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CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

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Reilly said:
While they could've easily nailed him to a wall at trial, I understand avoiding the expense. I am surprised he seems to have gotten off so lightly though. I would've expected a blanket ban on him fundraising for any Star Trek projects. By using his existing mailing list of backers he's pretty much lost nothing anyway, since diminishing returns would suggest he's already got the names of anyone that would still send him money from the first Kickstarter alone.
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Yep. It's the equivalent of letting the bad guy escape so he can come back and fight the hero again. Not saying that Alec is necessarily the bad guy or that CBS/P is the hero, but... well... okay, maybe yeah, that's what I'm saying in this case.

I still look back on it and wonder what went wrong for Alec. I still believe he started this entire project with the best of intentions: a superfan who really wanted to do Trek "right" for all the other fans out there. When I saw Prelude, I was impressed. The documentary format was perfect, and honestly I think they should have stuck with that. I have friends who like Alec, and they swear that he's a decent person, so I just wonder what flipped the script and brought forward the events of his downfall. Was it mission creep? Greed? An inability to step back and see where things were heading? I don't know. I wish it didn't end up this way, though, because I think Axanar could have been awesome.
 
Reilly said:
While they could've easily nailed him to a wall at trial, I understand avoiding the expense. I am surprised he seems to have gotten off so lightly though. I would've expected a blanket ban on him fundraising for any Star Trek projects. By using his existing mailing list of backers he's pretty much lost nothing anyway, since diminishing returns would suggest he's already got the names of anyone that would still send him money from the first Kickstarter alone.
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I can understand CBS/P not wanting to throw a ton of money on the lawsuit so a settlement, provided it got them what they wanted, is okay by me since it's their property to defend as they choose anyway.

What did AP end up with? A crowdfunded studio that raised capital on CBS/P's IP that AP is going to use for commercial profit non-Trek projects. A way around the donation limit using a mailing list soliciting private donations for MORE money to make Axanar. Make documentaries, audio novellas, write books, all premised around Axanar. Post lawsuit for AP, and pardon the pun, it's business as usual. Grandiose plans on AP's part wanting people to throw more money at him just like he outlined in his 2015 annual report.
 
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Noname Given said:
And if any Axanar Backers want see what kind of for profit business your money got Mr.Peters:
https://www.facebook.com/IndustryStudiosSCV/
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It was my understanding that they needed the studio in order to build the Axanar sets.
Why all the empty space?

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To me the studio seems a little to big for their needs.
It is almost like they had other intentions behind building the studio. :shifty:

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Does anyone notice anything missing though?
I know the bridge set is on wheels so they must have moved it somewhere else, I guess :shrug:

And why is the transporter set in pieces in the background of this picture? :whistle:

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Notice the marks on the floor where the set used to be :biggrin:

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Between all of the government agencies that should be all over this (1.4 million non-taxed income, etc.) I can't believe none of them seem interested in Alec's deeds.
 
Everybody likes to watch a train wreck. Axanar has already sucked enough attention away from all the trains that navigated a bad patch of track safely.
 
While I am surprised that Alec's settlement seems to have been very forgiving, ultimately he's still stuck paying for that studio for another year, year and a half? 15k a month is going to be a lot of money if they can't start hiring it out in a substantial way.

I am going to be very interested in this independent review of the crowd funding. While it's not going to answer any complaints at all, I am *really* intrigued to see how they justify 1.4 million with so little filmed. If nothing else surely there should've been enough left there to cover the rent.

(Obviously tyres etc, but given that these financials aren't supposed to include those claims it'll be interesting as it's easier to believe the money was blown frivolously than they spent 1.4 million wisely and still didn't film anything)
 
I agree with @Reilly. I can picture some fairly frantic scenes as they try to conjure up more expenses to account for the missing money that sound reasonable and realistic. In hindsight it may have made Peters current life easier if he'd stated they'd all taken huge monthly wages all along. He may yet retcon the story so that they did.
 
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Really is incredibly frustrating that they spent that much of the money on themselves/permanent assets and can't see anything wrong with that. And that the settlement let that part completely slide, with his only punishment being that he doesn't have to figure out how to make as long a movie as he'd promised. Very discouraging that that's how the law works sometimes. Stole 1.4 million dollars (likely more), basically no repercussions.

