beyond" him—but I doubt selling it to Disney is what anyone had in mind.

It's unlikely anyone has high hopes for the quality of future Star Wars movies, but if Disney built a Star Wars theme park, it'd probably be a hit. Meanwhile, what are the odds that Darth Vader will finally get paid?

I missed this when it was in the news a few months back, but actor Topher Grace (That 70s Show and a bunch of other stuff) apparently decided he wanted to learn how film editing works, and rather than make his own film and edit it, he decided to take some other films that he knew well, and see what would happen if he edited them (massively). His first project was taking Episodes I, II and III of Star Wars -- a total of approximately seven hours of footage -- and editing them down to a tight 85-minute film that focuses almost exclusively on the story of how Anakin becomes Darth Vader, completely wiping out lots of other stuff, but (according to some of the very small number of people who saw it) creating a really compelling storyline in the process.

In a recent interview, he expanded a bit on the reason he did this and what his thinking was. Basically, he said that it's similar to when a director takes acting lessons to better understand actors (but with no desire to be one). He's not planning to do video editing professionally, but he believes editing is the key part of how a video story is told, and he wanted to understand it more. As he said:

There's this expression that [a movie is] written three times: during the script, when you're filming it and when you're editing it. And I believe that's wrong. I think it's written once, in editing -- and everything is clay for that. And I wanted to learn about it -- I thought it would be neat. It's like learning to play the piano and I need a lot of clay. And I thought if I did one movie out of these three ...

But, here's the thing. You and I and everyone else -- other than the small group of folks Grace invited to his screening -- will never see this movie. He's promised never to show it, because he doesn't want to upset Lucasfilm or violate their copyrights. Of course, Lucasfilm has actually been pretty cool about allowing such fan edits, but others in the industry, led by the MPAA, have not. And, of course, it seems that even just the one screening that Grace had for his friends in the industry and some reporters almost certainly violated Lucasfilm's copyrights on the work.

And Grace isn't stopping there either. He plans to do more of these, starting with an edit from the various versions of Close Encounters -- but again, none of us will ever get to see it:

I think, for people who like to edit, this is a cool way to do it. And it's just a great community thing. But they'll never be on YouTube, or any of that stuff.

And that, to me, sounds like a pretty big loss. Fan edits and remixes of music are pretty popular and widely encouraged by artists these days. But, for whatever reason, the same viewpoint doesn't seem to extend much to movies (again, Lucasfilm is a slight, but not complete, exception). And, for the most part, it seems that not just allowing but encouraging the making and sharing of fan edits would be a great way to not just have fans even more engaged in the films, but also to introduce new audiences to films, and to give people more reasons to watch the originals again, just to compare them to some fan edits.

So here's a situation where we have someone doing something incredibly cool and creating a bit of culture that those who have seen it seem to have enjoyed thoroughly. And the rest of the world will never experience it, even though it wouldn't do any harm to the original films. That seems like a huge loss to the collective culture.

Wired has put together a very cool Milennium Falcon infographic illustrated by Michael Cerwonka, to show the breakdown of revenues generated by the Star Wars franchise over its entire history (thanks to Jacob for sending this in). By combining data and estimates, they clock the total in at a cool $33-billion (click for big version):

They also found out which character is (unsurprisingly) the most successful overall:

What we all want to know, of course, is which character is worth the most? On that, the privately held Lucasfilm is coy. “Darth Vader is one of the most popular Star Wars characters across most product categories,” a Lucasfilm spokes-Wookiee says. “Your instincts are correct.”

This is amusing, because as you may recall, last year we discussed the fact that the actor who portrayed Darth Vader has never been paid residuals for Return of the Jedi because Lucasfilm claims the movie still hasn't turned a profit. One has to assume that, somewhere in that $33-billion figure, there are enough Return revenues to cover the $32.5-million it cost to make, even adjusting for inflation. But of course, that's not how Hollywood accounting works.

I know some will say too bad and blame the actor for signing the contract, but it's still impossible to accept the notion that the 15th highest-grossing film ever has never become profitable. That can only happen with crafty accounting, where the studios use various techniques to keep revenues just below costs on paper while still pulling in millions of dollars for themselves. Maybe it's up to actors and other creative workers to demand better contract terms—or maybe it's just another good reason for them to escape the Hollywood system.

Last year, we wrote about Hollywood accounting and how the big studios set up "corporations" for each movie, specifically designed to "lose money," often by paying money back to the studio itself. Basically, the studio sets up this "company," but then charges the company a huge "fee," such that the company itself rarely, if ever, becomes profitable. Of course, hugely successful films usually still get past the threshold, but perhaps not all of them. Hugues Lamy points us to the news that the actor who played Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi is saying that Lucasfilm still isn't paying residuals, claiming that the film is still not profitable:

“I get these occasional letters from Lucasfilm saying that we regret to inform you that as Return of the Jedi has never gone into profit, we’ve got nothing to send you. Now here we’re talking about one of the biggest releases of all time,” said Prowse. “I don’t want to look like I’m bitching about it,” he said, “but on the other hand, if there’s a pot of gold somewhere that I ought to be having a share of, I would like to see it.”

If you adjust for inflation, Jedi is the 15th highest grossing films of all time. In other words, the movie has made a ton of money. But somehow, amazingly, Lucasfilm is still able to claim that it lost money. And you wonder where the MPAA got its math skills.

