The "Lawsuit"...

daveyny · September 2016

... is in the headlines again...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/star-trek-lawsuit-heats-up-934130

I guess Mr. Peters and his lawyers have decided to go full "Chuck Norris" again...

smh

rattler2 · September 2016

You've got to be kidding me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4akfEqxiIDc

Yes... I'm THAT amazed that he just won't let it go... I'm showing it with frickin' pastel ponies!

Can't Peters just take Kirk's advice for once on his hopes for making money off Star Trek?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swvf3w6hcY4

imperatorpaveli · September 2016

And they also mention that's it's completely about the merchandise, and that Axanar's not a "fan film" but a professional production.

nikeix · September 2016

Ah, that's just precious. Lin and Abrams both needed a good smack with a rolled up newspaper for their stunt and now it looks like they're gonna get it.

icerose20 · September 2016

Peters=Major Kong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y

jam3s1701 · October 2016

oh the court Documents are a hoot! it reads like bad fiction!

but... him spending donations on "Tires, Gas and insurance" is what made my blood boil, not only does he have the cheek to use donations to build his new studio which BTW has a new name and client (Industry Studios and some TRIBBLE actor or summit is his new client) but he pays for things that should be paid for by himself!!!

but that is not the greatest his lawyers long list of fan films they want info on is amazing its like WTF seriously! why not just go and torch their studios while your at it.

nikeix · October 2016

jam3s1701 wrote: »

...him spending donations on "Tires, Gas and insurance" is what made my blood boil...

No, no. You're looking at that all wrong - treating a vehicle as a company vehicle is how you get it seized as a company asset when the ruling goes against the company. Now civil California courts have a long standing tradition of leaving people with one vehicle just so they can stay productively part of society, but if he's got more than one, smart money is he's losing a car for that particularly brand of stupid.

Unknown · October 2016

This content has been removed.

artan42 · October 2016

I hope this doesn't have too much of a detrimental effect of DSC.

daveyny · October 2016

crashdragon wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPLD2Wbd8z0

Apparently...

Mr. Peters and his Lawyers... That's who.

daveyny · October 2016

jam3s1701 wrote: »

oh the court Documents are a hoot! it reads like bad fiction!

but... him spending donations on "Tires, Gas and insurance" is what made my blood boil, not only does he have the cheek to use donations to build his new studio which BTW has a new name and client (Industry Studios and some **** actor or summit is his new client) but he pays for things that should be paid for by himself!!!

but that is not the greatest his lawyers long list of fan films they want info on is amazing its like WTF seriously! why not just go and torch their studios while your at it.

heh...

Silly thing is, all they have to do is check out YouTube for that kinda info., they don't need a court order to find it.

starswordc · October 2016

artan42 wrote: »

I hope this doesn't have too much of a detrimental effect of DSC.

The only people it's going to affect are the moronic die-hards like Brianstupidnumbers who were too wedded to Axanar to accept that it was a scam. The CBS All Access exclusivity did more damage to DSC than anything Abrams or Smart Aleck Prat-ers ever did.

jorantomalak · October 2016

icerose20 wrote: »

Peters=Major Kong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y

dont insult the late slim pickens like that lol

brian334 · October 2016

starswordc wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

I hope this doesn't have too much of a detrimental effect of DSC.

The only people it's going to affect are the moronic die-hards like Brianstupidnumbers who were too wedded to Axanar to accept that it was a scam. The CBS All Access exclusivity did more damage to DSC than anything Abrams or Smart Aleck Prat-ers ever did.

Please do not inject me into a conversation with which I have had no part, or I will once again demonstrate that you have no clue what you are talking about. You have villified me because you cannot refute my arguments, and now you want to treat me with the same lack of respect you have demonstrated for someone else you don't even know.

It is true that a person resorts to ad hominem attacks when they cannot support the ideas they espouse. If all you have are personal attacks, then you obviously know nothing about the subject. In that case, it is better to remain silent.

rattler2 · October 2016

Um... where did all that crowdfunding go? So far all the evidence points to NOT Axanar, but a for profit stage and personal expenses so far.

starswordc · October 2016

brian334 wrote: »

starswordc wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

I hope this doesn't have too much of a detrimental effect of DSC.

The only people it's going to affect are the moronic die-hards like Brianstupidnumbers who were too wedded to Axanar to accept that it was a scam. The CBS All Access exclusivity did more damage to DSC than anything Abrams or Smart Aleck Prat-ers ever did.

Please do not inject me into a conversation with which I have had no part, or I will once again demonstrate that you have no clue what you are talking about. You have villified me because you cannot refute my arguments, and now you want to treat me with the same lack of respect you have demonstrated for someone else you don't even know.

