Topic: No Axanar NO BEYOND!!!!

[Corbomite]

Axanar productions has an 'official' comment on their webpage:
http://www.axanarproductions.com/captains-log-dec-30th-2015/

I'm glad they are optimistic and are planning to go ahead, but when the judge slaps an injunction on them and CBS/Paramount holds them up in court for years it can die a slow death without ever being settled. If you don't believe me just research the guy who actually invented television and what RCA did to him even after he won his case.

I don't see any harm whatsoever with Axanar coiming out in 2016, as this will simply generate more interest in Trek.  CBS needs to get onboard so they can really get their gravy train rolling. 

Yeah, this is the part I don't get. CBS needs to remember Event Television. You market it as a one shot event movie, using all the media outlets to let fans and other people know that this is before the timeline change in ST2009, so it doesn't mess with anything in their new format. I can see the tag line now: Before Kirk, before Spock, there were heroes that shaped the Federation forever... queue dramatic music. What kind of chowder heads do they have working for them anyway? That took me all of fifteen seconds to think up.

[Lieutenant_Q]

It has a lot to do with the way the legal system works.  You HAVE to take action as soon as you find out, other wise the first question that gets asked is, why did you wait so long?  You can never answer that question satisfactorily.

[Corbomite]

That's why the jury decision might blow up in their faces. Usually in civil court you only need nine out of twelve people to agree on a decision. They have taken a laissez faire attitude up until now and a jury may feel they should have acted sooner. The fact that Axanar is in uncharted territory by Paramount is also a good thing as they can't really claim it damages their property directly.

[Lieutenant_Q]

While I'm not in the head of the executives (or the lawyers... I'm still sane) that made this decision.  If reports are true that the Axanar producer has plans to do other stuff (for profit) after Axanar with the money that he got for Axanar.  That's where CBS has the problem, and that's why they didn't hit up Renegades or Continues, or Phase II.  You can't tell me that the people at CBS didn't know Axanar wasn't under production until just now, not with some pretty big veteran Star Trek actors in it.  My take on it was that the arrangement with Axanar was probably the same kind of arrangement CBS had with Dynaverse regarding SFC4... Do it, but don't make any money on it.  If the reports are true, what does that say for CBS with SFC4?  This guy may have just blown it for all of us.

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

CBS served C&D to a garage kit model manufacturer 2 weeks ago. Dude was just one of many who made star trek resin models that weren't available anywhere else in limited amounts. Was he singled out or will more garage kitters get hit?

[Javora]

The use of the sets after Axanar is a non issue.  It is not specifically claimed in the lawsuit that Axanar sets was built for the purpose of making a profit after the completion of Axanar.  The suit is specific that the defendants are making a profit from the sale of Axanar itself, not some vague future plans on other projects.  If Paramount wanted to make that claim then the company should have done that in the initial suit. 

For me the timing is suspect, and that could be why Axanar producer is asking for a jury trial.  Axanar has gotten a lot of positive buzz, a lot more than the other fan made Trek projects.  I think this is more about Paramount pouncing on the real competition to clear away any noise or comparison to their own series that they want to produce soon.  The timing is really suspect, this happened just a couple of months after Paramount/CBS made the announcement about the new Trek series.  It would have took that long for the attorneys to prepare the legal work.  I think if Paramount would have pounced on all the fan made Trek it would have backfired with the fans...  Trek fans no less. 

For me that means boycotting Star Trek Beyond and boycotting the series in 2017.

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

Was he profiting from it. Were they his own designs. There's this guy on BC forums who makes his own designs and also makes resins for some of the fans of his work. Don't know if he charges but this is getting out of control. What are these retards going to do in the future. Btwn the Internet, new tech like 3D printers etc, it's going to be quite difficult to tell people what they can and can not do. Ridiculous. Did the guy make millions off the 3D printing. Lmao

I'd send a letter back telling them to kill themselves, here! I printed you a Japanese sword, now do the world a favor and kill yourself, please!

Ehhhh. Soon I'll get one too for personal modding, maybe bc I screenshot the game. When my phone says red alert when I'm getting a phone call should I run and hide too.

Most garage kitters profit some. How much though? Similar to Axanar, where is the line drawn? There are a lot of little companies making resin star trek and star wars and star gate models and so on, they largely continue unaffected while just a few get C&Ds.

