test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Star Trek Discovery and the "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy"
redvenge
Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Before the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery was broadcast, there was a theory that the show was made using "Paramount's Kelvin Timeline License". I don't know who started it, but it started circulating on social media after the leak of the Nu Klingons. Fans said there were similarities between the JJ Klingons and the Nu Klingons. Others pointed out the lens flares and prolific Dutch angles in some of the promotional material. Then, some posted the fact that Alex Kurtzman was one of the producers and, shortly after this, social media posts about STDZ being "JJ Trek in disguise" started popping up. The YouTube channel Midnight's Edge made several videos spreading "rumors of dubious veracity" and now there is a group of Star Trek: Discovery detractors who are convinced that somewhere behind the scenes, the Bad Robot Production company (and,by extension, JJ Abrams) are behind all the decisions that made STDZ the show it is today. They believe there is a "Paramount Star Trek License" that is somehow influencing the show.
So, why bring this up? Well, a month or so ago, a privately operated (yet popular) Star Trek Facebook page banned the posting and sharing of Midnight's Edge videos. They were banned for "spreading unverifiable rumors and instigating vitriolic threads/responses". While I don't know about the "vitriolic threads" bit, they do like to spread the "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy". Then, about a week ago, Midnight's Edge posted a "part one" video about the rights issues of Star Trek. It was basically a brief history of the ownership of Trek, which quickly ended with the assertion that Paramount had a "special license" to make their Trek movies, which were the Kelvin Timeline. Since I want this conspiracy to die in a fire, join me as we debunk this nonsense. Maybe one of the creators on Midnight's Edge will see this post before "part two" comes out, and they can stop saying stupid things.
At this point, it is unclear how much of the IP rights Paramount holds. When Viacom split into the CBS Corporation and Nu Viacom, it divided the rights to the Star Trek IP between CBS and Paramount. Up until recently, my investigations pointed to Paramount having the right to make any Trek movie it wants, but now it seems less clear than it was. What information is available, is fragmentary and broad, leaving it open to interpretation. What is certain, is that CBS remained the sole entity for marketing and licensing of the Star Trek product line for both the television as well as the movie properties. This is important, because Paramount cannot promote, market or merchandise a Star Trek movie without working with CBS. Specifically, CBS Consumer Products.
However, CBS does not have the rights to all of the concepts from the Bad Robot movies. In January 2011, License! magazine reported that CBS Consumer Products had deals for " Playmates Toys for action figures and accessories; Mattel for Star Trek-themed Barbie collector dolls; Tyco for flying radio-controlled vehicles; Scene It? DVD game; Radica for 20Q Star Trek trivia game; Pocket Books for a movie novelization; IDW Publishing for a comic book prequel "Star Trek: Countdown;" Fundex for customized versions of classic games UNO, Scrabble and All About Trivia; USAopoly for a Star Trek Continuum Collector's Edition; Vandor for gift items such as business card holders, salt and pepper sets, mugs, clocks and magnets; Funko for bobbleheads and vinyl figurines; Briefly Stated for adult sleepwear and loungewear; E.S. Originals for kids' footwear, bags and accessories; and AME for kids' sleepwear.".
Yet, CBS Consumer Products still had to work out licensing issues for products like our very own Star Trek Online: "until CBS/Paramount come to some sort of agreement over the new movies, we will not be able to add any items or references from the "JJ" movies. -Executive Producer Dan Stahl, in Ask Cryptic June 2011
Most of those issues seemed to be ironed out when CBS Consumer Products declared that the Bad Robot movies would be the "Kelvin Timeline". A June 2016 Tweet by Holly Amos, Product Development Coordinator at CBS Consumer Products, stated "we needed an in-universe term since we needed some way to refer to it in the encyclopedia". The name was credited to Michael and Denise Okuda, authors of the 50th Anniversary Star Trek: Encyclopedia.
It seems clear that Paramount does hold a copyright for some creative portion of the Bad Robot movies. In order for CBS to utilize this version of Trek, it would have to enter into another round of negotiations with Paramount/Bad Robot, then pay to use their intellectual property. It makes no sense to use any portion of the Kelvin universe in a CBS product. There is NO BENEFIT to CBS. NONE.
I have seen people refer to a tweet stating "the Enterprise had to be 25% different from the original", which these conspiracy theorists use as a "smoking gun" to prove their "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy". Marketing research shows that millennials do not like "old stuff". It could just as easily have been the result of marketing, rather than "that Bad Robot license".