AdamR was the first of a few of you to send in this story of how lawyers for Lucasfilm sent a cease-and-desist letter to a group of Star Wars fans who had organized a (free, not for profit) Star Wars movie marathon (all 13-hours) at a bar in Brooklyn. It's the sort of fun thing that Star Wars fans might enjoy and which would increase their connection to the franchise. But Lucasfilm, of course, calls it copyright infringement, and says that there's a ban on public display of the film right now. Legally, there's no doubt that Lucasfilm is in the right here. But, practically speaking, why would the company do this? What good does it do? Would it have hurt Lucasfilm in any way to allow this to go on? Instead, you have about 200 annoyed (former?) fans. This is exactly how you don't connect with fans, but piss them off.

Back when the Motorola Droid phone first came out, based on Google's Android platform, stories started coming out about how Motorola had to pay George Lucas to license his "droid" trademark. That didn't make much sense to me -- after all, trademarks are only supposed to be for specific product areas where there's actual use in commerce. However, in looking through the USPTO database, I came across trademark 77845682, filed by LucasFilm just last year for "Droid," covering "wireless communications devices, namely, mobile phones, cell phones, hand held personal computers..." and more. Interesting timing, no? I am curious, though, as to exactly what "use in commerce" there is for LucasFilm?

Either way, we've certainly seen that Lucas and his trademark attorneys have been unnecessarily aggressive lately, going after Wicked Lasers and the company Jedi Mind (despite not having a registered trademark on "jedi" or "jedi mind"). And, apparently, they're just going to keep at it. Matt Cooper, the founder of the startup Addroid wrote in to let us know that he's the latest recipient of a Lucas nastygram:

"The name of my startup is Addroid. It's an HTML5 ad serving platform. When trying to come up with a name I thought it should have the word "ad" in it. Also, it's digital advertising so I thought: computers, robots, androids...wait -- Addroid. That's kinda cool.

This week the law firm representing George Lucas informed me that Addroid will lead to customer confusion. I get that George Lucas owns the word "droid" up and down. But I feel Addroid is simply a made up word. I really thought if I made up a word I'd be cool. The name of the company isn't Ad Droid (two words). I don't believe that anyone interested in my B2B ad platform would for a second think that C3P0 and R2D2 are going to come popping out of the browser.

I have a decent amount of money already invested in the domain and branding. I have 10 days to reply. I don't really know what to do.

That's my story.

It seems that Matt has also contacted some others. Anyway, as ridiculous as it is to think there would be any confusion here (I'd guess that Google/Android have a better trademark claim here, if anyone does), it's probably going to be ridiculously expensive for Matt to fight it, should Lucas go past the C&D stage. Of course, he could just follow Wicked Laser's lead and auction off the C&D to generate extra attention and hope that LucasFilm backs down. It also does seem worth noting that Matt appears to have registered Addroid.com back in 2005 -- way before LucasFilm applied for the mobile services trademark and well before "Android" was a well known mobile operating system.

Fresh off its legal lightsaber battle with Wicked Lasers, LucasFilm's legal department has moved on to pulling a Jedi Mind trick... literally. David Canton points us to the news that LucasFilm has filed a lawsuit against a Nevada company called Jedi Mind. Not surprisingly, they're not particularly happy with the name, and are charging the company with trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution, breach of contract and unfair competition (under California's law). Apparently, a Jedi Mind is no match for a good legal department... Of course, this case seems a lot stronger than the lightsaber one, and my guess is that Jedi Mind is going to have to backdown quickly, or it's going to lose pretty badly. Even auctioning off the lawsuit papers probably won't help...

THREsq has a lot more details on the lawsuit, noting that after receiving a cease & desist from LucasFilm's lawyers last year, Jedi Mind had agreed to phase out the use of the name. The lawsuit (and the breach of contract claim) comes from its failure to do so. The other interesting point: Lucas doesn't actually hold a trademark on "Jedi" or "Jedi Mind." It does hold trademarks on Jedi Knight, Jedi Power Battles and Jedi Training Academy but that's not quite the same thing... Still, the company claims that's enough to wield the force over Jedi Mind.

A month ago, we covered the news that Lucasfilm was threatening Wicked Lasers over one of their recent lasers. The problem wasn't anything the company had done specifically, but the fact that various blogs, in talking about the laser, had compared it to the infamous lightsaber from Star Wars. That didn't make much sense. It's not like if you make a fictional product that you get control over anything remotely like it in the real world. Lucasfilm was widely ridiculed for the C&D, and Wicked Lasers ended up auctioning off the C&D to raise funds for a legal fight. However, after seeing all the negative publicity, Lucasfilm backed down, amusingly pretending that Wicked Lasers had helped set the record straight:

"We are aware that, during this time you have made several statements to the media insisting that your product is not intended to resemble a lightsaber and is not marketed by your company as either a lightsaber or as having any connection with 'Star Wars' or Lucasfilm."

Yes, but it's also true that before the media storm Wicked Lasers still hadn't made any statements suggesting its laser resembled a lightsaber, and it was never marketed as being a lightsaber or having any connection to Star Wars or Lucasfilm. This is just Lucasfilm's attempt at gracefully admitting it made a mistake, while pretending something had "changed." Either way, chalk one up for public ridicule getting a company to back down on a questionable legal attack.

We recently wrote about the cease & desist letter that LucasFilm sent Wicked Lasers for making a laser that various blogs (not Wicked Lasers itself) compared to a light saber. Wicked Lasers has apparently responded by doing the only reasonable thing: it's auctioning the cease & desist off on eBay. You can bid on it here. How nice would it be if it became a trend to auction off bogus cease and desist letters?