[Tulwar]

The solution is quite obvious.  Remember, the entire ST franchise is only valuable because of "Trekkies."  The studios made that a derogatory term, because they didn't understand the ST fan, and still don't.  We just have to remind the studio that it's "trekker" by not buying their crap.  That's right, boycott.

A franchise is only as valuable as its ability to sell products and services.  I personally think that we should have started a boycott with the JJ Abrams film.  Come to think of it, I didn't watch ST Into Dumbness, I mean Darkness, until 2 years after it came out, and it was on Netflix.

This is something that owners of intellectual property forget.  If nobody wants it, it isn't worth defending.

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

The one thing that Axanar Productions has been doing, that is quite different from the other fan made efforts, is offering materials (such as the DVD, not to mention a model of the D6 apparently).  They claim that these are simply perks, but especially in the case of the models, well the D6 is heavily based on the D7, and I doubt that it is significantly different in any real sense from what we've seen on the screen already.  Hence, you can easily make the argument that Axanar's D6 should be a licensed derivative, instead of a 'freebie'.  That 'freebie' has a cost associated with it (i.e. donate at this level, get the model), and it could be argued that since Paramount licenses other models and miniatures, and even computer models based on Star Trek designs, that this should be too.
 
The ONE thing that allows ADB to get away with as much as they do is that most of the ships in the SFB universe have never appeared onscreen, and ADB secured a license for the rest.  The Hydrans, Lyrans, Andromedans, and ISC are ADB copyrights, not CBS/Paramount's.  Yet they seem to fit right in as far as I'm concerned.

I'm all about doing the hashtag thing to get CBS/Paramount onboard with Axanar, and Renegades for that matter.  I'm guessing that the CBS execs aren't interested in splitting the pie between themselves and these efforts (they'd rather have their own pie).  They need to be convinced, as I've mentioned before, that Axanar and Renegades are stories worth seeing, and that everyone benefits if they can come to a mutual arrangement.

The other fan efforts have been smart enough to not offer 'perks' up to this point, at least as far as I've seen (one of them did have 'official fabric' that they made available to costumers 'at cost', because they had to get a textile factory to do a special run so they could make pillowcases and such that were similar to what we saw in TOS).  Axanar did, and although Alec has talked to CBS a few times now, well no official license was secured, so I wish them luck going into the future.

I was REALLY looking forward to Axanar, btw, and hope they can work it out in an amicable manner.  The story should be told.

[TAnimaL]

Actually, most fan productions were doing the same things to raise money, vis-a-vis selling posters, or art-covered DVD cases that came with a "free" copy of their film (I have several). And Trekkies have been pumping out fan-made not-licensed items since 1967. In the fallow years of the early 70s it was almost the only ST we had and it continued all the way to now - the "dealer's rooms" at most ST/scfi cons are packed with them. It does seem that most of the current fan ST films like renegades, Farragut and Phase II aren't doing that anymore and are just asking for donations, so perhaps there has been a sea change at CBS/Paramount.

The ONE REAL thing that allows ADB to continue is not their "SFU" of Hydrans, Lyrans, et al, but the fact ADB got it's initial  license through Franz Joseph Designs and their publication of the ST Technical Manual, which itself has a complicated "separate" license. ADB all but shut down in the mid 90s due to a lawsuit from Paramount that was finally resolved in something ADB refers to as "The Deal"  of which few details are known but alloweed them to re-continue publication.

Maybe it was tha mount Axanar raised, maybe it's the timing of a new TV series. Maybe they even want to use that timeframe themselves

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

Actually, most fan productions were doing the same things to raise money, vis-a-vis selling posters, or art-covered DVD cases that came with a "free" copy of their film (I have several). And Trekkies have been pumping out fan-made not-licensed items since 1967. In the fallow years of the early 70s it was almost the only ST we had and it continued all the way to now - the "dealer's rooms" at most ST/scfi cons are packed with them. It does seem that most of the current fan ST films like renegades, Farragut and Phase II aren't doing that anymore and are just asking for donations, so perhaps there has been a sea change at CBS/Paramount.

The ONE REAL thing that allows ADB to continue is not their "SFU" of Hydrans, Lyrans, et al, but the fact ADB got it's initial  license through Franz Joseph Designs and their publication of the ST Technical Manual, which itself has a complicated "separate" license. ADB all but shut down in the mid 90s due to a lawsuit from Paramount that was finally resolved in something ADB refers to as "The Deal"  of which few details are known but alloweed them to re-continue publication.