In any case, if anyone comes across more "proof" of the "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy", feel free to post it and I would be happy to research (and probably counter) any evidence you come across.
So, why bring this up? Well, a month or so ago, a privately operated (yet popular) Star Trek Facebook page banned the posting and sharing of Midnight's Edge videos. They were banned for "spreading unverifiable rumors and instigating vitriolic threads/responses". While I don't know about the "vitriolic threads" bit, they do like to spread the "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy". Then, about a week ago, Midnight's Edge posted a "part one" video about the rights issues of Star Trek. It was basically a brief history of the ownership of Trek, which quickly ended with the assertion that Paramount had a "special license" to make their Trek movies, which were the Kelvin Timeline. Since I want this conspiracy to die in a fire, join me as we debunk this nonsense. Maybe one of the creators on Midnight's Edge will see this post before "part two" comes out, and they can stop saying stupid things.
At this point, it is unclear how much of the IP rights Paramount holds. When Viacom split into the CBS Corporation and Nu Viacom, it divided the rights to the Star Trek IP between CBS and Paramount. Up until recently, my investigations pointed to Paramount having the right to make any Trek movie it wants, but now it seems less clear than it was. What information is available, is fragmentary and broad, leaving it open to interpretation. What is certain, is that CBS remained the sole entity for marketing and licensing of the Star Trek product line for both the television as well as the movie properties. This is important, because Paramount cannot promote, market or merchandise a Star Trek movie without working with CBS. Specifically, CBS Consumer Products.
However, CBS does not have the rights to all of the concepts from the Bad Robot movies. In January 2011, License! magazine reported that CBS Consumer Products had deals for " Playmates Toys for action figures and accessories; Mattel for Star Trek-themed Barbie collector dolls; Tyco for flying radio-controlled vehicles; Scene It? DVD game; Radica for 20Q Star Trek trivia game; Pocket Books for a movie novelization; IDW Publishing for a comic book prequel "Star Trek: Countdown;" Fundex for customized versions of classic games UNO, Scrabble and All About Trivia; USAopoly for a Star Trek Continuum Collector's Edition; Vandor for gift items such as business card holders, salt and pepper sets, mugs, clocks and magnets; Funko for bobbleheads and vinyl figurines; Briefly Stated for adult sleepwear and loungewear; E.S. Originals for kids' footwear, bags and accessories; and AME for kids' sleepwear.".
Yet, CBS Consumer Products still had to work out licensing issues for products like our very own Star Trek Online: "until CBS/Paramount come to some sort of agreement over the new movies, we will not be able to add any items or references from the "JJ" movies. -Executive Producer Dan Stahl, in Ask Cryptic June 2011
Most of those issues seemed to be ironed out when CBS Consumer Products declared that the Bad Robot movies would be the "Kelvin Timeline". A June 2016 Tweet by Holly Amos, Product Development Coordinator at CBS Consumer Products, stated "we needed an in-universe term since we needed some way to refer to it in the encyclopedia". The name was credited to Michael and Denise Okuda, authors of the 50th Anniversary Star Trek: Encyclopedia.
It seems clear that Paramount does hold a copyright for some creative portion of the Bad Robot movies. In order for CBS to utilize this version of Trek, it would have to enter into another round of negotiations with Paramount/Bad Robot, then pay to use their intellectual property. It makes no sense to use any portion of the Kelvin universe in a CBS product. There is NO BENEFIT to CBS. NONE.
I have seen people refer to a tweet stating "the Enterprise had to be 25% different from the original", which these conspiracy theorists use as a "smoking gun" to prove their "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy". Marketing research shows that millennials do not like "old stuff". It could just as easily have been the result of marketing, rather than "that Bad Robot license".
In any case, if anyone comes across more "proof" of the "Kelvin Contamination Conspiracy", feel free to post it and I would be happy to research (and probably counter) any evidence you come across.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Not sure where that sits as proof.
In the Axanar case, the specific property Peters was ripping off was the CBS-owned TOS. CBS does hold all rights related to that. If Peters had chosen to try to portray events following TMP, and using a similar aesthetic, Paramount would have gotten involved. (And, given the money they've made from that franchise over the years, I strongly doubt they would have been any more kindly disposed toward Peters than CBS was.)
