CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

You mean, like do you still beat your wife, or have you stopped? Or perhaps the question is loaded and refuses to consider any extenuating or mitigating circumstances, or more importantly, an entirely different issue than how guilty is that Peters guy, right? For me, it's not as simple as a Yes or a No, but I don't think elaborating on it at length would be particularly welcome here even if it's clearly mostly No. However, . . .

While I'm obviously not O.K. with many things they did and do not excuse most of them, I don't feel 100% of the blame can fairly be dumped on Peters, either, or agree with the characterization they used that much money solely for personal expenses. After Prelude, I suspect if Peters had approached it differently and asked fans to fund a private business where he intended to make Axanar and/or other fan films, they would have been fine with it and happily contributed, and many would still retroactively be fine with it, and the fact he currently has nothing to show for it, I believe, is largely due to being sued and completely prevented from moving forward because of legal moves designed to make the project hemorrhage that money. The blanket suit went after everything, and it needn't have done that, as I understand it, to prevent or curtail some of the more egregious actions on Peter's part, which, I agree with you, were a definite No No, and I don't mean that in a double negative kind of way.

Regardless of how we all have arrived here, my main points were, A.) the apparent non-uniform application of CBS and Paramount's guidelines make me angry. It has never been they didn't have the legal right to do it, or that Peters did nothing wrong. And B.) the fan film guidelines are too draconian and far more restrictive than they needed to be, and will only likely diminish fan film quality, all of which don't really seem to be necessary to protect their IP, for if restrictions of that degree were necessary for the IP's protection, then all other fan films would also be compelled to adhere to them, lest CBS and Paramount would fail in their duty to protect the owner's IP. But at least some other fan films are apparently not going to adhere to all those guidelines, and I expect they will be given a pass.

CBS: Hold.
GALT: We hold, Provider CBS.
CBS: Provider CBS claims Peters used 30% of the quatloos for private reasons.
PARMOUNT: Provider PARMOUNT claims 50% were so used.
FAN BASE: Provider FAN BASE insists it was at least 65% that were misappropriated.
PARMOUNT: 70% of all raised quatloos were inappropriately spent.
FAN BASE: 75% of all raised quatloos were so squandered.
CBS: 100%.
GALT: 100% of all the quatloos are bid. Is there a challenge? The Axanar Project has been halted by Provider CBS.
PETERS: We're free fan film producers. The Trek phenomenon should belong to no one.
PARMOUNT: Such spirit. I wager 2 million quatloos that Peters is unredeemable.
FAN BASE: 3 million quatloos that everyone on the Axanar team is unrepentant.
PARMOUNT: 5 million quatloos that the entire Axanar production will have to be destroyed.
CBS: Accepted. Mark them, Galt.

Since the IP owners must always reserve the right to sue or not sue, this is of course absolutely true. But I'm pretty sure if Axanar broke even a single one of them, they would be sued. You are not so disreputable a person as Peters, but if you were in his shoes at this point, would you now make a 90-minute Axanar production, or even one simply proud of the 15-minute guideline, and hope you wouldn't be sued? Or use a professional actor, let alone a Star Trek alumnus? Or violate any of those guidelines? I'm fairly confidant STC, for example, is going to violate at least a handful of them, and I'd wager they won't be sued for that. It's just a guess, I admit. What is your guess?

 

I apologize if this has been mentioned in the tread, but is it known why Winston & Strawn defended Axanar on a pro bono basis?

 

Best guess: They wanted, mainly Ms. Ranahan wanted, to set new case-law for copyright fair use standards, and then use that as a way to bring in more paying clients. Either that, or they're total idiots. Take you pick.

 

You have a tendency to jump to crazy conclusions. To be clear, I don't hate Alec Peters; in fact, I have spoken to him many times on the phone. Not trusting him and hating him (in my world) are two completely different things; try to understand the difference. Talking about the guidelines without acknowledging the reason for their existence is fine but to ignore the fact that they exist only because Alec Peters pushed and demanded CBS create them is revisionist history. Also, your analogy is pretty stupid.

 

The Alec Peters issue really is much more straight forward than something like that.

. I don't know how anybody who was aware of everything that Peter's did could possibly say everything that happened wasn't his fault.

Peters and his people had way, way, more than enough time to get the movie done before the lawsuit. Hell, the lawsuit probably wouldn't have happened if they had just focused on making the fucking movie and hadn't screwed around so much.