Maybe it was tha mount Axanar raised, maybe it's the timing of a new TV series. Maybe they even want to use that timeframe themselves

As I noted, Axanar is treading deep into licensing territory for some of their 'perks' (The D6 model being a rather aggregious one).  It's one thing to market an original piece of artwork (your DVD cover), quite another to offer other merchandise that IS in licensing territory.

Also, as I noted before (and as you pointed out), ADB DID secure a license for use of the Star Trek copyright, for the stuff that is directly tied to Star Trek.  The ADB license is complicated, but is a license nonetheless, and I won't pretend to know all of the details r.e the parties involved in the current license at this point.  And yes, I know that at some point Steve Cole chose to draw the line at the Star Fleet Technical manual (hence the name Star Fleet Battles, not Star Trek Battles), before the movie releases (pocket expansion 1 aside, the said X ships in that expansion were inspired by ST:TMP, let's be fair - the Klingon X Cruisers even had photons -3 FA and 1 RA - if I remember correctly in that expansion).

On an rather unrelated note, does anyone remember when ship explosions in SFB (circa Designer Edition) occasionally caused cascade explosions, back when the explosion radii were much larger?  I still remember a particular instance in one of our own games where I saw a PF flotilla get almost completely decimated thanks to said chain reaction of explosions (PF is destroyed, nearby PF blows up, another nearby PF blows up...) said explosions were rather lethal r.e. fighter squadrons as well.  Stacking in Designer Edition was sometimes a very bad  idea...

Another licensing example involving the Franz Joseph legacy is of course Star Fleet Battle Manual.  Quite the fun game in it's own right... Don't get hit by the first Plasma template!

[Corbomite]

Well, CNN picked the story up, so we are getting major news outlet coverage. They are actually giving Axanar a publicity boost with this.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/31/media/star-trek-axanar-cbs-paramount/index.html?iid=SF_LN

[Tulwar]

It's better, better actors, better action, better writing and it's made for the fans. They are upset, naturally but like I said they only making it more difficult for themselves bc ain't no Trekkie going to pay/subscribe to the 2017 series after they demolish Axanar. They are better off coming to a mutual compromise with Peter and help in developing this, that will ensure loyalty to fans and be pennies for them.

You're exactly right.  Fan made material is artistically stagnant, being confined to within the artistic styles and story line of the studio work, but has a great deal of room to meet fan expectations.  The studios would love to hand the franchise off to a new director that would do something completely new, but Paramount had already put the franchise in the hands of a vandal.  The only way that the studio executives can imagine Jar Jar Abrams is a good director is by consuming their own promotional material.  The new SW movie really confirms that Abrams is makes crap.  High level fan made material is the only true safe bet.

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

David Gerrold has weighed in...
http://www.axanarproductions.com/david-gerrold-on-cbs-vs-axanar-part-1/

I like his suggestion of mirroring the Lucasfilm 'support' system for fan films.

[TAnimaL]

I really liked Gerrold's article and his idea.

As a fun tangent on the SFB ship explosions:
 in the Commander's ed. (D5.0) there was this formula to figure out explosions strengths based on remaining weapons & power at explosion, OR based on 1/3 the ships original numbers, plus any missiles, tbombs, shuttles (Eschelon, you might be thinking of the Commander's Edition (1982-1998) rather than the more basic rule in Designer's (35.0),  but I only have the initial rules of the Designer Edition, so maybe explosions were increased in the Expansion Rules too). End result was a much bigger explosion that was applied to the adjacent hex, 3/4 to 2 hexes away, 1/2 to 3 hexes away, and triggered explosions were added to the initial. So....

One day (at a tournament I think) an out-numbered Romulan fleet faced a superior Klingon fleet. The Rom flew a fully armed and loaded ROC into the middle of the Klinks, who got excited to capture it (worth more victory points) and swarmed all around it. The ROC self-destructed, and the resulting explosion(s) took out the entire Klink fleet and left the Roms victorious.

Needless to say, there was quite the uproar, and I mean "magic photons" arguments are trivial by comparison. The makers of SFB felt it "wrong" and outlawed by reducing the explosion strength to a line item in the charts, rationalizing it that the "Romulan High Command" (or any Admiralty) would never sacrifice a DN in such a manner since they take years to build. There are some who might view it otherwise, a clever move in a desperate situation not too unlike the Yorktown in the battle of Midway. (To be fair, SFB battles are notoriously "un-connected" to repercussions,  and players are prone to bend/push the rules.) The Captain's Rules also limit the range of the explosion to 1 at best.

