Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Guardian Of Forever
2. What's A Little Copyright Theft Between Friends?
As Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the landing party look into the portal at the middle of the Guardian of Forever, they watch a reel of images play through. This, the Guardian explains, is the past, laid out in sections, though the Guardian does not, at this point, have the power to alter the speed at which it shows these images.
There's a possible real-world reason for this. Many of the clips that are being shown are actually reused footage from old Paramount and RKO Pictures movies. RKO Pictures, founded by David Sarnoff in 1929, had gone defunct by 1959, and much of its holdings were bought up by Desilu Studios.
There are several clips that were used in this sequence, however, that were not owned by Desilu. One such image is that of the sailing ship firing canons, which came from an RKO film, The Spanish Man. This film was definitely not bought by Desilo, which means that the use of this footage was quite literally copyright infringement.
Much of RKO's old footage would go on to be owned by Warner Bros' in the years to come - another company that is most certainly not a Paramount holding.