omg the nerd is real ITT

A federal judge in Los Angeles has decided that the copyright lawsuit over the pending Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar should move forward. For now, a civil trial is set to begin on January 31, 2017.

Earlier this week, US District Judge Robert G. Klausner rejected the motion for summary judgment filed by the plaintiffs, Paramount and CBS. He also rejected a motion filed by the defendants, Axanar Productions. The judge was unpersuaded by Axanar Productions’ arguments that it was entitled to the fair use exception.

The thing is, though, that they brought the heavy-handedness upon themselves. They had a number of conversations with CBS and Paramount, and they were told what every other fan film ever had been told: "Don't try to make money off this, and we'll look the other way." But instead they had to sell Axanar-branded coffee and other shit (with one of the coffee blends having a goddamn Klingon D-7 on the bag), go on screeds on Facebook and Twitter ranting that they were the true heirs to the mantle of Star Trek and they were going to take it away from JJ the Usurper, use the donor money to build an entire goddamn film studio, and -- in some of the most damning evidence -- Christian Gossett produced email chains in which Peters said the original goal for Axanar was to have CBS / Paramount buy it out from him.
Other things they did:

- Alec Peters has been taking money out of donor funds to cover personal expenses for himself, his girlfriend and Robert Meyer Burnett -- rent / utilities, car bills, cell phone bills, etc. He did so by having the bank issue debit cards linked to the Axanar bank account. Tens of thousands of dollars' worth of Peters' restaurant meals were found to be paid for with donor funds

- Peters met with both Netflix and Amazon to talk about them acquiring Axanar and having it run as a series on the platform -- brazenly admitting that he wanted to make cash off Star Trek without a license

- Axanar Productions' internal marketing plan has several money-making efforts listed in it, making it clear that Axanar Studios was always intended as a profit center

- For years, Alec Peters was sending emails to both CBS and Paramount, trying to get other fan film productions shut down, saying they were infringing on copyright. Peters denied that claim, and then CBS produced a whole bunch of emails from him

- Alec Peters attempted to convince Dave Galanter, an author under exclusive contract to CBS to write Star Trek books, to write a series of Axanar books under a pseudonym

Don't forget that they still continue to take donor money, and it wasn't until like six months ago that they stopped promoting Tony Todd as being part of the film (when Todd actually left like a year and a half ago, over not being paid -- and he had also been led to believe that Axanar was an official CBS production).

Those are all kind of rather significant no-nos. The Axanar folks brought this entirely upon themselves.

wow fuck these guys.

and suddenly, e-mail evidence of dickishness mattered

fagtoid.

the so-called “First Lady of Star Trek” (Majel Barrett, best known for voicing Starfleet computers) recorded an entire library of phonetic sounds, allowing her voice to be used in future products outside of Star Trek and, quite possibly, as the computer voice in Star Trek: Discovery. Which means that she could live on as the voice of Starfleet possibly for all time.