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CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

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Oh @Karzak , you left the dancefloor at the wrong time my man.

As an additional thought, a long time ago myself and others were castigated for daring to suggest that Kingsbury may have been complicit in all this, something to do with her gender maybe? Don't pick on the little lady? I have no idea but I think we can now agree she was as crooked as the rest of them in that whilst she may not have instigated this endeavour she enjoyed the benefits and, ironically, the perks of it for as long as the donor money was coming in.
 
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Summary Judgement is called for by a party when there are no facts in dispute regarding established precedent, no? It seems then someone is just a tad bit confused.........

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Much for me to read. I will also see about putting up (somewhere, probably on the public FB group) a set of properly redacted documents and/or images for whoever wants them.

Because you really don't even need to see past redactions, folks. It's all rather convincing even with those little black boxes.
 
RedForman said:
Summary Judgement is called for by a party when there are no facts in dispute regarding established precedent, no? It seems then someone is just a tad bit confused.........

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No, his comment is perfectly reasonable. Simply because an application has been made that asserts no dispute over established precedent doesn't mean there aren't. Plus, summary judgment is used where the case is obvious and there can be no dispute over facts or law. Given that each side's application is at odds on many issues of law and fact, it is by no means assured that either will succeed in these application, and therefore the matter would go to trial. In other words both applications are nothing more than what each party asserts is right.

I agree with him, the case outcome would likely set a precedent since it concerns "fan" films and crowd funding, and that is another reason why the Judge might not feel able to allow either of the current applications and enter judgment.
 
BillJ said:
So how many donors are still sitting around with their fingers in their ears chanting "lalalalala I can't hear you!"?
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Funny, I said yesterday that this would likely lose him a great deal of support and the reactions on that page are pretty damning.
 
Smoked Salmon said:
No, his comment is perfectly reasonable. Simply because an application has been made that asserts no dispute over established precedent doesn't mean there aren't. Plus, summary judgment is used where the case is obvious and there can be no dispute over facts or law. Given that each side's application is at odds on many issues of law and fact, it is by no means assured that either will succeed in these application, and therefore the matter would go to trial. In other words both applications are nothing more than what each party asserts is right.

I agree with him, the case outcome would likely set a precedent since it concerns "fan" films and crowd funding, and that is another reason why the Judge might not feel able to allow either of the current applications and enter judgment.
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I agree. The Defense arguments will succeed or fail based on information that would need to be examined in a trial. The intent of the Defendants will come into play here - were they REALLY planning on making so detailed commentary on PTSD, or were they trying to create a commercial enterprise (pun intended) on the backs of IP they did not own?
Was the production a pastiche of commonly found elements or a deliberate and slavish adherence to a body of copyrighted work with the intent to specifically appeal to fans of an IP?
Although SOME evidence that establishes intent has been provided, it may be that Judge Klausner feels that the entirety will need to be examined in court, along with cross-examination of the various parties involved so as to establish Alec's intent.
 
For the record, I think it will rather easy to argue that according to CURRENT law, AP deliberately and willfully infringed on the Star Trek IP and thus is liable for statutory damages. The only "salvation" that could be had is if Judge Klausner is convinced to create a new legal precedent for "fair use."
 
Smoked Salmon said:
That's essentially what he has claimed. That he put his own money in so he's effectively paid those costs himself.
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I'm sure this is not true. Most of the things I found out about in the summer of 2015 have been proven true. A few of us here knew about them before the lawsuit, but without actual proof you don't want to throw out baseless accusations. So now everyone knows, and here is your true transparency.

Think about how stupid the 'I loaned Axanar 150k' argument is. When Alec started this, I believe he had good intentions, he got Prelude financed and made, and everything looked great for the future. Where things went south is after the first Axanar film Kickstarter. Alec got more money and attention than he knew how to handle, then greed set in and the attention fed his narcissist nature into believing he was the air-apparent to Star Trek, and could even do it better than CBS.

Ask yourself, if I were Alec, and just got over 600k, when I was expecting 3 times less than that, why would I loan Axanar 150K?? Why is there a need to do this? I just made a killing on Kickstarter!

So here, we reached the turning point, and the decision to take the path of greed was made. Alec should had shot the film then perhaps had another Kickstarter or Indiegogo drive to pay for all the post production. This is what I would have done, and how most would do a production like that. This would have been the best way to appease your donors as well. But, alas, this was the road not taken...

Alec's ego now inflated, thought it was ok to spend a lot of that first Kickstarter's money on non-production and personal costs. Hey why not? he will just delay the production and run another crowd funding drive. People will think he is the savior of Star Trek, and give him what he wants. He has reached the 'big time' and is now a big Hollywood producer. Heck, he was so sure of himself in that regard, he was trying to make deals with Netflix and other commercial entities.

