AXANAR Draws Lawsuit from CBS & Paramount

Axanar, the heavily crowdfunded fan film based in the Star Trek universe, has now been served with a lawsuit from CBS and Paramount Pictures.

Alec Peters and Axanar Productions have been named as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges copyright infringement on the part of the Axanar fan film. The project raised$638,471 on Kickstarter and another $565,531 on Indiegogo, making it the most ambitious fan production in the history of the franchise. The involvement of several “name” actors — Gary Graham, Tony Todd, J.G. Hertzler, and Richard Hatch, to name a few — has also made for a more visible profile.

Earlier this year, Peters had shared the news that he’d met with representatives from CBS during the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, and as we discussed on our H2O podcast, and according to TheWrap, network reps would only tell him that he couldn’t make money off the project. Peters later posted on Facebook that people at both CBS and Paramount were aware of the project and were “very concerned” about it, although the suits had refrained from advising Peters about what the project could or could not do, as it might negatively impact their rights ownership.

Now, however, it appears CBS and Paramount have grown concerned enough to take action. According to the complaint:

The Axanar Works infringe Plaintiffs’ works by using innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes. The Axanar Works are intended to be professional quality productions that, by Defendants’ own admission, unabashedly take Parmount’s and CBS’s intellectual property and aim to “look and feel like a true Star Trek movie.”

The complaint further contends that because of the professional level of the production, it can be considered an unauthorized derivative work. Besides Peters and Axanar Productions, the lawsuit includes additional crew who were involved in the production of Axanar.

So far, there’s not been any official response from the production staff, other than this statement from the project’s Facebook page:

CBS SUES AXANAR!

Well, it appears CBS knows that Axanar is exactly what fans want, because they are trying to shut us down! While Team Axanar will have a response shortly, know this DOES NOT deter us from what we are doing! Delivering to fans exactly what you want.

Goliath, meet David (and his thousands of screaming fans)!

Fans of Axanar have been throwing support behind the project, calling for boycotts of the official Star Trek productions, and demonstrating a keen lack of understanding how copyright ownership works.