CBS walked away from the split owning all rights to the overall series, with Paramount only retaining ownership of the pre-existing movies but not the IP itself, they also lacked the rights to make any new ones. To do new movies Paramount had to license the IP from CBS like any other third party would, the terms of said deal required them to make things different from old continuity hence why they went the reboot route.
So pretty much at this point Paramount is totally at the mercy of CBS, with CBS holding all the cards. There are talks that Viacom might merge CBS and Paramount back together again now that Les Moonves has been booted from the company, but only time will tell if that happens.
edit: Reworded things to make it flow a little better.
My bet is that five to ten years from now Paramount gets broken up and sold at auction under bankruptcy laws, and that the people who would have wanted to invest in it instead put their money into another corporation which then buys the pieces of Paramount that they want for pennies on the dollar.
Even CBS cannot afford to take on 10+ billion dollars worth of outstanding debt for a library of films they can only rent to Netflix or commercial television for a small, (but steady) income which is currently insufficient to keep Paramount operational. That same library, washed clean of debt through bankruptcy, however, would be a sweet nest-egg for a startup with a lean, mean, and hungry management team.
There is no proof of this. In fact, if this was the case, CBS would have no issue giving merchandising rights to STO (and other merchants) much, much earlier than 2016. As I stated, Cryptic wanted Kelvin content before it was called "Kelvin content".
It's obvious that Paramount and Bad Robot have some kind of IP rights with the content in the 3 recent movies. If CBS wanted any "Kelvin content" in their product, they would have to pay Paramount/Bad Robot money to do that. Why would CBS do that? Nothing in Star Trek: Discovery is directly related to those movies. So, why would CBS pay money for indirect content? Content they cannot even advertise they have? That's pure conspiracy level nuttery there. It's the equivalent of burning money.
Indeed. An even stronger reason for CBS to just ignore the Bad Robot movies. They don't need them.
So, what do we know about Paramount's owership of the IP? Not much. The most widely quoted series of events comes from the New York Times:
Gail Berman, then the president of Paramount, convinced Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, to allow her one more chance at a “Trek” film; he gave her 18 months to get the cameras rolling or lose the property. (Under the arrangement CBS retained the “Star Trek” merchandising rights.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/movies/26itzk.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all
This seems to suggest that Paramount's ownership of the Star Trek rights is similar to how 20th Century Fox owns an exclusive license to make X-Men films, but Disney owns the Marvel universe. Except in the case of Star Trek, there is an added layer of complexity in merchandising rights.
Further research just state state versions of the Times article:
in September 2005, Gail Berman, then president of Paramount, convinced CBS' chief executive, Leslie Moonves, to allow them eighteen months to develop a new Star Trek film, and if it wasn't in production by then CBS would re-earn the rights to develop a new television series.
http://www.warpedfactor.com/2015/11/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-star.html
Edit: Added links to the articles.
Owning the franchise means that they can decide who gets to use it. Typically, they negotiate some kind of contract with someone that wants their IP, which defines what can be done and what not, money might change hands and what not. Unless the contract specifically states that whatever the second party created belongs to CBS, it still belongs to that party.
That is why Cryptic has to make separate negotiations with Rademaker for the Vesta, and can't just recreate Star Trek Armada assets.
Of course, within a contract basically anything could be agreed on. It is possible that Paramount said that they wanted to make their "reboot", but only if CBS guarantees they won't make a series with the ship or a ship too similar with it for some time. That doesn't mean Paramount has control over the franchise, it just means there is a contract that outlines duties and responsibilities and permissions for both sides.
Of course, there is absolutely no need for any such contract to be in effect to explain why visuals change. And you certainly don't need conspiracy theories to make sense of it. Sometimes the simplest explanations are the right ones. They changed the look of the Enterprise because the original look seems a bit dated to contemporary audiences. That seems to be what drove design decisions in TMP and TNG, too. Why would this time be different?
CBS' television-serial rights are unrelated to Paramount's film rights. There are, at present, no circumstances under which Paramount could possibly lose the movie rights, as they own that portion of the IP. They might decide not to exercise those rights, but that's another matter altogether.
http://www.cbsconsumerproducts.com/startrek/star_trek_original.html
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I most certainly do not repeat myself endlessly. That is not going to convince anyone of anything. Citation required.