It is true that a person resorts to ad hominem attacks when they cannot support the ideas they espouse. If all you have are personal attacks, then you obviously know nothing about the subject. In that case, it is better to remain silent.

You want to know where the copyright and trademark infringement starts from? Canon character Garth of Izar. The Battle of Axanar. The f*cking title of the show, Star Trek: Axanar.

Are you seriously going to claim that CBS and Paramount do not own these concepts and that therefore according to United States intellectual property laws a person who does not have permission, in writing, from C/P, cannot profit off of the concepts?

Go ahead, keep running that mouth. I've got popcorn and everything.

daveyny · October 2016

Let's try to at the very least, keep it a bit civil folks.

You can have at Mr. Peters and/or CBS (whichever your preference) all you want, but let's not start attacking each other, OK.

Remember, Opinion's are like butt-holes...

We all got one, nobody's smells like a rose and they all start with a bit of a crack.

starswordc · October 2016

daveyny wrote: »

Let's try to at the very least, keep it a bit civil folks.

You can have at Mr. Peters and/or CBS (whichever your preference) all you want, but let's not start attacking each other, OK.

Remember, Opinion's are like butt-holes...

We all got one, nobody's smells like a rose and they all start with a bit of a crack.

To which I counter that you don't have an opinion on factual matters. You accept the evidence. It's not a matter of opinion: Peters factually and flagrantly broke the law.

Works for anthropogenic climate change, works for this. You can argue about how you would like to see it fixed, you can argue about whether the law is a good thing, but you cannot argue that it didn't happen.

brian334 · October 2016

starswordc wrote: »

brian334 wrote: »

starswordc wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

I hope this doesn't have too much of a detrimental effect of DSC.

The only people it's going to affect are the moronic die-hards like Brianstupidnumbers who were too wedded to Axanar to accept that it was a scam. The CBS All Access exclusivity did more damage to DSC than anything Abrams or Smart Aleck Prat-ers ever did.

Please do not inject me into a conversation with which I have had no part, or I will once again demonstrate that you have no clue what you are talking about. You have villified me because you cannot refute my arguments, and now you want to treat me with the same lack of respect you have demonstrated for someone else you don't even know.

It is true that a person resorts to ad hominem attacks when they cannot support the ideas they espouse. If all you have are personal attacks, then you obviously know nothing about the subject. In that case, it is better to remain silent.

You want to know where the copyright and trademark infringement starts from? Canon character Garth of Izar. The Battle of Axanar. The f*cking title of the show, Star Trek: Axanar.

Are you seriously going to claim that CBS and Paramount do not own these concepts and that therefore according to United States intellectual property laws a person who does not have permission, in writing, from C/P, cannot profit off of the concepts?

Go ahead, keep running that mouth. I've got popcorn and everything.

Since I never asserted any of these things, I don't particularly feel inclined to defend them. This is another tactic used by someone who has no clue what he's talking about. Change the argument to something else when you have no evidence to support your original assertion.

What I have maintained all along is that there is no evidence to support accusations that Mr. Peters intended to scam anyone, but posters have maintained, based on pretty much nothing except the idea that Mr. Peters is obviously a bad person based on many years of... well, why he's bad is never clearly explained, but people posted bad things about him on the internet so they must be true...

Lets turn that argument around and apply it to you. Oh, yeah, that would be unfair since I know nothing about you aside from a few thoughtless rants on the internet. I lack any evidence to make any fair and rational judgement about your character and intentions.

And that is my position on Mr. Peters. It has been all along. The people who are acting irrationally are the Hate Axanar crowd who revile a person they do not know and attribute all sorts of evil motivations to him based on nothing more than an echo chamber of hate where one person's hateful rantings are used as proof to support more hateful rants.

Enjoy the popcorn.

rattler2 · October 2016

Dude... If Peters was so honest... why is CBS/Paramount coming down on him like a ton of bricks? And... where did that crowdfunding money go? He promised a finished product, we got a 20 minute prelude. So unless that alone was the promised fanfilm, something isn't adding up. Not only that, word is he used that money he got for things not related to Axanar that would make him money, such as that studio that would be used for for profit projects, and personal expenses like gas for his car.

The evidence that was made available is pretty damning.

For the record, I am NOT one of the "Hate Axanar" people. I'm actually pretty neutral on the subject of Axanar itself. Its Peters actions that I'm taking issue with. And so far the evidence points to misconduct on the part of Peters.

Fact of the matter is, the minute Peters tried to make money off the Star Trek IP (which he does NOT hold any rights to)... he crossed the line.

imperatorpaveli · October 2016

Argue all you want, but the Axanar Annual Report listed a salary for Alec. No other production raised ire from CBS/Paramount over their operations, so why did Axanar?

