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Originally Posted by garm
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Yes, what they ignore is the harm that is done when a perfectly harmless book, produced by a couple of dedicated Tolkien fans & scholars, is stopped from being published - at best it makes them look overly litigious & at worst like they've got something to hide - or at lest that they don't want to be made public. The 'copyright' allocation issue they bring up is a bit of a red herring to my mind & should have been overlooked or forgiven - to use it as ammunition against them to stop publication of WaD is a bit off - even if technically legal.
The Mirkwood thing is frankly silly (as is the book, tbh) & the absolutely worst move they could have made as they've given the guy massive publicity & they will probably lose as the fact that the cover illustration is a 'bit like' a previous Tolkien book & that the name Tolkien is prominent on the cover is likely to be laughed out of court - did the lawyers take a look at the fantasy section in their local Waterstones? "Comparable to TOLKIEN at his best" etc, etc. on the covers of numerous fantasy novels. All they've done is make themselves look like they will drag people through the courts at the drop of a hat & lose public sympathy next time the really do have a case.
They have behaved stupidly over these issues & would have been better just letting them go - the point is none of these authors (or the author of the Book of Jonah volume) behaved in any way maliciously. Yes, they should have just let the books go ahead, because frankly whatever outlandish story comes out now about the Estate attempting to ban this or that is going to be given more credence than it will deserve. I read the badge story & thought (based on the things they
have done recently) 'Well, they're at it again....' I wonder, did anyone - even among their staunchest supporters - doubt the story was true? And if they didn't & just accepted the story as true doesn't that say a lot about the effect of lawyering up so eagerly?