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David Wertheimer
President
Dear Star Trek fan,
Recently, many of you have expressed concerns about a small number
of letters Paramount sent to Webmasters who were in significant violation
of Star Trek copyrights on the Web - a step taken to protect Star
Trek copyrights and properties, which are of great value to us. Some
of you have fundamental disagreements with this action; many of you have
expressed concern; and others may have misunderstood what is being done.
So we'd like to explain clearly and plainly what is going on and why -
and, perhaps more important, what is not going on and why.
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We understand fans' desire to communicate and share information about
Star Trek and we support fan-created Web sites.
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Paramount has not asked any site to "shut down"; it has asked Star
Trek Webmasters who are either selling ads or collecting fees, selling
illegal merchandise, or posting copyrighted materials on their sites to
refrain from these specific activities.
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We have no plans to write to the thousands of individuals sites which
are not abusing the Star Trek copyrights.
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To the extent possible, we want to give Star Trek fans the information
and materials they want. To that end, we combined our resources and expertise
with Microsoft's to create the most complete Star Trek site possible.
Portions of the official Star Trek site, Star Trek: Continuum, are
available to the web at large via the URL's http://startrek.msn.com and
http://www.paramount.com.
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In situations where Paramount feels that it must enforce its copyrights
by requesting that material be removed from Web sites, it acts not only
on its own behalf, but also to protect the interests of the creative community.
Paramount works closely with the many talented actors, writers, directors,
musicians, artistic designers, and others who make Star Trek possible.
They expect Paramount to protect the integrity of their creative efforts,
as well as the economic value of those properties on which they depend
to make their living.
We look forward to your continued communications and appreciate your
consideration of these issues.
Sincerely,
David Wertheimer
President, Paramount Digital Entertainment
dwertheimer@pdent.paramount.com |