Also, Axanar's not a "fan film," but a "professional production produced by professionals." Alec only changed his tone about that when he got sued.

brian334 · October 2016

rattler2 wrote: »

Dude... If Peters was so honest... why is CBS/Paramount coming down on him like a ton of bricks? And... where did that crowdfunding money go? He promised a finished product, we got a 20 minute prelude. So unless that alone was the promised fanfilm, something isn't adding up. Not only that, word is he used that money he got for things not related to Axanar that would make him money, such as that studio that would be used for for profit projects, and personal expenses like gas for his car.

The evidence that was made available is pretty damning.

For the record, I am NOT one of the "Hate Axanar" people. I'm actually pretty neutral on the subject of Axanar itself. Its Peters actions that I'm taking issue with. And so far the evidence points to misconduct on the part of Peters.

Fact of the matter is, the minute Peters tried to make money off the Star Trek IP (which he does NOT hold any rights to)... he crossed the line.

I made no claims regarding Mr. Peters' honesty. What I said is there is no evidence of criminal intent. Several posters on these forums have reasserted that Axanar was a scam in the absence of any evidence to support that statement.

As to why, CBS said it was both the advance of technology which allows low budget operations to produce studio quality works and the ability of crowdfunding to bankroll those operations far in excess of what was possible a decade ago. Axanar happened to be the first to break the million dollar threshold, and as they say, money talks.

He promised a finished product, but in December of last year, just before Axanar's posted shooting schedule which was to begin in the end of January of this year. Axanar put their project on hiatus until the suit was addressed. The money, according to Axanar, was either spent on production costs or reserved for later use, as you can discover by reading Axanar's financial summary which was posted before the lawsuit was filed. If you want to complain about not having a finished product, you can with justification blame CBS, but there is zero evidence Mr. Peters never intended to make a movie and loads of evidence to support the idea that he was making progress toward that goal.

As far as what he did with the money: so far as I know, crowdfunding sites do not require the fund recipient account for what he did with it. However, Mr. Peters claimed he was operating as a not-for-profit entity. Such corporations have long lists of what they can and cannot do with their money. Neither the State of California nor the IRS have made accusations or allegations of wrongdoing as of yet. (Paying officers of a not-for-profit entity is not illegal, nor is reimbursement for expenses.) It may well be that such charges will come in time, but my bet is that he has neither violated the tax code nor endangered his corporation's not- for- profit status. I could be wrong about that, but so far there is no evidence to support any other view.

As for what would have happened to the studio, cameras, props, and all the other real property owned by Axanar after the movie was completed, this is also covered in the laws regarding not-for-profit enterprises. Red Cross can buy and sell property, for example, or retain it for future use, but the CEO of Red Cross cannot donate Red Cross property to himself. Axanar will likewise be required to account for the real property disposed of after the film is completed or permanently barred from completion unless the not-for-profit corporation continues to function as a not-for-profit entity.

So, while you may believe what you like, you have not presented a case for criminal intent. What you are doing is quite simply character assassination, and you justify that by believing what other character assassins have written without ever critically examining the issue from a fact-based point of view.

It is a sad commentary on society when implication and innuendo are superior to fact in the court of public opinion. I saw an illuminating statement in the Goblins webcomic recently. To paraphrase, when two people of good nature disagree they both invariably assume the other is evil. Mr. Peters may not be the 'good guy,' but there is still no evidence to support accusations that he intended to scam anyone.

markhawkman · October 2016

rattler2 wrote: »

Dude... If Peters was so honest... why is CBS/Paramount coming down on him like a ton of bricks? And... where did that crowdfunding money go? He promised a finished product, we got a 20 minute prelude.

That's worse than you think. Prelude was produced BEFORE Peters started fundraising in earnest.

ashrod63 · October 2016

The whole thing seems suspicious.

I do have to ask though, Star Trek is ultimately a franchise which exists solely to make money, why were no regulations put in place by the rights holders laying out what they considered acceptable. The BBC had one set out for Doctor Who 30 years ago and they're non-profit!

I'm not saying the Axanar team are innocent, but the Trek teams really did have it coming.

starswordc · October 2016

ashrod63 wrote: »

The whole thing seems suspicious.

I do have to ask though, Star Trek is ultimately a franchise which exists solely to make money, why were no regulations put in place by the rights holders laying out what they considered acceptable.

They presumably had very extensive cost-benefit analyses and decided that in the absence of anybody actually trying to make money off an unlicensed IP, they weren't going to mess with the fandom, because the fanworks built buzz for the franchise as a whole. That's why video game companies typically don't mess with Let's Play series and walkthrough videos even though they usually don't meet fair use standards: it's good for business.

rattler2 · October 2016

I am NOT doing Character Assassination buddy.