As I posted, the only public statement we have is: Gail Berman, then the president of Paramount, convinced Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, to allow her one more chance at a “Trek” film; he gave her 18 months to get the cameras rolling or lose the property. (Under the arrangement CBS retained the “Star Trek” merchandising rights.)
Citation required. Again.
Mods: Can you delete all those spam posts? Again, I do not know where they came from.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
Facebook / Twitter / Twitch
No worries. Thank you for work on the forums and for wearing the thankless mantle of "forum moderator".
You'd be surprised how compartmentalized some megacorporations can be.
Wow. Just... wow. I think people should watch it for the entertainment value alone. You can probably skip the first 15 minutes, because then it gets interesting.
So, they preface the last 30 minutes by saying "this is based on rumor and speculation". However, a quick google search will "debunk" many of the claims by their "anonymous source(s)". Some things to keep in mind:
- CBS coined the term "Kelvin timeline" and it was CBS who insisted on separating the "Prime" and "Kelvin" universes (links in my first post)
- CBS is the only party that can merchandise or license Star Trek content. Any merchandising revenue that Paramount makes must go through CBS (who gets a cut, obviously).
- CBS cannot use content from the Paramount movies without making an agreement with Paramount (which involves giving Paramount cash). https://trekmovie.com/2018/02/18/star-trek-discovery-writers-talk-captain-pike-klingons-having-two-organs-and-more/
- Much of this theory hinges on an agreement between CBS and Paramount/Bad Robot in which CBS agrees to not make Star Trek TV shows for 10 years. Yet, there is no evidence of this agreement anywhere. In fact, it is not in CBS's best interests to make such an agreement. As far as we know, Paramount was begging for a chance to make a new Star Trek movie:
Gail Berman, then the president of Paramount, convinced Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, to allow her one more chance at a “Trek” film; he gave her 18 months to get the cameras rolling or lose the property. (Under the arrangement CBS retained the “Star Trek” merchandising rights.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/movies/26itzk.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all
So why would Les Moonves (a man who's hard-nose is legendary in the industry) grant such concessions to someone who is clearly in no position to negotiate for that kind of deal?
- Why would CBS and "Bad Robot" need to jump through so many hoops to declare something as "canon", when CBS can do that anytime it wants?.
- So, in the end, this "theory" based on "insider sources" only works if: a) Bad Robot is more interested in making a small percentage of profit based on selling toys not telling stories (because all the revenue from All Access goes to CBS; Netflix gets it's share, etc). b) CBS hates money and wants to pay fees to Paramount Pictures for an IP that CBS owns all the merchandising and television distribution rights to.
As I said, it is entertaining to see how the theory wraps back on itself. A fun afternoon with the friends. 4 out of 5 tinfoil hats, would debunk again.
At no point did CBS intend to give up it's exclusive control of Trek licensing and merchandise:
"As the merchandising rights holder for Star Trek, CBS Consumer Products has ongoing relationships with all our partners, including Paramount," a spokesman for CBS Consumer Products said in a statement. "We have worked closely with them for the last five years to create merchandise to enhance the movies and satisfy fans.”
https://www.thewrap.com/how-web-star-trek-rights-killed-jj-abrams-grand-ambitions-91766
*Mutter, grumble*
Fine. Let's get it out of the way, then.
Then you have the comment thread. One poster specifically asked "was the "25 percent difference" mandate creative or legal?" and Eaves replied "Legal". That seems really damning. Open and closed case. Star Trek: Discovery must be 25% different from TOS because of "legal reasons".
But wait...
As the comment section goes on, John Eaves says this:
"Your asking the wrong guy. I only know there is a division of property and when the task at hand asks for 25% changes or a whole new design I know that what ever it is is not allowed to be used"
"after Enterprise properties of Star Trek, ownership changed hands and was devided so what was able to cross show VS tV up to that point changed and a lot of the cross over was no longer allowed. That is why when JJ's movie came along everything had to be different. the alternate universe concept was what really made that movie happen in a way as to not cross the new boundries and give Trek a new footing to continue."
We know CBS owns all the TV shows, so what does he mean by "what was able to cross show VS tV up to that point changed and a lot of the cross over was no longer allowed"? He also admits he is the wrong guy and does not entirely understand the IP rights. Additionally, the concept "25%" is incredibly ambiguous. The Andorans and the Tellarites don't appear "25% different". Neither do the Vulcans.