The thing to keep in mind with the guidelines, is that CBS really didn't have to even do them at all. So really, we should just be thankful they decided to do them, when they could have just said that the were putting a stop to all fan films and anybody who produced anything that even looked like Trek would be sued as soon as they found out about it.
I don't really think they are that bad, even if they won't come out and say it, it's pretty clear all they are doing is trying to scale the films back to something that is farther away from the stuff they are releasing. I've honestly been amazed how close they've allowed things like Continues and New Voyages/Phase II to become to a professional production. The whole idea behind fan films originally was that it was a bunch of fans getting together for a while and making their own little movies, and things had started to move very far away from that kind of thing.
As for how they decide what productions they decide to stop, they already said that the guidelines weren't a guarentee either way, so I'm not going try to make any kind of assumptions about what they will do. I'm pretty sure there's probably a lot of stuff we don't know about that impacts these decisions, so without know everything going on behind the scenes I wouldn't want to try to guess.

 

That makes sense. I thought that maybe Peters has "useful" friends.

 

Actually, no. Most of the donors wanted the film to be made and not pay for his *bleeping* studio. And that studio is probably THE main reason he got sued. CBS wasn't thrilled with the idea of someone raising money in the name of Trek to build a for-profit business.

Ah, no. His legal fees were pretty minimum, as most of the costs were pro bono. He had money in the bank and time enough to make the *blinking* movie. It's no-one's fault but his own that he squandered the money (and time) away chasing a dream.

 

Your whole argument disregards the fact that Alec & Axanar are under a legal obligation to comply with the fan film guidelines (with a few additions) due to the result of the settlement of the lawsuit. Unlike STC and the rest of fanfilmdom, Axanar expressly agreed to abide by these conditions in order to avoid going to trial (even though everything in the weeks prior to the settlement indicated that Axanar would be willing to take this to the high courts if necessary).

The burning through of the donor funds during the lawsuit is the responsibility of no-one other than Alec Peters himself. HE signed the lease because HE decided to rent a warehouse for 3 years. He then used donor money (raised for the intended for the Axanar feature) to pay the rent for 2½ years, at least 18 months longer than advertised in the Kickstarter campaign.

In addition, he could (like a sound businessman) easily have completed the renovations to the warehouse once the lawsuit hit in order to turn it into a functioning sound studio. This could then have served as a source of revenue for non-Trek non infringing productions, thus alleviating the burden on the dwindling donor funds. Instead, he let the incomplete warehouse sit fallow for the entire duration of the lawsuit until, with the funds all exhausted, he capitulated to the studios and settled out of court, to conditions that were virtually identical to the ones he had steadfastly refused to sign off on that had been on the table throughout the suit.

The burden of squandering donor funds lie solely on his shoulders

 

I think this is the second time you've made this claim without offering any supporting argument as to WHY you disagree with the analogy.

I didn't suggest there wasn't a difference, and I don't have to understand the difference, because I'm not the one who cares. Your feelings regarding AP are totally irrelevant to me either way. It's you who thinks it's important. Having missed all the "fun", I'm not really invested.

First of all, it would only be ignoring the facts if those facts were both pertinent and undermined the argument someone was making. Otherwise, they're just random facts tangentially associated with the topic. Furthermore, it would only be revisionist history if the facts are denied or contradicted, not ignored.

The only way the guidelines could be 100% his fault is if he mind controlled everyone at CBS to create and release them. You're confusing causality with responsibility. Think of it this way: if Alec Peters had done the exact same things he did, and CBS responded by creating guidelines that everyone loved and unanimously agreed with, would Alec Peters be given ALL OF THE CREDIT for it?

"No," you might reply. "That's ridiculous. CBS is responsible for those guidelines, not Alec."

Exactly.

Hmm, this is a very valid point. Axanar explicitly agreed to the guidelines in a legal context. STC didn't. Thus the fairness argument doesn't hold because it's basically and apples and oranges comparison. Touche.

(It still bothers me that there is a potential for inequity in the enforcement of the guidelines, though.)

 

If he was asking for public Crowdfunding to do it; and NOT delivering on promised milestones, or showing any real progress, and making excuse after excuse - and outright banning anyone who asks a valid question he doesn't like...yes.

 

Oh Please! No analogy is that perfect.

 

All one has to do is read the court filings and sworn depositions to see why CBS and Paramount sued. Any other argument is irrelevant.

The settlement agreement was more than fair on the part of CBS/P. Axanar is still allowed to be funded and filmed with the announced cast, but must adhere to the terms of the settlement.

Peters could have done worse. Judging by past performance, he probably will.

 

Such entitlement where you can raise 10s of thousands of dollars to make a fan film on IP you don't own and it's called "draconian."

