A REAL STAR WAR
Lucasfilm launches a lawsuit against a company after denying it licensing permission,
Obsessed fans of Star Wars have long enjoyed a tolerant relationship with owners of the pop culture empire’s copyrights and trademarks.
But several companies that offer lightsaber combat and Jedi training classes for adults and children apparently went too far for Lucasfilm and its new owner, the Walt Disney Co., which has a reputation for zealously guarding intellectual property.
Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit last week against New York Jedi and Lightsaber Academy, which teach classes on how to engage in Jedi battles, alleging that the businesses’ use of the words “Jedi” and “lightsaber” along with a logo of the Jedi Order are in violation of intellectual property laws.
The lawsuit identifies Michael Brown, also known as Flynn Michael, as the man behind the businesses. It says that he had sought licensing permission from Lucasfilm and, having been denied it, continued to operate despite receiving multiple cease-and-desist letters.
Brown answered emails this week, but said he was too busy and had poor cellular reception, so he could not answer questions about the lawsuit. He did not respond to an email message early Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Lucasfilm declined to comment on details of the lawsuit but said, “We protect our intellectual property rights vigorously and we take reports of suspected infringement seriously.”
The lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and seeks up to $2 million in damages for each trademark infringement.
Lightsaber Academy describes itself as “a consortium of lightsaber practitioners with a culmination of 50 years experience of teaching various swordplay techniques.”
It organizes classes at comics conventions, offers a certification in lightsaber instruction and sells, for $10 each, an “official LSA patch,” which bears a symbol that the lawsuit says is “nearly identical, and confusingly similar, to Lucasfilm’s trademark Jedi Order logo.”
New York Jedi offers private lessons and weekly group classes in Midtown Manhattan with “experienced dancers, martial artists and cosplayers that know a thing or two
“The reason why we’ve done so well is that we’ve played ball. And we don’t charge.” JOSH MUELLER SPOKESPERSON FOR THE STAR WARS FAN GROUP 501ST LEGION
about sabre choreography.” On one part of the site, the classes are listed with a price of $10; elsewhere, it says the classes are free, but donations are accepted to help cover room fees.
The New York Jedi website also advertises a separate group called “Saberkids” for children ages 7 to 13.
Lucasfilm has a long history of fancreated projects, some of which have had implicit endorsement from the company, which was purchased by Disney in 2013.
A documentary released last year chronicled the painstaking efforts of two young fans of “Indiana Jones,” who spent eight years creating a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. On the comedy program Robot Chicken, Gary the Stormtrooper was a popular parody of life as a cog in the imperial machine.
And in 2006, a web short called Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager earned praise from fans and, the following year, won the George Lucas Selects Award at the annual Star Wars Celebration fan gathering.
One of the better-known fan groups is the 501st Legion, a group of Stormtrooper cosplayers. Its members appeared at the official premiere of The Force Awakens in 2015, and its members have marched in the Rose Parade with the Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Josh Mueller, a spokesperson for the 501st Legion, said his group, which was founded in 1997 and has more than 10,000 members worldwide, has maintained a positive relationship with Lucasfilm, and that continued after Lucasfilm’s purchase by Disney in 2013.
He said the group’s interactions with Lucasfilm began as “a polite courtesy that graduated to some familiarity, and that relationship has just become warmer over the years.
“They were very supportive that their fans were out there doing something creative and productive with their license,” he said.
“We don’t see a whole lot of direct interventions.”
The 501st Legion even managed to get approval to sell branded T-shirts for the Make-A-Wish foundation, and Mueller said he thought the focus on charity was why the 501st Legion has had a warm relationship with the film company.
“The reason why we’ve done so well is that we’ve played ball,” he said. “And we don’t charge.” But when people seek to make money off Star Wars, it’s a different story.
In 2011, Vice chronicled Lucas’s history of aggressively protecting the trademarks to Star Wars-related products, or even those that just appeared to be related. That included a complaint against Motorola for selling a cellphone that used the word “Droid,” and, yes, one against the Reagan administration for using Star Wars as the name for its missile defence system.
A lawsuit over replica Stormtrooper costumes went all the way to Britain’s highest court, which ruled against Lucas.
Elsewhere in the galaxy, relations between fans and film production companies are also complicated.
Paramount Pictures and CBS are pursuing a lawsuit over a crowdfunded Star Trek fan film, Star Trek: Axanar. J.J. Abrams, the producer and director of several recent Star Trek films as well as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, had earlier promised the fans that their project had his blessing and that the suit would be dropped. But the Los Angeles Times reported in June that it was going forward.