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Oh it was a general point - though of course as Literary executor he is of course highly significant. There is a net wide tendancy to rather cast him as a pantomime villain and blame him for everything.
Yes there have been authorised stuff - I wasn't aware of the Chronology (RL has prevented me keeping up) but whether this matter crossed a line it is hard to tell from the outside. It is fair to say that the works mentioned are fairly concentrated on his work rather than private life - I suppose the exception would be the Tolkien Family Album. However on the whole they haven't cashed in as they might have done (wouldn't we all want to read Christopher's autobiography?). However I think this would have been a fairly niche market I don't think I have paid so much for a book myself.. Ł25 I think is my record for The road goes ever on and Artist and Illustrator. |
I think the interesting point here is that the Family (who effectively are the Estate) have released a great deal of 'personal' information in the years since Tolkien died - Carpenter's Bio, the Letters, the Chronology & Garth's bio of Tolkien's WWI service &, of course, the Family Album - all 'authorised'. We even had Christopher. Priscilla & Father John taking part in the documentary JRRT: A Film Portrait discussing their father's work & reminiscing about their childhoods. Given that they have agreed to the relase of so much 'personal information it would be difficult for them to argue that they have a 'right' to keep information about their father 'private'. If they had never released any personal info about him & adopted the approach they did with the movies, then they would have a stronger position. As it is, it looks like they are attempting to control what is revealed about him - in effect to 'create' a JRR Tolkien in their own image.
Using copyright in this kind of way begs a larger question - they may have a legal right to letters & documents created by JRRT, but do they 'own the man, the 'artist'? This, to me, is a vital question - does the Estate own JRR Tolkien to the extent that they have a right to stop information about him being made public? As far as I'm aware, facts aren't copyright, or copyrightable. One could argue that quoting, or even paraphrasing, a letter from JRRT telling Hilary that he went into Birmingham for tea one Sunday in September 1935 was protected by copyright, but the FACT that JRRT went into Birmingham for tea one Sunday in September 1935 is not copyrightable. |
Hmm then maybe it is a question of exploitation of the copyrighted material? Intellectual property may not be tangible but it doesn't mean it is a free for all and that makes the fact that the family has used it irrelevant. If you run a bed and breakfast are you supposed to tolerate squatters? If I gave someone a bag of my secret recipe fudge as a gift I would be pretty narked if they copied it and marketed it for their own benefit.
Catherine Zeta Jones' Hello v Okay law suit established rights to privacy I think even when in that case photo rights had been sold. |
Well, as I stated earlier - we may just be dealing with the Estate putting its foot down over letters that are the equivalent of 'Dear Hilary, went into Brum for a cuppa & forgot me brolly - Doh!, Yours Ronald'. But if its the alternative, & its facts about Tolkien they are attempting to prevent getting out then I think at the very least that morally questionable, even if its legally shiny. Either say nothing, or tell the truth, warts & all.
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So, it does appear like we'll have a while yet to wait. |
playing devil's advocate a little..
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Also there is a distinction between private and secret. If you have read Douglas Adams as well as Tolkien you will know that people telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth ends up with learning more than anyone really wants to know about frogs ;). Speaking for myself I have few scandalous secrets but there are plenty of things I wouldn't want broadcast to the nation. Privacy may be a disappearing concept in an era when people seem happy to bleat the most intimate details of their lives into their mobile phones on trains, but the older Tolkiens are certainly of a generation that did not believe in washing linen in public even if not very dirty. I don't see that saying something places a moral obligation to tell everything and that not doing so make you dishonest de facto. Children may have a more relaxed view than grand children even as regards what is private to the family and may feel they want to keep it that way for their lifetimes at least. I don't think that is an immoral choice if it were the case. One thing is fairly certain that whatever their private feeling, the Tolkiens as a family of scholars are unlikely to have destroyed anything no matter how personal any "facts" are unlikely to disappear if they are held only in these letter - which frankly seems unlikely in the light of the Estate's statement . Seems to be much more "a boundary dispute" and a matter of principle. |
Since we have little idea what this was really about, it's hard to know the rights and wrongs of the case. It seems very harsh, though, that the authors were, for whatever reason, forced to withdraw their book at the eleventh hour. From Angela Gardner's own statement, it looks like they went to considerable lengths to accommodate the estate, and it still wasn't enough. It's a bitter and frustrating thing to have one's hard work end up being for nothing.