Draconian would be no fanfilms. Draconian would be limited budgets to 1000 dollars.

Considering someone just used Star Treks name to raise over a million dollars to launch their own for profit business, this is hardly draconian.

 

It didn't seem stupid to me, but pretty much on point. And one's exact relative hatred, or non-hatred, of Peters isn't the issue of actual contention; it is wishing to discuss the guidelines and their application in the here and now. It is not necessary to repeatedly prove why they exist now, or in that form, or even if they only exist because of Peters and his ineptitude or dishonesty. In fact, I think one might easily stipulate to all those assertions since those issues seem beside the point of the merits of their uniform or non-uniform application to all fan film productions now.

But the topic of how the guidelines are to be applied now isn't always an Alec Peters' issue, nor does it have to be.

I guess to hold to that belief, one must adopt that attitude Peters is 100% to blame for anything and everything, and everybody else is 100% blameless in all things. It seems more complicated than that to me, as most things in life invariably are. But mostly, I don't give a rat's tail about how guilty Peters is in regards to how CBS and Paramount will enforce, or not enforce, their proposed fan film guidelines, now or in the future.

So your assertion is if he hadn't been sued, Axanar would still not be ready, and still no progress at all would have been made? Well, I guess I can't prove otherwise, but I would think, also equally without proof, he'd have more to show for it if not for the lawsuit since the lawsuit consumed his time, hampered his efforts, and altered his priorities. I would tend to agree he handled the whole thing badly, and he could have done better, but the belief he still wouldn't have handled it better even without the lawsuit seems unfounded to me. How does one prove such an assertion? Apparently, personal and nigh flawless knowledge of Peters and what he's like to such a degree one feels they can guarantee that would have been the outcome regardless? Seems dubious to me. But I don't know the guy. All I know is Prelude was made, and I suspect Axanar itself could have followed, somehow, if not for the lawsuit, and it isn't an intrinsic property of the universe that any other outcome would have been an impossibility.

That seems an odd thing to say, IMO, or not the point. I mean, I supposed it's true one might say somebody robbed me, but at least they didn’t kill me, so I should be thankful I was just robbed. I couldn't even argue with that or that things couldn't always be worse. But I would maintain one might more properly say they wish they hadn't been robbed at all. After using this analogy I should immediately point out, lest some take it the wrong way, that I am not suggesting Peters was robbed. It's more the fans, I guess, who got the short end of the stick. And if you wish you can even blame Peters for that. But for me, I'm just saying I wish CBS and Paramount had crafted a better list of guidelines more in line with what they were allowing other fan film productions to already do. And yes, that would include allowing slacker guidelines for the Axanar project to legally agree to as part of a settlement. They could have done that. They didn't.

How do you know this for a fact? Did somebody poll ALL donors and get feedback to that effect that demonstrated more than 50% (most) of all donors would rather Peters not have a his own studio, even if it meant no Axanar product would then be forthcoming? I'm not claiming I know this with certainty, but I would think most donors wouldn't give a tinker's cuss if he got his rinky-dink *bleeping* studio if it meant Axanar would already be here, or at least be forthcoming, and so might other fan films soon follow, Trek or otherwise.

You're probably right that's the biggest admitted reason. I would think the other stuff, while also technically an infraction, could be ignored as lesser offenses that were subsumed in the greater offense without repeatedly hashing over them again and again since the main given legal infraction is already enough to carry the day there.

I wouldn't disagree he could have managed things better, and failure to do so was ultimately his fault. But I wasn't talking about legal fees. I was referring to rental fees and such to keep things alive while on hold, none of which would have happened if not for the lawsuit. I'm not saying there wasn't a better way he could have handled it, or even there wasn't a way the film could have possibly been done (and in the can, even though CBS/Paramount might have then easily prohibited its showing anywhere, at anytime, forever and ever and ever). But I am saying the way he handled it was in large part due to the lawsuit. This is not to exonerate the boob, but to show my belief things could have and probably would have worked out better had the lawsuit never arisen. And you can even blame Peters for why the lawsuit arose. It doesn't alter my belief he'd either have product in hand, or be well on his way to that goal if he hadn't been sued.

Interesting point. Thanks. I'm not 100% sure exactly what they agreed to, since apparently they will be allowed to avoid some of those guidelines, but if Axanar did agree to accept those guidelines, my anger is somewhat mitigated, if not totally abated, for CBS/Paramount could have asked them to agree to guidelines as relaxed as what they were allowing already. I even believe in asking for guidelines, Peters had good faith belief CBS/Paramount would have given a more even handed set of guidelines since they were apparently O.K. with more lax parameters, and they didn't appear to be endangering their IP.