Looking back at other fanfilm projects, NONE of them attracted the attention of CBS/Paramount. Of Gods and Men, Renegades, Continues... none of them attracted their attention. Axanar did. So you can't say that Axanar didn't do something wrong. If the IP holders were fine with the others, why slam Axanar unless they broke some rule or law?

markhawkman · October 2016

starswordc wrote: »

ashrod63 wrote: »

The whole thing seems suspicious.

I do have to ask though, Star Trek is ultimately a franchise which exists solely to make money, why were no regulations put in place by the rights holders laying out what they considered acceptable.

They presumably had very extensive cost-benefit analyses and decided that in the absence of anybody actually trying to make money off an unlicensed IP, they weren't going to mess with the fandom, because the fanworks built buzz for the franchise as a whole. That's why video game companies typically don't mess with Let's Play series and walkthrough videos even though they usually don't meet fair use standards: it's good for business.

Yeah, the lawsuit got started shortly after Peters published his statement of what funds were used for.

Said statement showed that he had paid himself a "modest" salary that was enough for him to live off of donations alone. Even if the project wasn't making a profit overall... which is impossible to determine as it didn't go far enough along to have countable production costs. Peters personally profited off of it. Which is where it's different from Renegades and Star Trek Continues. They'd actually raised quite a lot of money, but you could see where the money went, and it didn't go into the pockets of the producers.

starswordc · October 2016

rattler2 wrote: »

I am NOT doing Character Assassination buddy.

Looking back at other fanfilm projects, NONE of them attracted the attention of CBS/Paramount. Of Gods and Men, Renegades, Continues... none of them attracted their attention. Axanar did. So you can't say that Axanar didn't do something wrong. If the IP holders were fine with the others, why slam Axanar unless they broke some rule or law?

Heck for that matter, CBS actually told YouTube to ignore a third-party copyright complaint against Continues and put it back on the web...

jrq2 · October 2016

How adorable two school kids arguing to see who is stronger Superman or Captain Marvel .

I can't believe that this discussion has gotten this far, considering everyone here that has posted is completely and utterly ignorant to the full facts of the case and on top of all that, I highly doubt that anyone here that has posted has a law degree and has full access to the case at hand .

That would mean that the opinions expressed in this thread here are completely based off of complete ignorance..

Which also means that no one has the right to dispute the opinions of another person,

Unless you're a lawyer and have complete and full access to the case that's being discussed here . other than that the only right that anyone has here is the right to disagree with the other persons opinion, nothing else.

brian334 · October 2016

rattler2 wrote: »

I am NOT doing Character Assassination buddy.

Looking back at other fanfilm projects, NONE of them attracted the attention of CBS/Paramount. Of Gods and Men, Renegades, Continues... none of them attracted their attention. Axanar did. So you can't say that Axanar didn't do something wrong. If the IP holders were fine with the others, why slam Axanar unless they broke some rule or law?

Circular logic is circular. The tail wags the dog. It must be true because I read it on the internet.

In the USA we have a presumption of innocence, and guilt must be proven. You are doing it backwards. Your argument is that I should presume guilt based on the fact of the accusation. I hope you never find yourself facing a jury of your peers, because the fact that you get accused of a crime proves you committed it, right?

markhawkman · October 2016

brian334 wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

I am NOT doing Character Assassination buddy.

Looking back at other fanfilm projects, NONE of them attracted the attention of CBS/Paramount. Of Gods and Men, Renegades, Continues... none of them attracted their attention. Axanar did. So you can't say that Axanar didn't do something wrong. If the IP holders were fine with the others, why slam Axanar unless they broke some rule or law?

Circular logic is circular. The tail wags the dog. It must be true because I read it on the internet.

In the USA we have a presumption of innocence, and guilt must be proven. You are doing it backwards. Your argument is that I should presume guilt based on the fact of the accusation. I hope you never find yourself facing a jury of your peers, because the fact that you get accused of a crime proves you committed it, right?

Um... how is that circular logic? Fact is, CBS has never sued any other Fan film project. That is not conjecture. They HAVE chosen to sue Peters. We don't have the precise specifics, but we know enough for a reasonably accurate guess as to why.

Is it the quantity of funds raised? Probably not since there have been others that raised large sums.

Is it the quality of the work? They waited quite a long time after Prelude was released to act, so this is unlikely.

Is it the way Peters used the funds? This seems likely as the suit came shortly after Peters released a document that showed how much of the funds he'd used for things other than the film.

The "Lawsuit"...

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