Okay, appologize but out of sheer laziness, I don't want to go through the last 100 or so pages, so I'll just ask. I heard the anaxar lawsuit was dropped. Is this true?
Thank you Good sir. If I may make one more uneducated question, I can see everyone's angry at axanar for making money off the property. How did his happen? Kept the Kickstarter funds? Sold merchandise?
You can read axamonitor for the details. Basically, Axanar told fans that before they could mount their epic multimillion dollar plan, they had to build themselves a studio, which they proceeded to do, and they told fans they would keep the studio and use it for for profit business not related to Trek in the future. They spent over a half million on this. They paid some of their regular line staff who are not specialized actors or technicians. They made fundraising projects selling Axanar related items which were Trek IP, without getting a license from the studios.
They told the donors all of this was ok with the studios, trust the Axanar staff, they are experienced. CBS told them through public statement they did not approve of having their IP be used to make private profit, and were considering action. There was the lawsuit in December.
Now, aside from the lawsuit, the studios say they will issue guidelines for fan films (which will probably impact all fan creative activity, and not just Trek either), which is happening in the worst possible circumstance, where the studios are looking at what Axanar did over the line, and considering how to protect themselves. Or, alternate theory, the studios wanted to clamp down for a long time because of new media making too much competition, and Axanar has provided perfect cover.
So who is mad? Take your pick. Fan film companies. Fan fic writers. Donors who don't agree and then got banned from the Axanar website and refused refunds. Fans who look at it from the outside and believe the business process and attitude towards donors and studio rights stinks. Wil Wheaton, who has much stronger words. All of the long, long, long list of people verbally abused (not kidding) by the Axanar management for questioning anything. The list goes on and on. Eventually, it seems almost inevitable that list will include the California Attorney General and a class action lawsuit, since the crowdfunding projects probably won't happen and enough has emerged to make it clear that there probably wasn't due diligence by Axanar to actually get the films done.
Grab popcorn, watch the tsunami come in. Gaze in amazement at the hypnotism being practised upon the Axanar fans in their walled garden website. Thrill at the endless spectacle of wildly overstated legal claims by Axanar's counsel. Be humbled by Alec's on-the-Federal-court-record recounting of how his mommy would put him to bed at 8 but get him up at 10 to watch Trek, he was and is *such* a big fan.
"One man..."
The best preview reel ever.
agreed. but check out the roster of companies posting there. IP is a monster large industry and the tag would reach into all aspects.. patents, trademark, treaties, etc...
