CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

[JD]

Has Peters always been as disrespectful of CBS and Paramount's official productions as he was in the posts quoted from the other TrekBBS thread? I know they probably aren't petty enough to use that as a sole reason for the lawsuit, but I can't see that helping him in his current situation. I figured his being rude was just a reaction to the lawsuit, but those posts seem to disprove that.

 

[KennyB]

Their vision of a donation based streaming service is more expensive than CBS All Access. Plus what content are they planning on putting on it? Their 25 minutes of material they've actually produced on repeat?

 

[KennyB]

Oh and once again they say they are working with David Gerrold......but he says he has no dog in the fight. They all need to get together and get their story together. Jeez.

 

[oswriter]

So this caught my eye in the Axanar annual report:

Government Red Tape - As of the writing of this document in September 2015, we have been working for six months trying to get the city and county to approve our plans for building out our offices and wardrobe/makeup rooms. Tenant improvements should have been easy, but the city and county want you to jump through innumerable hoops, and this meant hiring an architect, which ran $11,000 (and even that was a third of our first quote!). Government fees have been over $3,000 so far.

Any thoughts?

 

[USS Triumphant]

When you're looking for places to claim the "missing" money went, the government is always a good bet: everyone is willing to blame the government for things, and no one ever wants to deal with them to find out about any of it.

 

[JD]

CBS owns the IP. I don't see any reason why they couldn't set a very clear set of guidelines, like:

"You can't make a profit. If you take donations, they must be used for the film. You can(not) hire professional actors. Your project exists at our sufferance, and if at any time we decide it needs to stop, you agree to shut it down, stop publishing, and destroy all known copies. We reserve the right to rescind this permission or kill your production (and its distribution) at any time, just because the CEO stubbed his toe and is in a bad mood that day."

I don't see what that would lose them (except maybe causing more fan films to be made because people are more comfortable with it). But then, I'm not a lawyer or even an MBA, so

My only problem with that would be the no professions actors thing. For me a big appeal of fan productions like Phase II, Continues and Renegades has been the use of veteran Trek actors both in new roles and reprising their old ones. CBS/Paramount must not have too much of a problem with that aspect of it since they've been doing it for years. I think a lot of the regular cast members for those are professional actors too. Maybe they could set up specific rules about how you do or don't pay them though.
Do Renegades, Continues, and Phase II pay their actors?

 

[The Transformed Man]

So this caught my eye in the Axanar annual report:

Government Red Tape - As of the writing of this document in September 2015, we have been working for six months trying to get the city and county to approve our plans for building out our offices and wardrobe/makeup rooms. Tenant improvements should have been easy, but the city and county want you to jump through innumerable hoops, and this meant hiring an architect, which ran $11,000 (and even that was a third of our first quote!). Government fees have been over $3,000 so far.

Any thoughts?

Yeah most states have requirements on the books if you plan on upgrading a building, even if you are only the renter. $11 gand seems kind of steep unless we are talking about SUBSTANTIAL rennovations. But it's a good hole to lose money in when you "report" to your donors.

 

[SuperSpaceMan]

So this caught my eye in the Axanar annual report:

Government Red Tape - As of the writing of this document in September 2015, we have been working for six months trying to get the city and county to approve our plans for building out our offices and wardrobe/makeup rooms. Tenant improvements should have been easy, but the city and county want you to jump through innumerable hoops, and this meant hiring an architect, which ran $11,000 (and even that was a third of our first quote!). Government fees have been over $3,000 so far.

Any thoughts?

It is the People's Republic of California.... although it is in the reliably red county of Orange County.... I can't image a simple office retrofit would require an architect, unless they were doing more than moving a wall here, or there...

 

[Jedman67]

So this caught my eye in the Axanar annual report:

Government Red Tape - As of the writing of this document in September 2015, we have been working for six months trying to get the city and county to approve our plans for building out our offices and wardrobe/makeup rooms. Tenant improvements should have been easy, but the city and county want you to jump through innumerable hoops, and this meant hiring an architect, which ran $11,000 (and even that was a third of our first quote!). Government fees have been over $3,000 so far.

Any thoughts?

III. HOW AXANAR HAS CHANGED


When I first came up with the idea for Axanar in 2010, it was over lunch with James Cawley on the set of Star Trek: New Voyages (the grand daddy of all Star Trek fan films). James had invited me up to the set to play Garth in a scene in an episode they were filming. James is the one who pushed me to write a script for the Garth story I had first written 20 years earlier. And so when it was conceived, “Axanar” was going to simply be a fan film like any other.


But as we went on, we knew we weren’t going to be happy just doing a fan film. We wanted it to not have any of the same shortcomings that plague so many fan films, namely a weak story and poor acting. And, while New Voyages had clearly set and then raised the bar on what a fan film is, we thought we could make something that was even closer to a Hollywood production.


