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CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

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listen to the Axanar official podcast of 8/30/15, with Alec and the director being interviewed, repeatedly talk about how they are using other people's IP, having a program in place to license their IP to others, a dump on Renegade for not having business smarts about CBS IP and "never having official sanction" (listen for "oh we hired the best lawyers.."), the 'little heads' of fans, and if CBS gets upset that their IP is being used without permission, sorry but they arent using it... then another section about the future of Ares studios, a place where they can show equity investors the quality of their work, and deliberately doing productions to guild auspices so their work can be picked up by CBS in the future, and creating a studio known for great genre movies as they will be known for making quality Star Trek, and how CBS should (but refused to) let them (Axanar) license Star Trek products to resell "because they are working at such a high level"...

listen for this highlight at approx 30:10, and how the rest of the sentence is finished
"but, you do not want to do things that are gonna piss off CBS..."

minutes 20 - 40: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/7/c/3/7c3...53190718&hwt=c39fed7a1354f7143c18cfdb4eaa40a8

and this was just a single dip into what they have put online. I just don't know how they think anything can save them..

Anyone notice, that these podcasts are nothing but shameless self promotion... Can they go longer than 60 seconds without congratulating themselves on either the success of their fundraiser, the Vulcan Scene, and/or Prelude....
 
I've been following this thread since it started, as a three time backer of Axanar (Prelude, Kickstarter and Indiegogo). ...

Didn't want to quote your entire post, only to respond that what you say is eminently reasonable.

I tend to agree with your assessment of the whole situation. Don't ascribe to avarice what can be explained by less egregious shortcomings - disorganization, overreaching, vanity...
 
So they posted this around 11:15 PM Eastern last night (give or take)

cap1_zpsen9vhc8s.jpg


Wouldn't delaying a month due to the lawsuit be a change? This is either accidental incompetence by not telling the social media person a very important detail or lying to keep the money rolling in.
 
Didn't want to quote your entire post, only to respond that what you say is eminently reasonable.

I tend to agree with your assessment of the whole situation. Don't ascribe to avarice what can be explained by less egregious shortcomings - disorganization, overreaching, vanity...
Yes it was a well thought out and reasonable opinion. Refreshing. I wouldn't have any problem with all the travel and promotion either if it was after the film was in the can. I can understand doing some cons in the LA market but trips to Vegas on the doners dimes.....just doesn't seem quite right. They just forgot their original goal all together it seems. Tony Todd even tweeted it should have been finished long ago.
 
So they posted this around 11:15 PM Eastern last night (give or take)

cap1_zpsen9vhc8s.jpg


Wouldn't delaying a month due to the lawsuit be a change? This is either accidental incompetence by not telling the social media person a very important detail or lying to keep the money rolling in.
How does this continue on? How does this not damage their case further? I mean, it's one thing to be like "Our bad, CBS, we see your point." and another to be "Damn the lawsuits! Full speed ahead!" (with due apologies to Admiral Farragut).

This is just staggering...

Yes it was a well thought out and reasonable opinion. Refreshing. I wouldn't have any problem with all the travel and promotion either if it was after the film was in the can. I can understand doing some cons in the LA market but trips to Vegas on the doners dimes.....just doesn't seem quite right. They just forgot their original goal all together it seems. Tony Todd even tweeted it should have been finished long ago.

I would be curious if Tony Todd would consent to an interview to share his thoughts and insights in to his leaving, and why it wasn't made public.
 
Do you not see this when you view your posts?
Capture_zpsob7kz3dh.png

no, just report. I assume a time period or posting count has to be met. I am fine with it in most cases. Not sure how it would work with a fairly quiet topic where there are readers but someone is basically posting updates. But something has to be done to prevent wallpapering on any board. I am ok with this idea.
 
I've been following this thread since it started, as a three time backer of Axanar (Prelude, Kickstarter and Indiegogo). I still go back and rewatch Prelude constantly, and the soundtrack is frequently playing on my iPhone.

Yes, reasonable. I don't want to see Trek fans go up in flames. But while I can fully understand getting overambitious, building the physical infrastructure for a business in a premeditated way while pushing back the funded project repeatedly isn't what crowdfunding is understood by the fans to be, and it isn't "nonprofit" in the eyes of anybody.

And then there is the blatant licensing issue. Just listen to the segment. At the start they are discussing a pewter game pieces based on Axanar ships, for which "they already have a licensing agreement set up", presumably to license to a FASA-like game. The moderator says "oh cool, that's a shuttle isn't it" to which they all agree. Then later in the segment, the producer and Alec talk about how they approached CBS for licensing and were turned down because they were a fan film. If Axanar thought they had to license the pieces from CBS, then they thought they might be infringing on IP. Yet they not only went ahead with it, they set up at least documents for licensing it as their IP, to others.

CBS could probably win most of their case just on the game pieces.