However, leaving aside the question of whether the Estate has acted like a bully in this case, I'd also like to say that I agree with Mithalwen on the general principle that there's nothing unethical per se in withholding information of that kind. I mean, there are times when you could argue that it is in the public interest for some dead person's private journal (or whatever) to be made public, and that this must override the wishes and rights of that person's heirs. But I think that only applies in certain, very extreme cases. Mind you, I say this from the perspective of someone who is herself intensely private– or perhaps "secretive" would be a better word. Or perhaps even "paranoid", if you're feeling really uncharitable.;) I mean, I'd hate to think of people dissecting my personal life after I was dead. *shudders* I understand that not everyone feels that way, but anyway, I also find that the petty day-to-day details of a writer's or artist's life (including much of the "dirty laundry") tend to be both fairly uninteresting in themselves, and very limited in the amount of light they cast on his or her work. But then, maybe I'm just jaded from having known too many artists... Quote:
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"morally questionable"....
I want to clarify:
What we're talking about here is the use/abuse of copyright. Let's go back a bit Quote:
Copyright was never intended to be used as cheap & easy means of protecting one's privacy - there are other laws intended for that purpose. Of course, one problem is that one cannot libel the dead, so to expand Morthoron's comment about J.R.R. parading about in women's clothing in a foxhole in France and being referred to as Jane Tolkien by his comrades one could actually state that he did without fear of prosecution -whether its true or not, because JRRT is dead. On the other hand one could not state that Christopher Tolkien got up to similar shenanigans in the RAF, because he's not dead. One could not, either, state that JRRT paraded about in women's clothing at home & traumatised his children by these antics, because his children are still alive & even though the statement concerns JRRT principally, it also makes reference to them. Therefore, while the Estate's action in this case is certainly 'legal' in its use of copyright law I still say its against the spirit of the law of copyright, & is effectively doing the opposite of what Copyright is intended to do, by actually preventing a book being published, even though there is not a single suggestion from the Estate that the material in question was false in any way. Preventing facts being made public, is not, & never was, the purpose of Copyright. |
The odd thing is with how much misinformation runs amok over the internet and other biographies, you would think the Estate would be behind two quality authors who went through the grind of research and effort to get the "facts" straight. Instead of clinging to copyright laws to stop a book that actually attempts to put out reliable information.
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Davem, thanks for the clarification; however, I don't think we're quite approaching this from the same angle. I'm aware that copyright laws were never intended to block information, and I generally think it's very bad indeed when they're used for that purpose, as has been all too often the case recently (especially with their misbegotten internet offspring, the DMCA). However, I think what we're talking about is a grey area. There are considerations other than either profit or defamation– I mean, I think it reasonable if a deceased person's family doesn't want some private material published simply because it happens to be embarrassing in a sub-defamatory way, or indeed just because it is private. Again, I know this wasn't the original purpose of copyright law. What I'm saying is that I don't think it's wrong to use a law for another purpose than what it was meant for, if that purpose is not in itself wrong. All the above, though, relates to your own hypothesis that the Estate's real motivation is to suppress some juicy bit of scandal... which remains just an hypothesis, anyway. Having said all that, I do consider that giving people permission to use material, then withdrawing that permission at a point where it makes everything they've done pointless, is indeed "morally questionable". If that's what Tolkien Estate did, then they were in the wrong. |
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Actually, no, it must be something beyond the range of silly but a bit embarrassing, because I doubt the authors & publishers of this book would have any issue leaving out material like that. Let's remember they have spent years researching & writing a scholarly work about Tolkien's brother & brought it right to the point of publication & clearly feel that the story cannot be told without the inclusion of this material. The Estate are making out this is just 20-odd pages out of 300 & its no big deal to remove it. The authors, after all their hard work feel that without it the book is missing an element so vital that there is no point publishing it. If I step back from an attitude of 'Oh, its the TOLKIEN Estate so there can't possibly be anything bad in what they're doing here' & look at this objectively, I see very big. very rich organisation preventing the publication of a serious work of scholarship because it contains information said very big, very rich organisation does not want in the public domain. That may just be material which is a bit embarrassing rather than deeply scandalous, but stopping this book going ahead for that reason is a bit of a scandal in itself (IMHO) |
