Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
My first thoughts on reading this were that it was a copyright matter - any letters/docs/personal photos from JRRT are copyright JRRT & his Estate. The Estate may simply being a bit precious. What I find curious is that the author has worked with Hilary Tolkien's family on this book, & from what I know of Angela Gardener via the Tolkien Society & buying books from Daeron's Books, I know it would have been an entirely respectful work, so I'm not sure what the Estate's objection could be, other than 'This our stuff & you can't use it!'
However, reading between the lines of the publisher's statement:
it seems a bit more complex - the issue seems to be not so much about the use of the photos/pix/letters referred to in the blurb, but about the book's making 'proper reference to his close relationship with his brother'.
Which seems a bit much - stopping a book going ahead because it touched on the relationship between Tolkien & his brother from Hilary's perspective. I don't know if any more info will be released on the exact issues but I don't think we'll ever see the book in print now - after the Estate's recent victory over New Line they have a VERY lot of money for lawyers.....
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It might be that the book can't make 'proper reference to his close relationship with his brother' without using letters and other personal documents.
What the Estate can't do is simply block bios of members of the Tolkien family - it doesn't matter how many fancy lawyers you have if your case has no legal substance - sure, the Estate can issue injunctions against books they don't like, but there are loads of Tolkien related books being published every year, so it's not like they block everything.
I'm puzzling over the argument that the book was a "misrepresentation". Normally, if the book represents "false claims" or "false advertising" (eg, a book about JRRT masquerading as being about Hilary) then that would be a matter for the UK
Advertising Standards Authority and also perhaps the
Office of Fair Trading. There is certainly no obvious basis for a civil lawsuit -
unless the authors of the book signed a contract with the Estate regarding the use of certain materials owned by the Estate.
The Estate may be complaining that they were deceived as to the nature of the book when they (the Estate) agreed to the use of those materials. In fact, that's the only explanation that makes sense to me.