Maybe there will be a class action, or the government will get off their butts and take the slam dunk case, but I get angry seeing how well this worked out for him, all things considered...
 
Scout101 said:
Very discouraging that that's how the law works sometimes. Stole 1.4 million dollars (likely more), basically no repercussions.
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Hi guys,
that's what I've been pondering for over a year now. Been reading this thread because a colleague donated to "Axanar" and I must say: brilliant. See, we do the kind of service jobs that some people (you know who I mean) look down on. We're the people that "haven't achieved anything in life" and would like to change that. And seriously, before this thing triggers changes to all the crowdfunding and copyright rules and regulations and laws... I would REALLY like to pull off something like that myself because I could do with my own studio to rent out (I can do without a "Executive Producer" title, also I don't need a "calling card into the industry" for this one time ripoff). I love Star Trek but apparently that's been taken... so my question is... can you think of another franchise who's IP holders might be as relaxed as CBS/Paramount with a large enough fan base to support something like this? I was thinking A-Team (but there was a movie recently), MacGyver (but there was another show recently), Knight Rider (I don't think they made much recently after all the spin-offs, can't be that hard to get your hands on a KITT replica, we're all fans, right?)... or... IDK... Firefly? Without somebody like George Takei endorsing the project in the beginning we'll probably don't raise as much, but hey, I'll settle for quarter or half a million as well, or some nice asset. Before you shout: Troll! I'm not sure how for how much longer I can do my current job, and my retirement fund doesn't look great so I'm really tempted to do something like that. Before you shout: Boo, illegal! Well is it really? We know somebody who got away with it. Also Mommy let me stay awake to watch *put in your favourite tv show here* so i'm a superfan and I and the fans basically own *put in name of franchise here* because I spent so much on it over the years and the IP holder doesn't do anything with it anyway. So... who's with me? Any input (PM or here) appreciated because I would really like to run around with a MacBook and an iPhone I haven't paid for and fly cool places to do my con(vention)s. Like J. Lane said. Fan Films are a brand new industry. I know they shouldn't be, but if there's bucks to be made? I've grown less picky in recent years. Do you think it's a problem that I don't know much about volleyball? Somebody's gotta be the keeper of the faith with the fans of *put in your favourite franchise here*. Sorry about my lousy English, I don't live in the US or GB.
thanks & BR
 
feek61 said:
Which to keep things into perspective the purported Prelude amount is about as much as TWO full Star Trek Continues episodes which would include flying, housing and feeding all of the cast and crew for a total of 20 days plus construction of sets for the episodes, props and the post production, etc. Yeah right, he spent $120K on a talking head, green screen / CGI 20 min sort. Bullshit!
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I want to see all his bank and credit card statements from the moment he started fundraising to the present.
 
Philip Guyott said:
Alec Peters has confirmed that he will be publishing two books. One is the making of Axanar and the other is going to be about his experience with the Lawsuit. He just can't seem to stop himself from profiting from Star Trek IP!
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Alec Peters has only confirmed he will never stop talking about/fundraising for his next Trek project. Not to be confused with actually doing/finishing the project.

Caveat Emptor
 
@motorhead Nothing wrong getting that itch to create something. My advice is to just write something in your own voice, keep it simple with devices readily available to you. Think of it as a learning process, heck you might be good at it. As kids (a bit before star trek) we had an old 8 mm, rope, cattle field and a bunch of trees so it was Tarzan.
 
Alec can write 'meta' books I suppose, "making of..", "how to build a studio on other's money" etc.

But he isn't free to create Trek content in audio and other formats. He can't just expand into anything. The court decision didn't give him any sort of license to do anything except make an axanar film and other films following the guidelines.

All other ways Trek IP (audiobook, merchandise, etc.) could be expressed are still fully protected, and any attempt to expand into them as "fan" profit efforts would doubtless be met with an anaphylactic shock reaction from the studios and court. He's already stung them once.

Thus I am not seeing where any "empire" of Trek can be spun out of this full caving to the guidelines.
 
Wouldn't getting his Industry Studios going and having a partner with money just increase the juiciness of a class action lawsuit for interested attorneys?
 
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