A number of days after the federal judge appeared to open the door to Star Trek: Axanar's financial records, CBS Studios Inc. and Paramount Pictures, who sued Axanar and it's head Alec Peters in December 2015, came out with a statement that the case was settled.

CBS Studios Inc. and Paramount Pictures, who sued Axanar Productions and its principal Alec Peters in December 2015 for copyright infringement, issued a joint statement on Friday, January 20th 2017, to GeekNation saying the lawsuit was now over and that Axanar was admitting it “crossed boundaries acceptable to CBS and Paramount relating to copyright law.”

"Axanar and Mr. Peters have agreed to make substantial changes to Axanar to resolve this litigation, and have also assured the copyright holders that any future Star Trek fan-films produced by Axanar or Mr. Peters will be in accordance with the ‘Guidelines for Fan-Films’ distributed by CBS and Paramount in June 2016."


Alec PetersCBS Studios Inc. and Paramount Pictures sued Axanar and it's head Alec Peters after Axanar had raised some 1.4 million to produce a short called Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar, but also produce a feature film called Star Trek: Axanar. The studios accused Axanar and Peters of using the money to seed a commercial studio outside Los Angeles, paying himself and people close to him salaries and covering some personal expenses, all of which breach the guidelines CBS and Paradox released in June of 2016.

The guidelines CBS published assured fans that they would probably not take legal action if they were breached by something.
Those guidelines included limiting films to just 15 minutes, capping crowdfunding at $50,000, and not including cast and crew who had previously worked on Star Trek television series or movies.

The vice-president of development in CBS, John Van Critters, later said that the guidelines were simply just that. Guidelines. (like the Prime Directive in Star Trek), and CBS/Paradox would likely not take legal action, but if you were to breach them, you would take the risk of legal action.

CBS and Paramount did, however, stop short of taking a harder line on fan-films, similar to other media companies and major intellectual property they own. Any fan-film made outside of copyright’s “fair use” could be subject to lawsuits and damages. The guidelines were, however, designed so there would be a small, but vibrant community that would continue to celebrate Trek in their own way, instead of the “arms race” that had hit some fan-films in recent years over who could raise the most money, or get the biggest Star Trek names involved.

"Paramount and CBS continue to be big believers in fan-fiction and fan creativity. They encourage amateur filmmakers to showcase their passion for Star Trek. Paramount and CBS will not object to, or take legal action against, Star Trek fan productions that are non-professional, amateur and otherwise meet the guidelines."

The federal judge in the case, R. Gary Klausner, had recently ruled the Axanar projects were objectively substantially similar to intellectual property owned by Star Trek. He left only the question of if they were subjectively similar to a jury, who also would then find for damages if Axanar had lost the case. Klausner also ruled Axanar could not claim fair use, as it did not meet the criteria as set by laws and the courts.

How Axanar will continue from here is unclear. Axanar still has possession of the studio outside of Los Angeles, there is little left of the 1.4 million dollars. Through the guidelines, however, Axanar could still gather up to $100.000 for two 15 minutes episodes.

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WRITTEN BY Nesta - EDITED BY Eaglesg