Adding more confusion is the deleted scene from Star Trek: Into Darkness which shows an original series model Constitution Class Starship. It was clearly not 25% different, and some serious production values went into making it:
http://trekcore.com/blog/2014/03/exclusive-into-darkness-deleted-scenes-part-ii/
Then there is the legal impossibility of enforcing a "25% difference" on artistic works. How do you actually measure 25% of a piece of art?
So, in the end, you have an artist who is not entirely familiar with the actual state of the IP rights making comments about his art that some conspiracy theorists are then applying to the entire show. This is such an incredible leap of logic based on extremely shaky information.
To make matters worse, the original Facebook post (and subsequent comments) have been deleted. I have used this archived forum post for my comments:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/it-seems-there-is-a-reason-for-the-visual-reboot-and-the-producers-arent-being-honest-about-it.293811/page-5
In the end, the "25% different" is a "nothing burger". Yes, CBS did say that John Eaves was mistaken, but no real conspiracy theorist would accept the word of CBS on principle. So, I have endeavored to debunk without citing CBS itself.
And you know the worst thing to use in this discussion? Logic. Corporations don't work on logic and, to a certain extent, neither does the law. They work on agreements called contracts, and those contracts can specify anything. As long as both or all parties to the contract agree on it, the contract can call for them to all say the sky is green every Thursday. The lawyers then step in and make a fortune arguing whether the contract calls for a weekly affirmation that the sky is green or whether it calls for the assertion that once a week the sky is green, and that the weekly event occurs on Thursday.
So, before you get on a high horse on either side and ride it off the cliff, keep in mind that both the pro and the con of this argument is based on nothing but the same thing the other side is using! You're both arguing from rumor.
I can't wait until we get some new Romulan love from the Picard show, and even some Animated Replicator Paste, Yellow #42. (You know, the stuff they put in replicators to replicate bananas.)
The way i see this happening is that paramount goes into bankruptcy and CBS "Buys" its IP's cheap (silent merger) and its dept is mostly lost ... this happens ALL the time .... I'M LOOKING AT YOU Clive Palmer-UAP
Everything I have posted is from public sources. With links. If you feel my sources are questionable, that's fine, but I don't do "rumors". Unlike Midnight's Edge...
What are you talking about? Corporations like money. They want more of it. They need a certain amount of skill, intelligence and some basis of logic to aquire money.
You seem to be writing while impaired. Nothing you wrote here makes sense. I think you are trying to make some kind of point about contracts, but your metaphors are strained and your point wandered off a cliff.
... what?
Midnight's Edge is claiming that their "inside sources" told them that CBS and Paramount have an agreement in which CBS will not make Trek shows for 10 years. Those same sources also claim that Paramount's Trek must be 25% different (whatever THAT means). Midnight's Edge is clearly working from rumor.
I have looked at publicly available knowledge and pointed out how the insider's information runs counter to what you can find with a Google search. This contest is no where near even. Midnight's Edge has nothing to back up it's extraordinary claims while I can give you links and sources.
So, yes. Midnight's Edge is full of BS until they can provide any evidence. I might give them the benefit of the doubt if they can satisfactorily answer my counters to their claims. They can't, since it would require them to redesign their conspiracy.
You've just ridden the high horse off the cliff, my friend.
What is not publicly available knowledge? Quite a few things have been covered in this thread and by Midnight's Edge. If you spent more time on communicating rather than abusing metaphors you might have some kind of point.
So far nothing on this thread has been anything more than speculation based on some opinion assuming facts not in hand.
I'd like more than some ramblings to work with so if you have something substantially more than the rumor mongering from midnight's edge, please provide it.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Let's recap my arguent:
Everything, everything you have read or heard about the CBS license to Paramount is based on rumor. Period. None of the legal documents are available for examination.
Therefore, everything both pro and con is based on rumor.
You are using rumors to refute rumors!
Now, we can go back through history and find out how many times Midnight's Edge has been right versus how many times it's been wrong, and to be fair we'd have to do the same for every other so-called-fact introduced in support of one position or the other, and that would prove zero because sometimes even a liar tells the truth, and sometimes even honest people are mistaken.
So, we're back to square one: none of what you've heard is reliable, and you pick and choose the rumors you like to support the belief you like. That is the entire substance of the arguments both pro and con, and the refutations of those arguments.
So, no metaphors to confuse the easily confused, no ambiguous statements from Hollywood insiders, no conspiracy theories, just the cold hard truth. Take it like a man.
...THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!