CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

The "quality" argument is an oft-repeated one when it comes to the lawsuit.

Firstly, lets discount New Voyages/Continues as they're straight 60s remakes. No danger of brand confusion there.

Now I've said before about how much I enjoy Prelude. However the only footage filmed by the post-Prelude team was the Vulcan Scene. I've long held the belief that it was an awful choice to film first as it's just dull. Especially as something that was meant to sell the project for the Indiegogo. However, visually it's nice thanks to the CG work, although Prelude still edges it out for me (I preferred Tommy Kraft's compositing in scenes, although he didn't do the Vulcan scene).

Talking of Tommy Kraft, you can also easily level the quality argument at Horizon. It's feature length, has professional actors, has a high budget look to the CGI, and got a load of positive reviews and buzz online. When it came to the proposed sequel, Tommy Kraft got a polite tap on the shoulder, not a lawsuit.

Pacific 201 looks amazing as well. Nothing. If quality is the main consideration, why hasn't it been stomped before it even started filming?

So the quality argument just cannot hold water. Clearly its always been more about Axanar as a competitor, not as a fan film. An idea Alec himself constantly pushed until the lawsuit dropped. Would Axanar have made a great fan film? I'd like to think so. And it should've been made with that initial Kickstarter as was promised. Even if they'd had to go back to the well to finish it, they'd have probably been fine. Instead we saw Axanar become synonymous with the constant demand for additional funds with the continuing promise of the "best Star Trek ever". CBS/P did the fans a favour, and in hindsight its probably a shame they didn't do it before the Indiegogo campaign.

 

Which is pretty much what this thread had been about, examining the accuracy of the endless parade of "yes but you don't understand" arguments that have been put out in defense of the conduct of Axanar.

As is usual in this sort of thing, their metadefense has been to attack the speakers such as Carlos, censor internal discussion among loyalists, and sell hypothetical emotionally gratifying visions while actually doing something bad.

I think that a number of people here would have wished "Axanar" success like any fan film, if not for the fact that "Axanar" revealed itself to be a hypothetical, emotionally gratifying vision to collect fan money on CBS' market value in order to finance a private business.

 

because they nver tried to openly merchandize things like a Coffee brand, or uniforms or Tee Shirts or Starshop Model Kits. <-- These are the things a Licensee PAYS for the right to do (for a number of years.) Also, Licenses aren't just granted to anyone who applies. CBS wants to make sure the product they are wanting to sell meets their standards of quality and helps positively promote the IP. Also, STC never has promoted themseves as an:

"Independent Star Trek film, on the level of what the major studios can do, but for less money.."
or ever going out of their way to say:

"We're not a fan film."

Which was EXACTLY how Alec Peters was promoting BOTH "Prelude to Axanar" and (the ever in pre-production) "Axanar" until the day the lawsuit was filed. It was only AFTER the filing of the lawsuit that Alec Peters narrative changed to:

"Why are you suing a fan production like 'Axanar' and not any of the other Star Trek fan film groups?"

Also, to have 1.4 million+ dollars and produce ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and you still think CBS/Paramount are 'bad guys' here?

 

See, this is where I tend to err in the direction of the fandom in most cases (I'm sure this will earn me some ire from some camps but fuck it). If we relied exclusively on licensed-only merchandise, we wouldn't have fan-made books/technical manuals (Jackill's, MasterCom Data Center, Star Station Aurora & the like), resin model kits (Federation Models, StarCraft, Gizmotron, etc.) and other things that CBS/Paramount wouldn't normally find profitable to create and, ergo, leave a huge gap in what could be available to paying customers who really want the stuff. Some fan-made stuff is arguably superior in many ways to licensed materials due to, in large part, to the passionate interest of the fan making the product often-times taking primary concern over profit (note that this is clearly NOT the case with AP). The Eaglemoss starships collection was a prime example of how C/P FINALLY decided to license a line of merchandise that included obscure ships, many of which only existed in garage kit form until now, or didn't exist at all. Yes, they're smaller than most 1:1000 kits, or even some 1:2500 kits, but at least it's something. How many DECADES did it take them to green-light such a project?

So I am not quite so ready to loyally hold a C/P banner when it comes to merchandising. My fan-sourced collection far exceeds my licensed one. Sadly, though, I fear that AP's shenanigans hurt more than just the fan film community at large, but also anyone trying to sell fan-made things to fans on a smaller scale. Everyone will suffer because of him. I do hope that his ambitions will eventually fade away into the Long Night and things will get back to normal, allowing other fan productions and products to thrive once again.

