For a decade.
CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar
- Thread starter Richard Baker
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For a decade.
There's a difference between ignoring your client's reputation for the sake of the case and being presented as being best buds with your client.
Business, pleasure, and all that.
Im not going to get caught up in a photo. It's immaterial. I want to know what argument they'll make, if it has merit, their chances of winning, and what the ramifications would be with a victory.
Questioning the photo immaterial (unless you're just talking about where it relates to this particular case), though I suppose it will give us something to talk about until the 22nd!
Questioning the photo immaterial (unless you're just talking about where it relates to this particular case), though I suppose it will give us something to talk about until the 22nd!
Peters just announced his lawyers. No word on the extension or the halt in filming as a stipulation.
Let the meme's begin!
Neil
*shrug* I'm allowed to be curious.
Besides, I don't find it entirely immaterial in the context I presented, either. If they truly believe in Peters, they're going to fight that much harder for him. I can't comment on the truth or falsehood of that, because I know exactly zero about the lawyers in question. Kinda why I'm wondering.
If they truly believe in Peters, they're going to fight that much harder for him. I can't comment on the truth or falsehood of that, because I know exactly zero about the lawyers in question. Kinda why I'm wondering.
Well, let's put it this way: i've never heard of a lawyer that didn't want to be photographed with a client. Smiling and laughing? Maybe. But it's not like Peters is a hardened criminal. We may not like his reputation, some of you might call him unsavory names, but he doesn't come across the kind of guy a lawyer would feel skeevy taking their picture with, that's all.
Are you saying that lawyers commonly pose for pictures with their clients?
(edit: outside the professional media, anyway)
I had expected and mentioned a filing for more time as a possibility. Its very common for judges to give as much slack as they can to defendants, so defendants can preserve their rights. You have to know the magic words at each step along the pre-trial path, and that requires a good attorney. Especially if you go in to 'answer' and say you only just now were able to find an attorney, so you need time to prepare a proper response. Wash and repeat variants all along the way. Slowing things down is the first line of defense.
Having a good attorney lets you say to the opposition "you'll spend the next several years going through all the phases of pre-trial you know our attorneys can drag you through" as part of your negotiating stance. You don't have to have any real defense at all, you just have to have the resources to engage attorneys who know how to drag it out.
But CBS has something major on their side, if they got agreement to stop filming, especially if that includes stop work on creatives, hiring, set building, etc. That could drag on for as long as Axanar fights, which puts pressure on Axanar to make their response quickly, unless they get another contract and start work on that while Axanar is being fought.
I expect settlement with confidentiality of court filings agreed and a stipulation of stop work signed and perhaps some payoff for unauthorized use of IP, amount to also be confidential, and perhaps modification of all physical items like costumes that reflect Trek IP if Ares continues. I expect they will offer refunds to anyone who crowdfunded and who doesn't want to roll it over into a reformulated Ares studios. These steps look to me like they might mitigate the chance that a solid case could be made against them from the crowdfunding world.
And if the industry professionals take the project over, they might be able to bootstrap it into something. Just get past their history and reasons for unsound business judgment.
Having a good attorney lets you say to the opposition "you'll spend the next several years going through all the phases of pre-trial you know our attorneys can drag you through" as part of your negotiating stance. You don't have to have any real defense at all, you just have to have the resources to engage attorneys who know how to drag it out.
But CBS has something major on their side, if they got agreement to stop filming, especially if that includes stop work on creatives, hiring, set building, etc. That could drag on for as long as Axanar fights, which puts pressure on Axanar to make their response quickly, unless they get another contract and start work on that while Axanar is being fought.
I expect settlement with confidentiality of court filings agreed and a stipulation of stop work signed and perhaps some payoff for unauthorized use of IP, amount to also be confidential, and perhaps modification of all physical items like costumes that reflect Trek IP if Ares continues. I expect they will offer refunds to anyone who crowdfunded and who doesn't want to roll it over into a reformulated Ares studios. These steps look to me like they might mitigate the chance that a solid case could be made against them from the crowdfunding world.
And if the industry professionals take the project over, they might be able to bootstrap it into something. Just get past their history and reasons for unsound business judgment.
Yeah, I think I mentioned earlier this might just be Axanar taking a strong stance to intimidate Paramount/CBS. What they get from it, I don't know, but the point is, he wants to send a clear message: i'm not rolling over. To use another baseball analogy, he's saying, "if you really want to play ball, i've brought a home run hitter to match yours."
This sort of amounts to them licensing the film as official, doesn't it? I can't imagine a big company like CBS or Paramount doing that. I think that sets a very dangerous precedent and would encourage more high quality fan films.
I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment, I really hope nobody is crazy enough to do business with people like this in the future...
Well, I can dream anyway.
That assumes that Axanar would still be made as Axanar. If they change all the Star Trek bits, that wouldn't be a license, because it wouldn't be Star Trek. Whether anyone would want to see it or not is another question; I'm not sure it has relevance outside the Star Trek universe.
And, in the end, they would still get away with profiting from Star Trek IP, in the sense that their "Axanar that isn't Axanar" would never have been made if not for the use of it.
I really have a hard time speculating on how this will go; I'm waiting for more official documents to come out of CBS's lawyers. The apparent lack of a C&D still gets me, and makes me think CBS might not be interested in a settlement at all. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the CBS legal department
I wonder if the two companies have litigated against each other in the past?
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