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.
|