This meant engaging professionals. Prelude to Axanar had many professionals involved, both in front and behind the camera. It had to in order to look as good as it did. And after the success of Prelude to Axanar, it was clear we had to do even better as our fans had now come to expect something quite different from what they had seen in other fan films.


A big part of this process was to create our own studio...to rent a building, convert it to a sound stage, and build our sets there. Originally, I’d planned on shooting everything on the sets of Star Trek: New Voyages, where James Cawley had generously offered to let us film. We would have converted their sets to look less like TOS, shot the film, then gone into post-production on it (and frankly, Axanar would probably have been done by now, if we’d stuck to the original plan).


But then, Prelude to Axanar director Christian Gossett said no, he couldn’t shoot there—not even at the new facility I had helped James rent and move into. He said there wasn’t enough room to do what he wanted and the sound stage was too small. He also didn’t want to use James’ crew, which was comprised of all amateurs. Christian felt our only option was to find a facility in Los Angeles. This decision changed Axanar dramatically, as it suddenly meant that the first Axanar Kickstarter would have to pay for the infrastructure, not the production.


Again, if we hadn’t made this decision, then we could have had Axanar done by now, and probably for the money we had already raised. The quality wouldn’t perhaps be quite as good as we had hoped, but we certainly could have gone that route. However, in the end, it was agreed that more time and more money would equal greater quality.

(emphasis added)

 

[Karzak]

If Propworx is trading then presumably Peters will draw a profit, sand therefore salary, from it's income.

It was certainly trading last year. http://trekmovie.com/2015/08/06/propworx-vi-auction-arrives-at-star-trek-las-vegas/

With that in mind, why does he need such a large salary from Axanar?

For the same reason that God needs a starship?

What happens when you ask Alec Peters a question:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnxvKJAv5Ik[/yt]

Well hell's bells. I live in the valley, not too far from where (allegedly) Alec and Diana live. I make about $25k a year and I can barely afford to feed myself, this town is so expensive.

I do know that if I had nearly $40k at my disposal, I'd be able to live a much more comfortable life than I live now, so I call bullshit on Peters' cries of poverty.

This is a little like the general minimum wage debate - you guys shouldn't be mad because someone else makes decent money for their work, only that you don't. (You know - assuming Peters was making money off of his own work and not someone else's.... )

I'm not mad. I find it laughable that Peters claims that it's only $38,000. In comparison, others are able to make a living working much more and for far less money, which is why I find his cries laughable. It's as if he's martyring himself to make Axanar by taking only that amount of money.

What I do find questionable is that his salary is on the backs of someone else's IP. There's lots of questions that arise as to the propriety of how the funds are actually being spent.

Exactly so.

 

[Karzak]

So this caught my eye in the Axanar annual report:

Government Red Tape - As of the writing of this document in September 2015, we have been working for six months trying to get the city and county to approve our plans for building out our offices and wardrobe/makeup rooms. Tenant improvements should have been easy, but the city and county want you to jump through innumerable hoops, and this meant hiring an architect, which ran $11,000 (and even that was a third of our first quote!). Government fees have been over $3,000 so far.

Any thoughts?

It is the People's Republic of California.... although it is in the reliably red county of Orange County.... I can't image a simple office retrofit would require an architect, unless they were doing more than moving a wall here, or there...

Ares Studios is in Valencia, a neighborhood of Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County, more than an hour north of Orange County.

So this caught my eye in the Axanar annual report:

Government Red Tape - As of the writing of this document in September 2015, we have been working for six months trying to get the city and county to approve our plans for building out our offices and wardrobe/makeup rooms. Tenant improvements should have been easy, but the city and county want you to jump through innumerable hoops, and this meant hiring an architect, which ran $11,000 (and even that was a third of our first quote!). Government fees have been over $3,000 so far.

Any thoughts?

III. HOW AXANAR HAS CHANGED


When I first came up with the idea for Axanar in 2010, it was over lunch with James Cawley on the set of Star Trek: New Voyages (the grand daddy of all Star Trek fan films). James had invited me up to the set to play Garth in a scene in an episode they were filming. James is the one who pushed me to write a script for the Garth story I had first written 20 years earlier. And so when it was conceived, “Axanar” was going to simply be a fan film like any other.


But as we went on, we knew we weren’t going to be happy just doing a fan film. We wanted it to not have any of the same shortcomings that plague so many fan films, namely a weak story and poor acting. And, while New Voyages had clearly set and then raised the bar on what a fan film is, we thought we could make something that was even closer to a Hollywood production.