It is these reduced explosions strengths that were used in the SFC series. I've always thought that one day I'd experiment on seeing if SFC just uses the explosion strength form the shiplist or whether missiles/t-bombs are added in or not. Another fun experiment would be to dramatically increase the explosion strengths, just to see what would happen. 

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

I was indeed referring to Designer's Edition (hence the note about Expansion 1, once we went to Commander''s edition the 'pocket Expansions' went away in favor of supplements).  And the associated explosion radiii (multiple hexes).  Hence my reference to not stacking, although even being adjacent could be a major issue.  Picking a weak target in an enemy formation to 'pop off', causing damage to nearby ships was a tactic our group loved to take advantage of in those days.  Ten ship formations often had more than enough firepower available to make a frigate go boom, even at range...

And, interesting bit of trivia, Expansion 1 did call PFs Pseudo Fighters, not Fast Patrol Ships.  The nomenclature was changed sometime after (pocket) Expansion 1 was released.

Ahh, the old days!

This is all waaaaay off topic though.  Still rooting for a compromise on Axanar!

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

TanimaL,

In thinking about things further, we may have been gaming with the 'Boxed/Designer's Edition' expansions, with the just released Commander's edition core rulebook.  It's been decades, so you may be right TanimaL.  Apologies for any confusion I may have caused... thanks for quoting the relevant rules!  Having those Over The Top larger explosion radii/effects in SFC would make for a rather interesting game... or a different game at least.

I enjoy your posts, and thanks for looking that up for us!

Eschelon

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

http://wrathofdhanprops.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-axanar-bunker-when-things-fall-down.html

[d4v1ks]

http://wrathofdhanprops.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-axanar-bunker-when-things-fall-down.html

Fun, but sad to watch.. :/

[Khemaraa]

Just slogged through the above mentioned Blog, I get that this guys doesn't Like Alex Peters that much..and that Alex Peters doesn't care much for him in return. I've also been digging around the net for any other sources of info.  There is NOTHING out there.... Motor mouths who are typically "in the Know" aren't talk'n.   

I like what I see in Axanar so much so that I've been doodling, scribbling etc for the last several months of an Axanar/4 years war package of ships and historical mission  (which I cant do yet dammit, I need to actually see Axanar first!)  for use with SFC-III.

I don't know what the real story is... I don't think any of us are going to know until  the matter is settled by the court...and maybe not even then.. CBS is well known for demanding gag orders from judges.       

I find the time line of things very well, interesting...  Star trek Renegades finishes up and is released.  And CBS annouces finally there will be a new Trek series, and then days later.. (really only days later) bring suit against Peters and Axanar Productions.

   I though Renegades was ok.. Not steller by any means, but decent... I felt like I was watching a modern Startrek show.   Not a movie, but a 'sode of an on going series.  Axanar how ever is a different mind set.. Its a stand alone movie.   And if Prelude to Axanar is any indication, of very high quality.

I don't think its about Alex Peters paying him self,  If it is, it can be easily corrected... very easily.. Alex, put the money back.. its not yours!

I'm not a conspiricy nut by any means, but the timing is suspicious.  Have any other fan productions suddenly had CBS poking into what they are doing?  I do think that Axanar is now seen by CBS as a threat.   I'm not sure why.  I can speculate, but information to speculate with is a bit thin
right yet.  What I do know is that  for several years CBS has been hands off on fan  Trek based productions other then your not allowed to make money.    If some folks getting a salary at AP is an issue.  They could have simply threatened suit if it wasn't corrected.    And who knows?  May they did, and maybe Alex Peters got snotty about it when instead he should have back down and caved. (or his knickers are in even worse of a twist because the money he paid him self has all ready been spent.    It depends on what he was paying himself for...  and possibly a bad use of langauge... If he paid him self to recoup out of pocket expenses related to the production of Axanar, that's a legitimate reason, though I do understand that there is typically a limit of how much can be recouped.  Pretty sure Axanar is set up as a 401-c3 not for for profit LLP.  And That means there is a board.. and if Alex got paid, then the board approved it.  How ever for Alex to get paid he s far as I know, is not permitted to sit on the Board.   That's one of those hard and fast rules that you don't break, ever.  Employees can be paid in a 402-c3,  bosses cannot.  Bosses how ever can submit expense reports and have funds dispensed by the 401-c3 board to cover them. 

