Licensed?[]
Is this book really licensed? The copyright page for the 1991 edition says Copyright © 1968 by Stephen E. Whitfield (not Paramount Pictures). Did the earlier 1970s Ballantine editions say Paramount Pictures? I no longer have a copy so I can't check myself. --NetSpiker (talk) 09:13, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Just because the author holds the copyright and not Paramount doesn't mean it's not licensed. All licensing means is that a fee was paid (or percentage of the sales) to the owner of the IP for the right to use the information. -- Renegade54 (talk) 20:37, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Then how do we know if a book is licensed or not? --NetSpiker (talk) 07:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Because it is ad nauseam stated as such currently, as you have rightfully implied already. However, this is a very peculiar case since it occurred under special circumstances, as author Poe (=Whitfield) has described in his follow-up book, "Desilu [and successor Paramount] treated the whole idea of Star Trek licensing and merchandising with immense disdain. It was as if studio executives felt greatly annoyed at having to even discuss the subject at all(...)–some sort of corporate aberration–and licensed merchandise emerged only slowly and with, apparently, great reluctance." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 45-46) This meant that legalities were then not hammered out as exhaustively as they are nowadays. More to the point, and underscoring the point Renegade has made, Poe has on page 15 of The Making (1st ed, which is my copy) acknowledged the assistance he got from Howard McClay and Frank Wright of the "Desilu/Paramount Publicity Department" in providing him with illustrations for the title, even then unthinkable if the "Book-of-Books" was unauthorized/unlicensed...Sennim (talk) 08:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)