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Still, Davem if society collapses into a bloody dictatorship as a result of people not being automatically able to read each others' diaries without permission, you can always blame me.:cool: Quote:
Once again, I'm not even trying to defend Tolkien Estate here. I'm certainly not taking the attitude that 'Oh, its the TOLKIEN Estate so there can't possibly be anything bad in what they're doing here'. I've already said it sounds like they may well be being pointlessly obstructive. I just think it's also possible to look at things "objectively" without making a foray into what, if you'll forgive me for saying this, is starting to look rather like borderline conspiracy-theory territory. (More in the phrasing than anything else, though– cf the passage I bolded.) And anyway, as I've said several times already, I do not believe that a moral duty exists to make any and all material public. It just depends. Again, from my point of view the possible ethical violation here lies in giving permission and then withdrawing it for no good reason, wasting the authors' time and effort in the process. |
I noticed that one of the authors has posted a comment here:
http://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/...ode=0&start=10 In particular, they say: "We wanted to include various letters in the book, some from members of Ronald's family, or failing that to give some account of their contents to illustrate how close and loving the family was and what they talked to each other about. This has been the sticking point that it has not been possible to overcome thus far. I should also point out that the Estate have not been demanding money for permissions or anything like that." AND "The publication of the book had to be cancelled as there was not time to make further changes to the book and get it printed and bound in time for the launch. What happens in the future I really don’t know. Only time will tell." So the book may still be published in the future. The problem the Estate has is the publication of the letters - either in their full form or in paraphrased form. Some have suggested that it is not a violation of copyright to paraphrase material - but that depends. For example, it is not a violation of copyright to do a 1000 word paraphrase of The Lord Of The Rings, but it would definitely violate copyright to do a 1000 page paraphrase of The Lord Of The Rings, because that would simply be an obvious rewrite of the book, which most definitely would not be allowed! |
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It seems possible that this material was provided as research to generally help with an accurate description of familial relationships -- without however using it in a very specific way, such as publication or close paraphrasing, noting the Estate's statement includes... '... that were reproduced virtually verbatim.' |
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Only time now to answer the easy point, Galin, the access issue is explained simply by the fact that copyright does not go hand in hand with ownership of the physical object. Copyright unless transferred belongs to the writer (unless they are commissioned or employed). So with a letter which by its nature usually is parted from its writer, the copyright stays with the writer and the manuscript goes to the recipient who is the legal owner of the artefact but has no right to publish the contents. So in this instance Hilary's descendent are the legal owners of the letters and of course may show them to whomsoever they wish. However noone may publish the letters without the consent of the estate. So the estate has no control over access to this material but it does over publication.
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That said, I don't know that the Estate ever agreed to using these letters in the specific ways that they object to in their statement, thus my... Quote:
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Galin I think that my cross post will answer that point. The Estate would not have provided access then quixotically withheld permission. Access to the letters was not theirs to grant. If you look at the Trust accounts you will see that some correspondents have returned or bequested their letters from JRRT to the estate but most letters he wrote will have stayed with the recipients as is the normal course of things. Now an interesting question might be if when a letter comes up for sale and it is photographed for sale say on E-bay if copyright is infringed if the contents can be read. NB None of the Downer legal eagles should take that as instruction since I haven't a bean!
Must pop out and then decide if I can persuade a certain terrier to yield his rat ;) |
Yes it did Mithalwen, thanks!