This meant engaging professionals. Prelude to Axanar had many professionals involved, both in front and behind the camera. It had to in order to look as good as it did. And after the success of Prelude to Axanar, it was clear we had to do even better as our fans had now come to expect something quite different from what they had seen in other fan films.


A big part of this process was to create our own studio...to rent a building, convert it to a sound stage, and build our sets there. Originally, I’d planned on shooting everything on the sets of Star Trek: New Voyages, where James Cawley had generously offered to let us film. We would have converted their sets to look less like TOS, shot the film, then gone into post-production on it (and frankly, Axanar would probably have been done by now, if we’d stuck to the original plan).


But then, Prelude to Axanar director Christian Gossett said no, he couldn’t shoot there—not even at the new facility I had helped James rent and move into. He said there wasn’t enough room to do what he wanted and the sound stage was too small. He also didn’t want to use James’ crew, which was comprised of all amateurs. Christian felt our only option was to find a facility in Los Angeles. This decision changed Axanar dramatically, as it suddenly meant that the first Axanar Kickstarter would have to pay for the infrastructure, not the production.


Again, if we hadn’t made this decision, then we could have had Axanar done by now, and probably for the money we had already raised. The quality wouldn’t perhaps be quite as good as we had hoped, but we certainly could have gone that route. However, in the end, it was agreed that more time and more money would equal greater quality.

(emphasis added)

Nice touch there, how he offloads his decision to make Axanar in Los Angeles on to Christian Gossett.

"It's everyone else's fault except mine!"

 

[Jedman67]

Obviously leasing an unfinished warehouse is a lot cheaper than leasing a fully equipped production office...but the time and money costs of renovations add up significantly. My father in law works on the board of a community center and I work at a non-profit, and we are both constantly amazed at the level of bureaucracy required for the most simple things. There are companies who exist solely to streamline applications for construction, zoning permits etc etc.
The $11k is quite reasonable considering some of the projects i'm working on (granted, I'm in the NYC area, not SoCal).

 

[Ion]

My only problem with that would be the no professions actors thing.

Hence the "(not)" part of things. I was intending to imply that CBS could say one way or the other if it's okay, not that they should say it's not okay.

It is the People's Republic of California.... although it is in the reliably red county of Orange County.... I can't image a simple office retrofit would require an architect, unless they were doing more than moving a wall here, or there...

Having lived in California until recently, and having looked into this a little, I can tell you that (at least if you want to stay legal) you need access to an architect for pretty much any change to a building, and I'd think that would be doubly true for public ones.

IIRC, the building permit folk require the plans to be certified by one before they'll issue the permit.

But don't quote me; it's been a while, and I never actually tried to go through the process.

 

[Jedman67]

I believe it. What bothers me is the number of modifications and cost required for what is a fan funded "nonprofit" production.
Had he made a separate, non-star trek crowdfunding campaign to build the studio, well I wouldn't have donated but that would just be the donors problem.

 

[Jon1701]

"You can't make a profit."

That seemed to be the only rule. Axanar shredded it.

In grand style.

I forgot about the Alec Peters/CBS episode of Friends
[Yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgp33-EVqXk&sns=em[/Yt]

 

[JD]

My only problem with that would be the no professions actors thing.

Hence the "(not)" part of things. I was intending to imply that CBS could say one way or the other if it's okay, not that they should say it's not okay.

Sorry about that, I guess I misread/understood what you said in your post I responded to.

 

[Ion]

^
No big.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I do think a big reason for CBS going forward with a lawsuit now after years of seemingly not caring about "fan films" is a combination of "fan films" like Axanar getting too big and CBS launching their own TV series soon. Put simply, they don't want the competition, especially from groups that don't have the right to use their IP. If they let big productions like Axanar go forward, it will cut into their profit when they launch the new TV series since some fans may stick with the "fan films" and not watch the new CBS show.

 

[Ion]

^
I'll say what I said before: if they were trying to clear the slate ahead of a release, I would expect them to blitz YouTube with takedown notices, and send C&D's. That it hasn't happened (yet), suggests this isn't their motivation.

 

[Mudd]

Axanar could not possibly cut into CBS's profits on the new series.

I think that CBS may have moved here for two reasons:

• The way the project was being portrayed in the press, including misrepresentations by the producers concerning the nature of the project and their interactions with CBS, and
• The amount of money being taken in by crowdfunding.

It's true that the complaint doesn't address the question of profit, but it does reference the million dollar-plus fundraising of the film.

Perhaps CBS simply decided that if they were not going to draw the line at violations on this scale it would be harder later to put a lid on anything at all.

Now, I wouldn't suggest that Star Trek Continues would do this, but, hypothetically - what if Axanar succeeded and STC announced next year ala Joel Hodgson that they were going to raise six million dollars via crowdfunding to shoot an entire network-standard season or two of their show? All strictly non-profit mind you.