CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar
- Thread starter Richard Baker
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As far as where the money is, if the accounting seems implausible would the studios question it at trial? If they have to establish the degree of personal benefit from the money, and the money seems to be vanishing into company expenses, wouldn't they want to dig and establish if some of it went into a pocket or an out of state LLC? Wouldn't any implausibility help them establish the defense witnesses as incredible?
My god after read through the Defense same arguments (that were denied previously in many rulings - including the Defense's FAID Motion to Dismiss); IMO - Erin Ranahan seems to be channelling Demi Moore's lawyer character actions from "A Few Good Men" (and I expect similar results from the Judge on these arguments, but we'll see):
If this were my case (and thank God it's not), I would be using the financials to impeach the defense witnesses' credibility. I would also be using them to prove my point about personal benefit. I would try to get the issue of plans to build a studio, etc. in front of the jury but I wouldn't cry if that was excluded. So long as the financials are in there somewhere, most jurors can connect the dots themselves and, even if they cannot follow the money trail from collection to filming delays to sushi to there being no bucks left, they can certainly see that a substantial sum was raised and wonder where the F it went.
But what would you be doing if you were representing Peters? Besides crying nightly into pie...
Submitting my resignation.
What? You mean you wouldn't come into Alec Peters' Warehouse/Studio office with a baseball bat in hand, and yell:
"TAKE THE SETTLEMENT OFFER - NOW!" ??
Speaking of a jury, where are they likely to find a jury who wouldn't profess, every single one of them, to being pissed off by the prospect of someone taking over a million from Star Trek fans without result, while that someone is simultaneously arguing there's no such thing as recognizably copyrightable Trek? I mean, even if the juror isn't a Trek fan, all they have to do is map it to Star Wars or Harry Potter, and imagine their teenage kids had donated. Not to mention being brought face to face with an example of crowdfunding being manipulated, when they may very well have donated to other projects and know how its usually done.
Where are they going to get a jury, 18th century fur trappers still wandering in the mountains outside LA?
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That certainly sounds like a whole lotta redacted financials would be brought forth at trial.
I'm thinking that most if not all of the jury pool wouldn't know anything about this case. If by chance a potential juror had heard about it, or had an opinion one way or the other, they'd be immediately objected to by defense and disqualified.
Then again, I'm not trained as an attorney, and everything I know about court procedure I learned from Denny Crane.
Then again, I'm not trained as an attorney, and everything I know about court procedure I learned from Denny Crane.
I'm thinking that most if not all of the jury pool wouldn't know anything about this case. If by chance a potential juror had heard about it, or had an opinion one way or the other, they'd be immediately objected to by defense and disqualified.
Then again, I'm not trained as an attorney, and everything I know about court procedure I learned from Denny Crane.
I do imagine they would be screened for having heard about the case. But my thoughts are about any person off the street who has ever been exposed to any copyrightable TV/movie series, most notably the recent largest ones. The opportunity to analogize and immediately smell the essence of it is probably very, very high among any jurors with a TV. And among any persons who have ever been part of any sort of crowdfunding.
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I'm not siding with Peters, but, to be honest, you're asking it as a Star Trek fan. As a genre fan.
How hard is it going to be to find a jury that sees a big corporation shitting on a little guy?
How hard is going to be to find a jury that sees Peter trying to do the same thing that countless others have done before and NOT be sued?
How hard is it going to be to find a jury that wonders why a multi billion dollar corporation really needs to be suing some guy?
Hard hard is it going to be to find a jury that doesn't know the difference between Star Wars, Star Trek and doesn't care about IP?
Not hard.
That's not to say once the evidence and the law is presented to them, the Jury wouldn't find in favor of CBS.
If they go to trial, I would imagine that the focus of plaintiffs' argument will be on direct financial benefit from unlicensed IP. I can't see a scenario where defense can paint that in a positive light.
Indeed. Keep in mind, the Los Angeles jury pool includes many people who work in the entertainment industry, which depends on strong IP protections. Being anti-IP in LA is like being anti-government in Washington, DC.
Second, consider the jury will actually get to look at and hear Peters testify. He's probably not going to be seen as some poor super-fan unfairly targeted by the studios. More likely, he'll come off as yet another wannabe producer who tried to take shortcuts with other people's money.
In my case, it's from LA Law and more recently, Law and Order!Then again, I'm not trained as an attorney, and everything I know about court procedure I learned from Denny Crane.
"In the intellectual property system, there are two separate yet equally important groups: The creators who produce content enjoyed by millions, and the hucksters who rip off that content and eat sushi. These are their stories..."
His reported charming demeanor won't translate under cross-examination. He will likely resort to his defensive, attack-prone nature, and that is what plaintiffs should exploit.
That would be my expectation as well. We've already seen significant inconsistencies between his deposition testimony, court filings, and prior public statements. And he'll be facing off against experienced trial lawyers who will disassemble him faster than Will Riker disassembled Data.
New on AxaMonitor: Defense, Plaintiffs Rebut Opposition to Summary Judgment. Heavily redacted documents confirm Axanar is broke, plus a new angle on creative consultant David Gerrold disputes defense theory on Star Trek and mockumentaries. Read more »
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