I hope those True Believers didn't try to take their donations off on their taxes. CBS and Paramount are nothing compared to the IRS.
CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar
- Thread starter Richard Baker
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I hope those True Believers didn't try to take their donations off on their taxes. CBS and Paramount are nothing compared to the IRS.
What other factors would be looked into as part of the application process? Would any past history of previous ventures be taken into account?
If I'm remembering the timing correctly, the whole 501c(3) thing came up right around the time that ST:C filed. My guess? I've always had the impression that it was a "me too" move for PR purposes. Could easily be wrong, of course.
That was a long story made short? I don't think so.Well now we know why the site was down for a bit (and perhaps why Terry's been quiet.........apologies to those who are part of the C/P v Axanar facebook group - I'm not......).........
Why would they announce this AT ALL?
And I agree — there's no need for it. As @Ion pointed out quite accurately (in my opinion), STC did it, and so Axanar thinks it should do it, too. In conjunction with the fact that Axanar has the (mistaken) belief that if they are a non-profit, they are not making profit, thus they are somehow immune to copyright (they are not).
Peters tries to justify his salary and expenses by equating it to CEOs of non-profits. Except as Carlos and others point out time and again, non-profits aren't run by a single person. They are run by a board, which the CEO serves at the pleasure of (including pay, etc.). There is no such board at Axanar.
The organization needs to have been operating as a public interest organization over time, as far as what I read from the 501(c)3 requirements. The requirements of having a board, having bylaws that make the organization's assets under trustee control of the board, etc. could be implemented any time before application technically I think, although having them in place from early on would buttress the claim of having a nonprofit operating pattern. But the organizations activities need to be oriented to a public good as defined by the IRS. The film school might qualify. Becoming a player in the pay per view media market probably would not.
I think somehow in Axanar management's thinking, the business cashflow model of donations for magically paid for perks could somehow be sheltered by calling it all nonprofit, as in "see ma, no cash".
Well now we know why the site was down for a bit (and perhaps why Terry's been quiet.........apologies to those who are part of the C/P v Axanar facebook group - I'm not......).........
So he had a server outage, and some folks speculated it might be a consequence of the lawsuit (which, if there were a settlement ending Axanar operations, might occur).
He calls the people talking in such venues seriously stupid and far worse, because a few of them speculated. This is an amazing begging of the question. The places where such speculation occurred ALSO and IN VAST MAJORITY are the places where the concrete faults of Axanar are explicitly, accurately expressed and reflected upon. Content which is far too dangerous for Axanar leadership to allow to be heard by donors.
This characterization is another attempt by an Axanar leader to disappear from the donor radar the concrete, likely legally fatal faults of Axanar, and the likelihood that the Axanar leadership knew of these risks and did not disclose them to donors.
The fact that Axanar management is determined never to come clean with its donors and is trying to stall awareness until this era of their conduct becomes "history to move on from by virtue of a settlement" just says it all.
Well now we know why the site was down for a bit (and perhaps why Terry's been quiet.........apologies to those who are part of the C/P v Axanar facebook group - I'm not......).........
As someone who works in IT operations for a high-traffic web property: what a load of utter horse shit.
A quick look at the page source reveals that axanarproductions.com appears to be a WordPress installation. Software crashes? Really? A hack would be far more believable. On the operations side, unless you've done something pretty stupid (like run it on Windows or something), and presuming you've followed well-known best practices for a high-performance site, WordPress tends to be fairly trouble free. It's a security nightmare, but that's another story.
In short, this pegged my "bullshit excuse" meter. And that's a pretty finely-tuned piece of equipment. If I ever see this guy's resume come across my desk, it'll be an instant "no thanks"; he's either making poor excuses or not competent to work in the industry.
JMHO.
As far as the tone of his post...
Some years ago I worked with a guy who liked to scream and curse at vendors. Nobody liked him. Nobody wanted to ever work with him again even if he never targeted them, because he abused people they respected. This guy had no respect for anyone; he was the smartest, and you were the dumbshit.
Mr. McIntosh reminds me greatly of him.
I definitely sympathize with these sentiments. Yup. I do.
On the other hand courts can be (and I'm quoting another poster whom I'm not recalling) "tricksey hobbitses". There can be judges who may or may not harbor a favoritism or leaning one way or the other. Or/and juries who, due to very effective maneuverings of a prosecutor/plaintiff and defendant lawyering, can be prevented from hearing some real and pertinent facts that would otherwise impact their for or against decisions.
Court cases are rarely-to-never done deals even with everyone involved KNOWING he or she did or did not 'do it'. Including the judge, jury, prosecutor/plaintiff attorney, defendant attorney, police, public, and person(s) involved.
Juries are required to only judge what has been allowed as admissible to hear, and at times can be even swayed by a prosecutor/plaintiff attorney or defendant attorney who has a manner of presenting interpretations of what a judge has ruled allowed information, sometimes even a charismatic presentation ability that emotionally sways them.
They can be "tricksey", these trials. The adage "Be careful what you wish for" is strongly felt in me when I think about this case going to trial. The actual outcome might not turn out to be what I'd been wanting and totally believing it would and should be.
If there is a settlement involving cash from Axanar Productions to CBS, to what extent could they make terms confidential? I understand settlements are often confidential, but if the terms affect the promises made by Axanar Productions to their donors, wouldn't relevant parts of the settlement need to be made public (cash payment, extent of permission/denial of use of the Trek IP, etc.)? The only thing I could imagine they could agree to hide is conditions on individuals wrt/ Trek IP involvement in the future, and even that might be inferable by staffing changes.
^^^^
That's what appeals courts are for. But: That's why cases can takes years to resolve. The thing is though - UNLESS this Judge feels like attempting to rewrite and effectively invalidate existing copyright laws - this particular case isn't that complicated. If Paramount 'loses' - they WILL appeal (and I'm sure other entities with lucrative IPs will do all they can to assist at that point.
If Axanar loses - appeals cost money and finding another firm willing to do Pro Bono work at that point will be a lot harder (and again Axanar will still have to come up with the money for an appeal.
It will be interesting no matter what the result, that's for sure.
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My wordpress crashed == my pencil crashed. So sharpen it.
He clearly wanted to have a peg to hang the trashing of "site-down" speculators onto, and decorate that with spleen-venting ad-hominem distractions for donors to consume instead of contemplating why they weren't told of the clearly excessive risk the Axanar business strategies posed to the project.
Well now we know why the site was down for a bit (and perhaps why Terry's been quiet.........apologies to those who are part of the C/P v Axanar facebook group - I'm not......).........
tl;dr?
"Since I can't make any money from Axanar any longer, I had to get back to real work, you Trolls and honest Donors! That's why I couldn't keep an eye 24/7 at our website. That's life!"
I don't understand why he felt it was necessary to insult people who were probably just concerned fans. I can understand loosing your temper when people are being rude or insulting, but I find it hard to believe anybody was being horrible enough about this to deserve this kind of reaction. This is basically Axanar PR, and insulting people tends to be very bad PR.Well now we know why the site was down for a bit (and perhaps why Terry's been quiet.........apologies to those who are part of the C/P v Axanar facebook group - I'm not......).........
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