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Re: URGENT!! The Wrath of Viacom!
It's unfortunate that Viacom is persuing this, but it is well within
their rights to protect their intellectual property, copyrights,
trademarks, etc. That's the purpose of these laws (and hence the
shutdowns).
People sell advertising space on thier websites and try to make a
profit off it. Trek is what brings them into these sites, it certainly
isn't the advertisers. For comercial activities like this, the
internet will (and probably should) be subject to the same media and
broadcast laws that other media outlets are subject too.
If Viacom persues these shutdowns in the interest of profits, it is
their right. Certainly if I owned Star Trek (or any money making
franchise), I would want to exploit it to its best potential and
wouldn't let anyone else profit off of my investments. To Viacom, it
is business, afterall. (Let's not discuss quality of product or
saturation here, that's a different thread.)
That being said, I for one will not pay to use a website such as the
Star Trek Continuum. It doesn't lessen my enjoyment of Star Trek if I
don't have access to that site, even if it were the only site
available. If Viacom realises that people won't pay for that access,
then they will have to use their advertisers to support the site, as
they do with Star Trek TV broadcasts.
--
Tom Kuchar
kuchar@pldac.plh.af.mil
Phillips Laboratory/GPOB
Hanscom AFB, MA
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