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Where did I say anything about the holder of film rights deserving a veto over publication of THE SIL or anything else?
There is a huge legal difference between a copyright and a legally registered copyright which attaches protections of law and introduces certain legal remedies and penalties. Huge difference.
The facts are undeniable in that JRRT sold the rights to every single word contained in LOTR and HOBBIT in 1969. That includes the Appendicies. Then, later after his death, his heirs exercise their legal rights and cause to be published SIL. Fine. Nobody is disputing their right to do that.
But the problem is that the publication of SIL complicates material contained in it that is already owned for other purposes by UA.
The writer who has sold more books to screen than anyone else today is Stephen King. King does not complicate the arrangement by including the synopsis to his future books as part of his current ones. He does not sell the film rights to THE SHINING with inclusion of Appendicies which outline and describe the content and characters of his next several books.
JRRT did not do this. He sold the film rights to LOTR and H with all its inclusion of other material, Appendicies included. Then his heirs, took the foundation of that material, used additional writings by JRRT, and caused to be published a book length SILMARALLION.
Please answer me this question. If you are UA - or anyone else who holds those rights - what are you now suppose to do with them? You thought you owned something but now find out that it has been materially changed and altered makign it difficult for you to exercise the rights you paid for and were granted.
Again, and this has been ignored, here are your three options and results of exercising those options:
1- they can go ahead and include things from the Appendicies in a film and invent all the dialogue, place designs, character designs, and transitional scenes from scratch.
2- they can utilize the fuller descriptions of these things as found in the published SIL without actually filming the book as a movie in much the same way that Jackson used afew things outside of the actual LOTR.
3- they can film something like SIL using anything they want to use claiming that they owned the story first.
If they do any of these things, here is what can happen with each of those actions.
option 1 - critics here and elsewhere - the Print Purist community or anyone who can read and compare versions, - rip on that approach saying over and over again for years and years and years that the films are not authentic, made too much up out of their own heads, were creatures of invention, are NOT the Middle-Earth of JRRT, show no respect for the actual world of JRRT and Middle-earth and are, in short, a bunch of crap.
option 2 - risk being sued by the Estate
option 3 - risk a stonger chance of lawsuit by the Estate
Please address this very real problem.
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