Thanks Alec! for spending all your donors hard earned money on yourself and not delivering what they donated for. You have no one to blame but yourself! Before you point fingers at other productions and say they are doing the same thing, please remember they have actually put out productions. You should have started to make the film after the first Kickstarter. Some will site mission creep, but it mostly greed.

Lastly, stop sitting around and empty studio and calling it your full time job. It's not. get off your ass and get a real job like most of us.

BTW, regarding redacting. Adobe puts a black highlight layer over the text, but it still can be copied out. What I have done in the past for a few people is get a Javascript extension for Adobe Acrobat for 'Layer Flattening'. it adds and option to flatten the layer (something Adobe does not do natively ). One all the layers are flattened into one you can't get to the text layer underneath the black. It's a pretty simple add on, I am surprised that some big law firms don't do that.
 
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Jedi_Master said:
I agree. The Defense arguments will succeed or fail based on information that would need to be examined in a trial. The intent of the Defendants will come into play here - were they REALLY planning on making so detailed commentary on PTSD, or were they trying to create a commercial enterprise (pun intended) on the backs of IP they did not own?
Was the production a pastiche of commonly found elements or a deliberate and slavish adherence to a body of copyrighted work with the intent to specifically appeal to fans of an IP?
Although SOME evidence that establishes intent has been provided, it may be that Judge Klausner feels that the entirety will need to be examined in court, along with cross-examination of the various parties involved so as to establish Alec's intent.
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Indeed. At the end of the day much of this comes down to how the judge feels. Can he give a watertight judgment now? If he does, will it be appealed against (something judges try an avoid if they can). It's just my hunch that the difference in facts between the two parties and the extent of authorities relied on (and disputes that Peters is already raising himself over the accuracy of the evidence adduced by the Plaintiffs, despite being under oath) are such that a judge would feel that to give summary judgment to either party would risk cutting off evidence and argument that would be explored in detail at trial.

We'll have to wait and see.
 
Peters' deliberate refusal to provide all his emails and social media postings likely secured him an opportunity to go to trial. Had those documents been included, intent could have been easily discerned, and summary judgment granted.
 
Tom said:
I'm sure this is not true.
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It's what he's claiming.

I suppose it depends on how you look at it. In any event, I don't think that $150k accounts for all the money he used for his personal costs AND building his studio. Plus the repayment date will be interesting because you can ask why he used donor funds to pay his personal expenses and then put the $150k in, rather than just using that money straight away. That the suggests the pattern of a man who was content to use donor funds until it became obvious it wasn't kosher. Furthermore, it's worth considering that his discussion of repaying funds is pedantry to a certain degree because it is now in evidence under oath that the project was intended as a vehicle for further profit making activities, but multiple avenues. So it seems to me that even if he attempted to mitigate his use of donors funds, it still doesn't wash away the fact that overall the project was one that was as much about advancing the careers, and therefore financial standing, of Peters and his minions, as it was about making a Trek film.
 
Jedi_Master said:
Peters' deliberate refusal to provide all his emails and social media postings likely secured him an opportunity to go to trial. Had those documents been included, intent could have been easily discerned, and summary judgment granted.
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No, it's not the simple. That presumes there is no debate over authority, and I don't even need to be an expert on American IP law to know that's not the case. I've looked at enough if it in the course of this case to know that such law is not completely settled, and if that's the case then there is always scope for an argument.
 
Smoked Salmon said:
No, it's not the simple. That presumes there is no debate over authority, and I don't even need to be an expert on American IP law to know that's not the case. I've looked at enough if it in the course of this case to know that such law is not completely settled, and if that's the case then there is always scope for an argument.
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Could you expound on that?
 
I know Alec wanted to make the film. I just believe he thought he could keep putting it off and collect more money and it was ok for him to spend it also. His mistake was not filming after the first Kickstarter. There was a mixture mission creep, egomania and greed.
 
Jedi_Master said:
Could you expound on that?
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Suffice it to say that being English I don't hold myself out as an expert in American IP law, but I nonetheless have trotted off and looked at some of the authorities. Of particular interest has been what constitutes transformative works, and there seems to be enough wiggle room that often the answer is only given at trial, and even then is subjective on the key elements of each case.

I can only ever apply my own professional experience, which is of course is in a foreign jurisdiction. But if I were making a summary judgment application to the court here I would be arguing that the law was beyond doubt, or, if for a defendant client, that there was no case to answer. Now, I can't say that it's exactly the same for the courts in California, but the spirit of the approach is the same, not least because your civil procedure is an evolution of my own - and for that reason I feel from what I have read that the law is not sufficiently settled on this to meet the parameters of summary judgment. I could be wrong (although

In layman's terms, you go for summary judgment you're basically saying to the court "the other side's case is an obvious load of bollocks and the law and evidence is without question on my side". In my, arguably limited, professional opinion neither application satisfies that test. The judge may disagree. We'll see.
 
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