CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

[KennyB]

And...the campaign is gone.

Hope you get that five bucks back.

 

[dmac]

And...the campaign is gone.

Do you get your $4.65 back?

 

[Mudd]

I think I get a patch when they fulfill perks.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Jedi_Master]

According to Mr. Lane, who is apparently a Biblical scholar in addition to an Axanar supporter and truth-telling blogger:

I have a few issues with this analogy:
1. Alec Peters is not the divinely anointed King of Israel.
2. There is no archaeological or Biblical evidence to suggest the Philistines were particularly strict about enforcing their copyrights.
3. The David vs. Goliath battle was not precipitated by a "siege." The Israelite and Philistine armies were lined up on either side of a valley. And as far as I can tell, the Israelite army was not working "pro bono."
4. David's father asked him to go the battlefront and bring his brothers "parched corn and these ten loaves." There is no mention of sushi.
5. After slaying Goliath, David and the Israelites raided and "spoiled" the Philistines' camp. In other words, the donors got their perks.

This. This is a post of beauty.

 

[carlosp]

Alec has really put 150k of his own money into the project? Is he claiming any ownership of any assets of Axanar Productions in exchange for this money, or did he officially donate it without any equity in return? Is the studio holding company carrying equity on its books for part or all of this money?

150k purely donated to operations without any claims is a real thing. Taking equity out is essentially a loan or investment.

That $150,000 is a totally dubious figure. As I've chronicled elsewhere, Alec Peters has played fast and loose with his reports of money he has supposedly "donated" to Axanar, claiming variously that he:

• Donated $20,000 from his Propworx auction proceeds to Axanar, then $35,000, then $40,000, so I wouldn't put a lot of stock into that amount.
• Had paid himself a $38,000 salary plus $3,000 for his actors' union fees.
• That he paid back the salary and union fees (not saying whether he'd paid taxes on that "salary")
• That the salary wasn't a salary at all but a "reimbursement" for out-of-pocket expenses he'd paid himself for Axanar.

I'd say, "you do the math," but there's not really enough math there to do.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

There's no direct evidence that the asset transfer to the investor group every happened, so you shouldn't assume that it did. The whereabouts of at least half a million dollars Axanar had at the beginning of the year has been pretty well obfuscated between the rent, utilities and salaries, the rumors of money put in escrow, and so forth.

huh. Well, this puts a whole new spin on the Lane crowdfund to me. That the defendant may actually still be on the hook for everything he's made his bed with.

Dang.

Thanks for the information, Carlos.

So this could actually have even more merit than I had previously been considering:

Not separating the two things again. Didn't we decide that Axanar wasn't paying salaries, thus Alec did nothing wrong? Now he's asking people to pay their salaries. And is Axanar now paying rent to the shadow cabal that bought out the studio? (maybe on paper, but no way in reality). So is the salary money going to the for-profit group that bought the studio? which has hired the Axanar people to run it, but it's totally unrelated and not part of the lawsuit?

Thought the point of the fake sale was to break the two things apart? This seems like it's making it too obvious that it was bullshit...

This, to me, is also interesting to consider:

Is it possible that the investors group is losing members and there isn't enough money left to pay the rent?

So bottom line:
-No evidence that the foretold investor 'group' exists/doesn't exist
-No evidence that the foretold investor 'group' is even more that one person
-No evidence that (as per Mr. Bawden suggested would happen) any such group has/has not "eventually pulled Axanar Productions is out from under the ticking clock that was the monthly rent payments for the soundstage, etc".
-No evidence the defendant is/is not still on the hook for all the expenses of the leased studio
-No evidence of how much of the $1.something M donated funds by ST fans does/does not still exist
-No evidence of where still existing funds, if any, may 'be' or what they may/may not be being used for
-No evidence of how much of his own money the defendant has/has not put into this company
-No evidence that I've been able to locate yet confirming/refuting Prelude's 47 film awards
-No evidence that I've been able to locate confirming the defendant's verbal statement that he built/did not build two technology companies
-No evidence that I've been able to locate confirming/refuting defendant's opportunity to sell his technology to Elon Musk & Peter Thiel which would have made him $100M
-No evidence the defendant did/did not pay back the $38K salary to the production
-No evidence the defendant did/did not have prior knowledge of the Lane crowdund
-No evidence that the use of ironic donating for insurance of speaking w/out censure did/did not cause the crowdfund to be taken down
-Evidence that thousands of donor names have now been removed from the on-line donor list

I don't think the word transparency means what the defendant thinks it means.








