[Mithalwen]

One of my sale bargains was a copy of the visual companion to ROTK (99p at Smiths if anyone is interested) and I was interested to note that it was published with the "permission but not approval" of the Tolkien Estate.

This raises all sorts of questions about the legal status of the works especially given that all the chars places and things are TM.ed and that the Publisher I think is the same as the original books. It suggests a policy of not stopping stuff necessarily but not liking it.....

It is an interesting case but I don't necessarily think that a franchised authour would have any more standing in my eyes than well written fanfic / RPG that respected the nature of Middle Earth as created by Tolkien.