Doe is short for John or Jane Doe, placeholder names often used in legal documents indicating individuals yet to be named. The legal complaint filed by CBS and Paramount Pictures names the defendants as follows:

AXANAR PRODUCTIONS, INC., a California corporation;
ALEC PETERS, an individual, and
DOES 1–20 , Defendants. ¹⁾ [emphasis added]

The plaintiffs may not know which specific 20 individuals took part in Axanar’s alleged copyright infringement, but they know what types of personnel were likely to be involved. Revealing their names is a likely part of the pre-trial activity ordered by the judge.

To that end, the legal complaint does identify these persons in this way:

“The Doe Defendants include, among others, those persons who aided in the writing of the scripts for the Axanar Works or producing or directing the films, and those persons who designed or caused to be designed the infringing sets, costumes, props and other elements in the Axanar Works that infringe copyrighted Star Trek elements.” ²⁾ [emphasis added]

According to {!IMDb:the Internet Movie Database}}, unless noted otherwise, these are the people who filled the positions described in the lawsuit:

Please note: Just because a person appears on this chart does not mean they will be named as a defendant, nor are the jobs listed necessarily the only positions to be named in the suit.

The title and writing credits for Axanar have changed over time, according to IMDb.

Writer Dave Galanter, a Star Trek author at Pocket Books, asked Axanar to remove his story editor credit on IMDb, saying his involvement with the script was only peripheral:

I didn’t get to edit any story and neither asked for nor wanted any credit for giving [Alec Peters] comments and notes on his first draft as he wrote it. I never even saw anything more than that very first draft and since [Axanar director] Rob Burnett says the current script has no resemblance to the draft that was leaked (which I have seen and recognize as the draft into which I made comments) the listing of me as Story Editor is erroneous.

Peters was trying to “thank me” for giving him some comments early on, but had this been a professional endeavor of mine, the script would have had to have been licensed and approved by CBS or Paramount, and I’d have needed to be paid. The input I gave was the same I give to beginning writers at writing workshops I take part in for free.¹⁷⁾ [emphasis added]

Peters had previously described Galanter’s involvement as more substantial:

I have been working on “Axanar” now for almost two years, slowly writing the script with John Muenchrath¹⁸⁾ and now Dave Galanter. … The script is now almost done. Dave Galanter and I have been working it for 6 months now.¹⁹⁾ [emphasis added]

The suit alleges that each of the Does is “responsible in some manner for the occurrences alleged herein and Plaintiffs’ injuries.”²⁰⁾

It further claims all the defendants “acted in concert … and all of the acts alleged herein to have been done by each defendant were authorized, approved, and/or ratified by each of the other defendants.”²¹⁾

See also: Other attorneys

‬While the named defendants, Alec Peters and‭ Axanar Productions, have secured free legal representation, potential conflicts of interest mean it’s not likely‭ those attorneys can also represent the Does.

That means those additional defendants, once named, are ‬personally and financially liable for some measure of damages in the lawsuit ‬and open for the plaintiffs to co-opt to testify against Axanar‭.

It’s impossible to know this for sure until CBS and Paramount amend their legal complaint. If you assume the plaintiffs are suing in order to make an example of how Axanar went too far, they’ll only go as far as they need to make that point.

For every new defendant they add to the case, CBS and Paramount will have to prove with a preponderance of evidence that they participated in:

• Writing scripts
• Produced or directed the films
• Design or oversight of design of:
  • Sets
  • Costumes
  • Props
  • Other elements in works derived from the Star Trek copyright. This may include merchandise Axanar sells in its Donor Store.

The plaintiffs will also need to demonstrate that each co-defendant is responsible in some way for the allegations in the legal complaint and harm to CBS and/or Paramount, and that they acted “in concert,” with all each new defendants’ alleged acts “authorized, approved, and/or ratified by each of the other defendants.”²²⁾

Such activities seem to point to higher-level creative and management activities. For example, the person who designed a Star Trek-based prop like a phaser or communicator is much more likely to be proven to infringe in the activities described above than a tradesperson who fabricated the phaser or communicator.

It’s also possible that being named a defendant, therefore financially liable for some measure of the damages sought in the lawsuit, may give the plaintiffs bargaining power to elicit testimony against Axanar and Peters in exchange for being dropped from the case.

People who wouldn’t be in a position to, in the normal course of their duties, make a knowing determination of the copyright status of their work are unlikely to be named co-defendants. CBS and Paramount are likely to focus on obvious people doing the kind of design work high enough up in the Axanar hierarchy where a reasonable person (say, a juror) would have to ask, “How could you not know you were copying Star Trek?”

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