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This is now starting to sound to me like a bit of a storm in a teacup.:rolleyes: |
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Actually, I've been looking into the Estate's attitude a bit more, & I'm still not sure whether this is about privacy or pettiness: Quote:
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I'm not saying the Estate is behaving any better or worse than other copyright holders who regularly use copyright in a heavy-handed way, either to protect their privacy (a -mis-use of the spirit if not the letter of that law) or just to assert their rights over the material - even when it would make absolutely zero difference to them if the material was made available. Probably they aren't. But that doesn't make it right, it only makes it legal. |
Since I'm currently investigating issues surrounding access to those Tolkien manuscripts that currently exist in libraries (which by necessity also deal with copyright and the huge documentary editing project that is Christopher Tolkien's life), this whole kerfluffle is particularly timely. Because I'm still in the early stages of research, suffice it to say that I find the differences between Marquette University's access policy and the Bodleian's (which has been the Estate's repository of choice, although some additional LotR-based materials have made their way to Marquette) fascinating.
I just wanted to butt in to say that Fauskanger's analysis of the Our Father and Hail Mary did make their way up on his site and can be downloaded into a nice, hefty, 67-page Word file. His introductory remarks to the Quenya course also contain arguments about why you can't copyright a language, which I first read entirely ignorant of their context. But if they were in fact C&D'd I doubt they'd be up there. And since the publication of the Wired article, Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon have come out with quite a few more issues, both new grammatical information and vocabulary--including Tolkien's sexy wordlist (turns out the Elves have a word for "hermaphrodite"). But they still hold the monopoly and will continue to publish at their own pace. This is not at all, of course, to negate davem's point--namely, that this isn't the first time this has happened, and that the Estate's copyright policies have led to a lot of angst on the part of honest scholars. I just wanted to update some of the information in the article. I hope to return to this thread when I have more information, if I'm not daunted away by it all first. |
Personally speaking, I am daunted - I happen to know a bit about the issues raised here, including details of the Perry book. This is not private knowledge, by the way. Anyone who's spent some time reading about Tolkien can glean this info.
Reports such as those pointd to by davem tend to be one-sided. I could comment - I've been meaning to, but I'm put off by the idea of being on the receiving end of a rant. This is a pity - I know I've not been active here very much, but davem's 'righteous indignation' as he may see it has put me off the Barrowdowns for good. I'm sorry I've had to say this - there have been some enlightening posts by others here, who do try and hold a balance, but the overall effect of this thread seems sour (to me) and I fear that any facts I could bring to the discussion would be lost in a torrent of, well, opinion based to a large extent on one-sided internet chatter. I don't have the energy for that sort of grief. I'm off. Thanks for listening. garm ps - purely as a matter of fact, the Perry book was published. |
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Hi Folks!
Real life is kind of busy today, so I can't participate in the discussion, which like all of our discussions here shows how many Downers can dance on the spot of a period. :D I don't think anyone has written anything worthy of being upset over. I've been impressed with how Nerwen and davem have parried and thrust without bringing out flamethrowers or ranting. (And I speak as someone who has knocked heads with davem in the past.) Tolkien may be near and dear to all our hearts, but so also is intellectual debate. Thanks to everyone for developing an interesting discussion on copyright issues. |
Good to see some people can distinguish between an arugment (albeit forcefully expressed perhaps :p) & a 'rant'. I hope I've explained my stance, & we still have had no further 'official' clarification as to what the issue is. I am annoyed that yet again we have a big, wealthy organisation mis-using Copyright law to prevent information being published - if they'd resorted to privacy laws then I'd have more respect for them. And I think its clear by now that this is about the material contained in the letters as opposed to the copyrighted letters themselves - The Estate's statement (via Calcifer) is
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Now, if Garm has more information as to what's happening here I'd be more than happy to hear it, & if it really explains what is behind all this I'd be grateful - my arguments here have been based on the information provided by both parties in the dispute. |
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The seemingly cavalier attitude of the Estate regarding the removal of a "only" 20 pages of material is rather disconcerting. Depending on which are removed, even a single page could be disastrous for a publication. I, myself, could remove 20 pages from a book -- like The Fellowship of the Ring or The Return of the King, for instance -- and totally alter the book's intentions. Therefore, to say "only 20 pages out of a total of some 300" seems deleterious to me, and reason enough to completely stall the publication of a book -- which may well have been the intention all along (that is, if I were thinking like a cynical person). |