I am not a lawyer, however I have sat the board several of 401-c3's over the last couple decades.  And in one case closing a 401-c3 down because of malfesence on the part of a previous board member that screwed things up so badly that it killed a well funded non profit (it was mess, and I don't talk about it)

So.. CBS is not a  white knight coming to save the IP from a bad person though.. their motive has always been about the bottom line and their profits. (they have been known to make Ferrengi look good from time to time)

It could be as simple as "Kill Axanar... we don't want to risk having our new show compared to it"  (hey, humans are intelligent creatures, but no one said they were smart!).  We have seen over the years many examples of amazing short sided-ness on the part of the big networks.  Especially when it comes to Science Fiction of any kind.  A more recent example everyone can relate to is FOX networks handling of  Joss Wheadons Firefly. That show was awesome and it was killed before its first season actually ended.  A least he was able to do the Serenity movie which brought a closure to the story line a few years later.  Recall that AC Nielson lied to NBC about the original series ratings (always found it difficult to believe that no one at NBC knew they were being lied to...someone at the NBC colluded.  Likely several someones. Not that NBC was doing that great of a job promoting the series.. Science Fiction scared em.. to Most of em Science Fiction ment monster movies which explains a great deal about what happened with season 3 with its Monster of the week, and inevitable tragic death of some nameless ensign in the opening teaser.

(insert long drawn out sigh)

So my question, and the only one I think that is really important is why CBS is doing this now. And why are they acting against precendents that they them selves have set?  I'm just not buying that CBS is acting in the publics interest.  That's just not something they do. and a law suit about it seems a bit over the top.  I've also seen no indication from any source that CBS made any effort to seek a correction before filing suit with the court. This would tend to be something CBS would release a press report on.  Instead the first thing we the public heard about this was from Alex peters and Axanar Productions, not from CBS.

Suspicious?  When looked at for a whole picture, You bet Your Ass! I am biased toward Axanar Production not being in the wrong, and having possibly erred through inexperience and omission, and making a correctable mistake, and CBS knee jerking on this for reasons having nothing to do with Peters taking pay.   I'm willing to believe other wise, but I feel the burden of proof is going to have to be on CBS, if they are going to act against a fairly long standing precedent that they them selves established.   And the simple fact of the first the public hearing about it was just a few days ago.  And from Alex Peters doesn't speak well for CBS.   If it comes out that they did talk to Axanar Productions and Peters and said "nonono, Hey, we serious about our condidtions, you cannot pay your self, correct this"  And A.P. and Peters did not correct it, that is a different matter entirely.   If that is the case then CBS bringing suit is entirely legitimate, proper, and appropriate.   If Peters acted improperly by taking pay then the courts will deal with it.   At the very least anything he's been paid he will have to give back.   I'm hoping we see some sort of press release from CBS before the week is out giving the networks intentions with this suit.  It'd be nice to see a little damage control here from CBS.

The serving notice given to Peters is a tad short on anything else other then "Your being sued, show up in court and defend your action or face a decision against you"  The specific of the CBS's complaint are not something we know yet... A summons to appear typically does not contain the entirety of the complaint the suit is seeking to correct.   You have to go to court to find that out.  It can be a lengthy process..  The danger to Axanar is CBS requesting an injunction and shutting production down while the matter is in court.  Even while production would be halted, the costs of production continue to accrue, such as space rental for the Axanar production studio space would continue, and set maintainence if the project is to continue.  I can see Alex Peters getting a slight case of stupid and having dug his heels in when he shouldn't have, but Axanar is a whole lot more then Alex Peters now.  It maybe his project, and he may have created it, but he no longer can be said to own it.  To many other people have contributed there time, money and talent at this point.

 
Ah well, nuff typing and fullsome pontificating, we'll see what happens, and I do hope we get to see Axanar eventually.. I gotta mod I wanna make darnit! 


And may I add that I am so freaking glad that such issues with SFB, and SFC were delt with years and years and years ago. (we hope...if CBS has decided its going to go all storm trooper on us they really could kill star trek.)   


Khemaraa Iron Hand says.

P.S. No longer playing Star trek online..after 6 years I've given up on it.   So very sorry I ever promoted it to this community.   Please forgive me for having ever done so.  I'm gonna need a trek based online PvP ship combat game fix again soon, and I don't see any chance of that happening along those lines commercially until STO dies.