 

It does seem to be a matter of the scale concentrated in one place and the unbounded intent, doesn't it?

Just like what constitutes "accepted" IP use for fan films being blown out, the Axanar merchandising was being talked about in terms of building a permanent business doing "better" Trek across a variety of retail channels for seeding a for profit company. The coffee, is there such a thing as "fan coffee"? No bounds.

To me it is the aggregation of all the IP violations in one place and the openly stated intent behind it to build a for profit business off the revenues that has to be weighed when comparing this to tiny scale fan made stuff.

I am also wondering what the practical consequences will be at vendor rooms at cons.

 

This, in a nutshell, is why CBS/P sued.

 

Well, if history is any indicator, there will be an impact.

Granted, this is anecdotal, and second hand, but it is nonetheless topical.

Many years ago in the early 2000's, right before Enterprise aired, Paramount (pre-CBS involvement) engaged in a massive scorch-and-burn effort at conventions to crack down on fan-made merchandise. I attended Shore Leave outside of Baltimore on a Sunday one year and I noticed that the dealer tables were completely devoid of any starship resin kits or the usual racks of blueprints that I usually peruse to enlarge my collection. Anything of a fan-made pedigree was totally gone. I asked one of the vendors I knew from previous cons (Creation, etc.) what happened to all the stuff? He told me that, just the previous day, on Saturday, Paramount lawyers and cops came in and confiscated all the non-licensed memorabilia and even charged some vendors (whose tables dealt with that kind of thing more exclusively than others) with IP theft and copyright infringement. I believe there may have even been arrests. It was apparently like a drug sting for those who witnessed it. Many people ran from the room so they wouldn't get caught, reminiscent of a fraternity house getting busted for having a loud drunken party. It was apparently quite a spectacle. The guy I talked to still had some kits but they were hidden in unmarked boxes under the table so they weren't in plain sight. I wound up giving up trying to find anything new and interesting. Too many vendors were quite jumpy, didn't know me, and were afraid I was there to entrap them into selling something "illegally". Seriously, it was like I was trolling the alleys for a flippin' 8-ball or something! It was all positively surreal.

So there is precedent - don't know if it will happen again to this degree but they do seem to go in cycles, usually coinciding with the airing of a new addition to the franchise. The first being the mid-late-90's assault on fan-made websites (at the height of DS9's and Voyager's popularity), which eventually led to the "fair use" phenomenon. This one happened prematurely before Discovery was even announced thanks to AP's little games and the effects could be lasting.

 

Cops? Arrests? This is civil not criminal.

 

That's what the guy told me. May have been some attempts to hide or "obstruct justice". Cops can arrest and hold anyone for 24 hours for any reason. It was a very long time ago and I never saw any of it in person but people were definitely acting shell shocked and paranoid by the time I got there. Something really bad happened that day. Maybe there's someone here who was there and can clarify what happened.

 

It's a different environment now. It's very unlikely CBS will crack down on small-scale merchandising that goes on at conventions, as long as people are generally toeing the line. OTOH, i fully expect them to crack down hard on anyone pulling Axanar's shtick of a Donor Store or serious commercialization.

 

You know, squint a little bit and Alec's original TOS Garth of Izar costume could be something from Discovery

 

I don't see it...
Granted I need my glasses sometimes...

 

BLUE SHIRT!

 

Agreed. The things that AP was doing were orders of magnitude worse than anything anyone's done at conventions. Hopefully C/P will see that and adjust their legal strategy in the future when it comes to IP enforcement.

 

Officially, CBS does not permit it. They just can pretend to ignore it.

 

Okay, this IS hilarious:

Star Trek: Discovery Trailer views on the official Star Trek Youtube Channel after about 24 hours (as of 7:30 PM PST Thurs. 5/18/17): 3,025,305 (Here's a Link to the Page)

Prelude to Axanar views on the official Axanar Productions Youtube Channel after 2 Years 9 Months and 3 days (as of 7:30 PM PST Thurs. 5/18/17): 3,036,719 (Here's a Link to the Axanar Page)

Yep Alec Peters was right...CBS must have REALLY been scared of the "professional quality" and "popularity" of Axanar and his Superior Star Trek Production Skills"...NOT!

 

Horizon also blew past Axanar over the course of a couple of months

 

And a much better story (although I do have issues with several plot points in Horizon)