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My mentioning of CT aproved film tie-in book covers was based on a short blurb I had read before the films ever came out. It wan not even an article but one of those small single paragraph items that make up a much larger column or article. It could have been in a trade publication such as Publishers Weekly. It simply stated that the Estate was against film covers but has relented after agreeing to a slightly higher than normal royalty payment.
I do know for a hard fact that starting in the 1980's the Estate took a much more "hands on" approach to all visualizing of Middle-earth related illustration. It used to be that the yearly calendars were pretty much in the hands of the Ballantines - Ian and Betty - but then they had to submit both the artist and their work for approval. Perhaps the infamous Brothers Gentile joke painting had something to do with this.
Ted Nasmith has publicly stated that all of his SIL illustrations (fort he most recent edition) had to be approved by the Estate and many of his best were rejected because the Estate did not want any "monsters" depicted and wanted to play down that side of the story.
So the Estate is much more involved with things like covers and calendar illustrations than some may believe.
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