I don't entirely disagree that he could have done better, but I still feel others contributed in other ways. But if you're only prepared to accept 100% blame for Peters and 0% blame for others, and even feel 99% blame for Peters and 1% blame for others is already a bridge too far, I don't think I can convince you it's not that clear. We may have to agree to disagree, for I still feel CBS/Paramount could have handled it better, too, avoiding the all encompassing law suit, and could have crafted better guidelines to which both Peters could have agreed, and would have been better for the fan base and fanfilmdom, and still prevented some of the more abusive elements of what Peters was doing.

But you did give me ample cause to reread some information about the guidelines. It would appear some are already being relaxed, even for Axanar (certain Star Trek alumni actors, for example, would be allowed to appear, I think they said).

However, as I read through Citters' responses, it became clearer to me the more draconian guidelines were not just meant for Axanar, but he felt all fan films should adhere to them. What they might do when and if some don't, I can be sure. I'm still against the non-uniform application of them, of course, and would prefer a more reasonable set of guidelines, but I was clearly mistaken in my belief Axanar hadn't agreed to them to avoid going to court. That doesn't mean CBS/Paramount couldn't have, shall we say, better resist the impulse to legally bitch-slap the little puke, but it does suggest Axanar is under greater restraints to conform to them than, say, STC. So again, thanks.

Several points I might make about them would include the belief little goodies given out are their real complaint about crowd funding, and if not for those, they wouldn't be able to raise more than $50,000 per 15-minute episode. If they really felt that way, just prohibit the goodies, but don't limited the money from that quarter. After all, without the goodies, they won't be able to raise more than $50,000, right? So why set the limit? Also, I don't think if a professional actor were willing to accept scale payment while working on a fan film that this would really go against the spirit of fan films. They probably are willing to do that because they are fans, so I think that's right in line with the spirit of fan films. If a pro isn't willing to accept that, then yeah, he won't be in the production. Why make the artificial constraint then? Several of the guidelines struck me as overstated in that fashion, as if some disconnect were going on between the crafted rule and the stated reason for it.

That would be even more draconian, sure. It's just a question of degrees. But I've never been a fan of the argument, "it could have been worse, so it's actually good, or not really bad at all." Yeah, it could have been worse, but it could have been better, too, so what's your point? Are you saying it couldn't have been better?

 

Years ago, by people who knew what they were doing but all had long left. How do you make a movie without completed sets, without a script, without a director and without any actors?

 

Draconian would be requiring Smaug to be in every scene.

Maybe someday some sort of "fair use" extension will protect directly derivative works if they are nonprofit fan works. But those who demand this from an attitude of entitlement won't get anywhere. Opportunities offered to have part of the domain ("shorts") should be seen as an exceptional gesture rather than a cheat compared to some entitlement norm (which doesn't exist except as a very informal precedent).

And stealing a mill and a half is just exactly that.

 

I can only assume without the lawsuit, it would have helped, and as others were pulled together, somehow, to make Prelude, so, too, might another team be pulled together to make Axanar, particularly when none of them would feel some lawsuit was currently muddying the waters and they were free to do so.

If others are saying Peters had no intention of producing Axanar and everything was designed to rip off fans, I would need to see more proof before I believed that, but I almost get the impression some people actually believe that.

 

1. You mislabeled the quote, I said it. There is a multi quote function, it's on the posts you want to add to a reply.

2. You disregarded the main thrust of my post: fanfilms, by these guidelines can still raise 10s of THOUSANDS of dollars, and yet there's complaints. How much do you need? How much should CBS and Paramount agree to?

In the past, they looked the other way, and, after someone raised a million dollars to create a for profit business, the studio stepped in.

3. My point about it being worse was to demonstrate how hyperbolic, childish and entitled you are being with you silly use of the word "draconian."

 

Ok, I haven't done this in more than a year, but I am blocking you. Taking behavior that is exhaustively documented to be 95% something, saying you would need more proof before you believe that the behavior is 100% of something, and reframing the discussion of Axanar's many misconducts to this standard is begging the question big time and not worth reading.

 

At the risk of sounding hostile, the repeated use of the word "Draconic" and its variations is pretty provocative. There is nothing draconic about about them. There is a definite refusal to acknowledge the value of copyright protections. "Because I want it!" is not a response to such a legal situation. It's up to the IP holder to decide what they will allow and from whom and refusal to acknowledge that is provocative.