[Galin]

Originally Posted by davem

(...) 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...

That's not how I read it

The book in question was presented by ADC as a biography of J R R Tolkien's brother Hilary. However, the publication included numerous personal letters from J R R Tolkien to his brother and from other family members that were reproduced virtually verbatim.

As I read it, this sums up the end result of what ADC did: the publishers reproduced the letters virtually verbatim by paraphrasing them closely.

The copyright in these private, unpublished letters belongs to the Tolkien Estate. As the guardian of these rights and of the privacy of the Tolkien family, both of which it takes great care to protect, the Estate quite properly declined permission for the letters to be reproduced in this way.

'In this way' as in reproduced virtually verbatim, or 'paraphrased' (but can include the actual letters obviously). What about the sequence?

However, the Estate made clear to ADC that it had no issue with the publication of the book providing the material in question - affecting only 20 pages out of a total of some 300 - was removed.

This arguably refers to the actual letters, because...

Although ADC's response was to agree to this, what it then did in practice was to paraphrase the letters, something that had been made clear from the outset would not resolve the issue.

... ADC agreed to remove something -- the paraphrasing? that doesn't seem right because what it then did was to paraphrase the letters.

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.