Just over a year ago, back in December 2015 roughly the time when the first Star Trek Beyond trailer was released, CBS and Paramount began to sue the fan company Axanar Productions, the team behind Prelude to Axanar and just raised millions of dollars for the feature film Axanar.

This lawsuit wasn't just aimed at the production team, but mainly at Alec Peters himself, for infringing into multiple areas of Star Trek, which is rather unsurprising as the fan production was very plainly Star Trek. However, this has sparked a large amount of online discussion and anger towards CBS and Paramount over their decision to sure Axanar Productions, mainly because what they were producing was a film that everyone desperately wanted to see.

Thankfully, this ordeal is now over. Yesterday, CBS, Paramount, Axanar Productions and Alec Peters came to a settlement that has brought the lawsuit to its conclusion, just before the start of the trial on 31st January. This settlement was officially announced by Axanar on their fan group and the new website Fan Film Factor (link provided at the bottom), further details were also released through email, which I surprisingly did not receive even though I am a backer - I shall be chasing that up! With that aside, the key details to note are:

- Prelude to Axanar can still be shown add free on YouTube, so anyone and everyone can still watch it, but it cannot be shown at any Star Trek related events or conventions, though it can be shown at film festivals and other such events.
- Actors Gary Graham, Richard Hatch, JG Hertzler and Kate Vernon can be used within the newly re-formated Axanar production, so long as they are not compensated for their services.
- The Axanar film will now be shown as two fifteen-minute segments on YouTube, following along the lines of the fan film guidelines that CBS established in June 2016, so not as the feature film we were all expecting and hoping for.
- Any further Star Trek productions Axanar Productions makes will have to obide to the rules laid out for everyone else.
- No further public crowd funding campaigns may be conducted, but private donations are perfectly acceptable.

Whilst obviously these agreements aren't ideal, they are better than the alternative, which I am certainly happy about. As I have donated in excess of £150 to this production overall, I am very happy to see it continue and still be set within the Star Trek universe. I am also thankful that they can now continue with production of the fan film, so I cannot wait to see it. If you haven't seen Prelude to Axanar, a link is provided just below, I would wholeheartedly recommend it as it is an amazing watch!

So what are your thoughts on the settlement? Are you happy with the terms? Or would you have preferred it to go on as a non-Trek production?

Axanar Productions - Settlement More Details: http://fanfilmfactor.com/2017/01/20/...xanar-lawsuit/

Prelude to Axanar:


WRITTEN & EDITED BY Adster94 - adam.moorey@ufplanets.com