DESPITE DENYING his role as an Axanar surrogate, one blogger has continued to promote the beleaguered production’s interests. This two-part analysis examines Jonathan Lane’s role in the efforts to get CBS and Paramount to change their recently introduced fan film guidelines, and to further Axanar’s public narrative about the copyright infringement lawsuit it’s defending against Star Trek’s owners.

AxaMonitor published an article on August 26, “Axanar Supporters’ Report Critiques Fan Film Guidelines” that sparked many comments on the Facebook page for the Project Small Access group that served as the so-called focus group for the report.

An email we received via our Feedback form summed up the comments:

The report’s author, Jonathan Lane, had encouraged Small Access members to contact me to express their disappointment that the article unfairly implied the report was affiliated with Axanar, the production led by Alec Peters, when in fact its conclusions were drawn from surveys of the Small Access group, some number of which claim they are not supporters of Axanar specifically but of fan films generally, and that the report’s intent was to call for changes in CBS' fan production guidelines that would benefit all fan films.

Fair enough.

Except that’s not what the AxaMonitor article states. Instead it describes the Small Access group like this:

Project Small Access is a group organized by leading Axanar supporters to protest CBS’ fan films guidelines by calling for a partial boycott of its new television series, Star Trek: Discovery, which will be broadcast on CBS’ online streaming service, CBS All Access. The boycott’s name is, of course, a play on the name of the network service.

The project was created by blogger Jonathan Lane on Axanar Productions’ fan film blog, “Fan Film Friday.” The group uses its Project Small Access Facebook group page to conduct its business.

Everything in that description is factual. In fact, the article devotes an entire section, “What is Project Small Access?” describing the group and its objectives, none of which are directly affiliated with Axanar. It’s the leadership of the Small Access that casts doubt on the credibility of the report, and how it’s likely to be received by the studio executives targeted by the report.

Wayward apostrophe

A sidebar to the article, “What is its Connection to Axanar” does raise questions about the distinction between the group members’ proclaimed (and, I believe, sincere) independence from Axanar and the deep connections between its leaders and Axanar Productions. For example:

• Mike Bawden, one of Small Access’ administrators, is Axanar’s public relations director.
• Lane, who established the group along with Bawden, regularly writes columns on the Axanar website.
• Dave Heagney Jr., whose blog, like Lane’s, has been a chosen venue for Peters.
• And where is the downloadable PDF of the fan film report hosted? On Axanar’s servers.

Lane’s own blog, Fan Film Factor, is often the venue in which Axanar’s talking points are aired. Example: When Axanar filed a counterclaim against CBS and Paramount, its attorney, Erin Ranahan, answered questions only on Lane's blog.

But what difference does all this make with respect to the fan film report Lane authored?

Irrespective of whether there actually is an Axanar agenda behind the fan film report, such documented close connections cannot help but undermine the credibility of the report’s conclusions, especially with regard to the guidelines that would benefit a potential Axanar production.

with whom Axanar has an adversarial relationship, as does Project Small Access by virtue of their stated intent to harm CBS profits by reducing the number of subscriptions to its All Access streaming service.