This is such a mess.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

Hold on, and now the Lane 'We Stand With Axanar' crowdfund to keep the studio bills paid until the case reaches conclusion is gone? Well, that's interesting.

I wonder if Mr. Lane will blog about it. That could be interesting too.

 

[Ion]

Hold on, and now the Lane 'We Stand With Axanar' crowdfund to keep the studio bills paid until the case reaches conclusion is gone? Well, that's interesting.

I wonder if Mr. Lane will blog about it. That could be interesting too.

Maybe IGG pulled it because it's a scam.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

huh. Could be I guess. I was wondering if it was because the We were 'not' Stand(ing) With Axanar after all. There was only one $5 donation in five days. And it was an Ironic donation.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Or it could've been pulled at the request of the defendant and/or his legal team.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

^^^ Now 'that' is interesting.

Maybe the defendant? Because 'maybe' the Ironic donation broke the crowdfund?

The site was already having multiple commenters saying their posts were being deleted. Which the defendant has used to great effect for censoring on other sites. And the ironic donor had previously posted that the platform wouldn't let him donate 2 cents. Which was what started me thinking about this. But when he donated $5 his donation allowed him to post his 2 cents worth, as the saying goes, that couldn't be deleted? (A total guess. I don't know if the donation comments can be deleted) So the defendant could extrapolate 'that' to see the crowdfund could go sideways with previously deleted commenters finding out that by donating $5 they could also get their 2 cents in without being deleted. Which could lead to a whole big bunch of people donating $5 just to get themselves heard without being deleted/censored, and very very little money going into the Pay The Huge Rent & High Utilities crowdfund. Which lack of control could alarm the defendant. Who might then have communicated in some way to Lane to take it down.

I mean for five days nobody made a donation and comments were being deleted. Then the Ironic donor made a $5 donation, posted his 2 cents worth and the crowdfund was taken down almost immediately?

 

[MikeH92467]

If there is something called a "settlement" I think it would be the same kind of "settlement" that would come when someone signs a contract with a gun to their head and being told either their signature or brains can be on it. Their choice.

 

[dmac]

If there is something called a "settlement" I think it would be the same kind of "settlement" that would come when someone signs a contract with a gun to their head and being told either their signature or brains can be on it. Their choice.

Anything like this?

 

[Noname Given]

And it looks like Alec Peters and Axanar panels at conventions are still a big draw (oh, wait...):
https://twitter.com/Tampaxanar/status/794315098332561408
(Yes, it's from Tampaxanar, but hey, that account is probably more upfront/honest then any post from Mr. Peters himself; but yeah, consider the source...)

 

[MikeH92467]

More like this

 

[OtherGene]

And it looks like Alec Peters and Axanar panels at conventions are still a big draw (oh, wait...):
https://twitter.com/Tampaxanar/status/794315098332561408
(Yes, it's from Tampaxanar, but hey, that account is probably more upfront/honest then any post from Mr. Peters himself; but yeah, consider the source...

I am loving that kid on the front row, clearly bored to tears, and playing on a tablet/ipad and the three at the back busying themselves on their phones. The amount of people actually paying attention is only twice the amount of people on the panel.

And yet I'm sure Mr Peters drank in the adulation like an addict on pay-day.

 

[RedForman]

Some pearls of wisdom from Terrible Terrence down below

 

[jamestyler]

Anything like this?

But when Lane blogs about it, it'll be this.

 

[Squiggy]

So, I just have to ask...

Does Lane really think that the lawsuit will go away just because Peters is broke?

It's a well known fact, sonny-Jim, that poor people have no legal problems.

1. Alec Peters is not the divinely anointed King of Israel.

Hater.

 

[muCephi]

Why keep the facility operating during the lawsuit? Why put 150k into it? Why not sublet it, even if for a small loss? Why not fulfill patches out of a garage? Wouldn't fan staff come back, or be replaceable? Won't costumes store, oh I don't know, say for example if you had a company that could do such things?

The business drive is laid bare by this. A fan film wouldn't loose anything by cutting its expenses drastically during the lawsuit. The only reason to keep the studio open is to bootstrap its finances into being a viable business.