I really would like to cut slack to every one of them, but with things like this, I just don't see how it is possible. They are apparently trying to bootstrap themselves into owning and operating a major SF production studio by using fan money and CBS/Paramount IP. That isn't scope creep.
 
So they posted this around 11:15 PM Eastern last night (give or take)

cap1_zpsen9vhc8s.jpg


Wouldn't delaying a month due to the lawsuit be a change? This is either accidental incompetence by not telling the social media person a very important detail or lying to keep the money rolling in.

"Nothing has changed." TRANSLATION: We continue to move farther up shit's creek. Still no paddle.
 
Shouldn't they be making a triumphant announcement about their legal representation today?
 
Shouldn't they be making a triumphant announcement about their legal representation today?
I half expect them to announce layoffs and indefinite pause in an effort to enter discussion with CBS having taken the biggest violation (future brand threats and revenue) off the table. At least, I'd expect that if Axanar's crack IP law firm exists and gives the advice I imagine they'd offer.
 
For what it's worth, for some years now and at CBS' request, we've included the following disclaimer in each of our episodes:

"Star Trek and all related marks, logos and characters are solely owned by CBS Studios, Inc. The videos, the promotion thereof, and/or any other materials created by Star Trek New Voyages are not endorsed by, sponsored by, nor affiliated with CBS, Paramount Pictures, or any other Star Trek franchise, and are non-commercial fan-made films intended for recreational use. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"In no case is the use of said copyrighted material, with or without identifying symbols, intended as a claim of ownership or infringement of those copyrights/trademarks by the maker of these videos or their content providers."
Greg, sorry for the off-topic but do you think it'd be okay for other productions to use the same text? This is much better than what we currently use.
 
Greg, sorry for the off-topic but do you think it'd be okay for other productions to use the same text? This is much better than what we currently use.
Also, I Googled looking for this text,and I found other productions (besides ours) that seem to be using this language. I presume they lifted it from us, rather than having arrived at this same language through their own independent interactions with CBS.

I don't see any problems with you using this same language.
 
Also, I Googled looking for this text,and I found other productions (besides ours) that seem to be using this language. I presume they lifted it from us, rather than having arrived at this same language through their own independent interactions with CBS.

I don't see any problems with you using this same language.
Thanks, appreciate it. I didn't want to borrow without asking first. :)
 
I've always liked the simple and straight to the point disclaimer at the end of every Starship Excelsior episode that states something like "Star Trek remains the property of CBS / Paramount, no infringement is intended".
 
Proper multi-quote is back! Yay!

Maybe I'm being too generous, but I still see Alec as someone who thinks he knows what he's doing, but who is really out of his depth, rather than someone who's sitting dreaming up ways to con donors out of their money. I don't really know the guy.

That's what I've wanted to believe, but the more I see, the more I wonder. Most of my posts are tongue-in-cheek, intended to amuse -- but as time goes by, and as they continue failing to do the things an above-board production (professional or otherwise) would do in this situation...

Well, they're not doing their reputations any favors, let's put it that way.

It seems like he lost sight of the fan film once the potential to run Ares Studio as a business came into play.
I think when you're talking about 7k phone expenses, new carpets etc though, that's a problem.
Renovating offices, new carpets etc are something you can focus on once you've got proper funding and projects in place.

That's one hell of a loss of perspective on their part.

I can't figure out if it's malicious or not, but there's definitely something hinky going on. No one with an ounce of honor is going to build out professional-level offices to do a fan production -- not at first, anyway. There's a whole lot of cart-before-the-horse going on here.

The more honorable thing would have been to get the film in the can, and then use the leftovers for the office construction so they could do more films, but that's not what happened.

I'd still love to see the film some day as well, even if it was made for a fraction of the budget using existing TOS sets or whatever.

Y'know, half the reason the story interested me so much was because the quality was so good on Prelude. Say what you will about the script or the acting, it still looked like something you might see on TV. That was pretty cool, and I really wanted to see how they could do with a feature-length film.

Take that away, though, and shoot it for a fraction of the budget, and I'm suddenly skeptical. I'm not sure I'd be nearly as interested in the story.

Not sure what that says.

"Nothing has changed." TRANSLATION: We continue to move farther up shit's creek. Still no paddle.

:guffaw:
 
How long did it take them to build the sets, or are they still building them? Out here I've seen them throw together livable houses in like a month or 2, so I don't see how building a few small sets can take longer than a few weeks.
 
Come on...the most obvious of the many variables here is manpower.

How many people work full time on building the sets? What are the most people working together at any one time on the effort?
 
How many people work full time on building the sets? What are the most people working together at any one time on the effort?

Obviously, manpower is an issue. But they're using manpower to build walls and lay carpet. Their first goal should've been to had the sets completed before building studio offices.

Their priorities seem to have grown more and more out of whack.
 
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