I wonder if there's any chance Calcifer could clarify something in the 'official' statement:
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But then in the following paragraph they state they required 20 pages of material to be removed - ie, not re-written, or the material to be presented in a different way, but for it not to exist in the book at all. So, in the statement they seem to be saying first the issue was the form the material was presented in, & then to immediately contradict themselves & state that it wasn't the actually the form it was presented in but the material itself that was the issue... Seems that the issue is actually not the way it was produced at all, whether that was to be verbatim, virtually verbatim, in paraphrase, or in precis, but that it was to be even referred to in any way at all. If that is the case its hardly surprising that authors & publisher felt unable to proceed with the book. Key point around which this whole issue seems to revolve is in the words: Quote:
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As Calcifer's statement from the Estate says, Quote:
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That's not how I read it :) Quote:
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Now I could be wrong, but that's my interpretation, and I don't see that one need necessarily conclude that there is any contradiction here. And even if I'm wrong about that much, I still see no necessary contradiction here: other possible negotiations of how these letters might or might not be used need not even be contextual in this part of the statement -- the Estate need only be referring to existing problematic 'ways' that were presented to them... two ways that would have to be removed in order to publish. |
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I've already pointed out that nothing I heard or saw in any way was the least bit dodgy. It is possible that the Family simply does not want any kind of reference to the children's and grandchildren's lives as they believe that has no merit in any literary questions about Tolkien's writing. What I see is a very sad situation in which one member of the family invited the authors to undertake a particular kind of study using the material they owned. And that study has been repeatedly, despite significant changes and edits, rejected by the Family Estate, which owns copyright but not the material itself. So I see two authors who have spent considerable time now with no likelihood of renumeration. I see scholars and fans of Tolkien losing access to information about his life, no matter how banal or trivial or personal. And I see a Family Estate that lacks unanimity. That must be very hurtful. I had always wondered about the sibling relationship, how the elder was able to attend university and achieve a university career while the younger did not. In a class-ridden society, those occupational differences were substantial. (Yet in spite of that difference, the two families maintained close contact.) It is a sociological question to me, not a family question. Tolkien getting into Oxford strikes me as a story very similar to that of Patrick Bronte getting into Cambridge a hundred years earlier. I'm trained as a scholar and I know countless stories of situations like this. And having heard from the authors, the publisher and the Estate, that's all I'm going to say about this very unfortunate event. |
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That's what Bethberry is (partially) quoting above. People are free to delete posts of course, but davem's deletion changes the context of Bethberry's response. And I might as well add that I doubt even Fauskanger and Salo would consider the Wired article not to be one sided. |
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I would like to add that I don't really like to try and play at one of the 'thread police' and feel a bit petty for doing so.
On the other hand the deletion seemed a tad unfair to Bethberry and I hadn't realized you (davem) had deleted other material as well. My apologies for jumping the gun davem. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt in any case, that you would note the deletion yourself. |
How amusing that a thread regarding deletions should result in deletions. Now, we have an incomplete thread as well as an incomplete book. ;)
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davem, I regret very much that you deleted all your posts here. (There is an edit button, you know. ;) )
Your point of view--as with everyone's-- is one which needs to be heard. Now there are many quotes from your posts interlaced with other posters' comments without the full context and that is a shame. (Note, I'm not speaking about my post which refers to the invented conversation; because I have email notifications of all of this thread, I could simply edit my post to include it, but I didn't wish to copy the material when I wrote the post and still do not wish to do so now. I objected to the invented conversation not because it was "bothersome" subject matter but because you had already played that card.) It is my understanding that on our forum software deleted posts can still be read or accessed by the moderators and administrators who can reverse the deletions. (If I'm wrong about this I'm sure I will be told.) Please reconsider your decision and ask one of our moderators to restore at least the majority of your posts. And for the record, I don't consider one-sided articles necessarily to be beyond the pale as they can easily be criticised, refuted, and dismissed. |
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