Long story short. I have a star wars film I directed that E! wants to show a clip from. Do I need to bother contacting the Lucasfilm Legal department or should I just leave that to E! ? Do I need to give E a heads up hey this is a a demo reel (or fanfilm)?
This thread is useless without pic^H^H^H^Hvideo.
As the creator, it’s up to you to obtain proper clearances.
I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think you really need to worry. I think as long as it’s made clear that it’s unaffiliated with Lucasfilm and you aren’t making money off of it, you’re good to go. Even if they did have a problem with it, it’s only being shown once. Worst that could happen would probably be a “Cease and Desist” letter.
On the other hand, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably make very sure that I’m in the clear and check with a lawyer. If the lawyer thinks it’s safe, then I would do it without contacting LF in case they say “no” or take too long in getting back to you.
First off, whatever E! does, it’s not your problem. You don’t need to tell them anything, they know what they are doing.
On your end, fanfic is a gray area, so it’s mostly fact-based analysis. Your film is an infringement, since I assume it uses stuff from the star wars universe, etc. However, if your film is demonstrably a parody or is transformative, it’s probably a fair use.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/fanfic/faq.cgi lays out some basics.
Realistically, though, they have more money and lawyers than you do, and you’ll probably lose in district court, because district courts are almost always on the side of big business, so you’d end up going to appeals, where it’s iffy.
On the other hand, they aren’t going to get money out of you, just get an injunction to stop you from making more films or to destroy your film.
On the other other hand, no one is going to give a crap as per this statement by Lucasfilms re: fan fic.
“Lucasfilms has always been pleased with the enthusiasm and creativity of Star Wars fans and offering free webspace at fan.starwars.com is just another way to allow fans to participate in the Star Wars universe. At the same time, in order to protect that universe, Lucasfilms must request that you not create any derivative works based on Star Wars for anything other than personal, noncommercial purposes. It is the intent of this policy to avoid the possibility of future misunderstandings when projects developed by Lucasfilm’s professional staff might seem to others to be similar to their own creative work.”
So don’t sell it to E!, and let E! handle their end.
Of course this does not constitute any sort of legal advice and blah blah disclaimer don’t take this seriously or you are a jackass etc.
You need to obtain the proper clearances from either the Empire or the Republic governemt on Coruscant. I don’t know who’s in charge over there now, I can never keep up with the changes.
I believe it’s Darth W. Vader right now.
dub in the voices really badly, then call it a satire/parody, and protected by the first amendment.
You should be sure that E! is aware that it is a fan film that was created without Lucasfilm’s involvement. If they are clear on that, the ball is really in their court. FWIW, Lucasfilm is extremely tolerant of Star Wars fan films that don’t abuse copyright of the original films. So if your fanfilm is like some MST3K style affair that uses footage from the original movies or if it uses music or sound effects they haven’t authorized for fan film usage you could be in trouble (you could try to claim parody exception but that doesn’t seem to be as strong these days as it used to be), but if it is entirely your footage and just happens to take place in the Star Wars universe, you should be fine – Lucasfilm even has annual fan film awards that you may be eligible for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Official_Star_Wars_Fan_Film_Awards
Does the film contain the infamous Jar Jar Binks alien autopsy?