Film Rights to First & Second Age

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Perhaps, Sauron, it would help if you clarified what remedy for this percieved violation of Zaentz' rights is appropriate.

I may be wrong, but I think you'll suggest that Zaentz or his licensee have the right to make use of anything and everything in the Middle-earth canon, because they somehow aquired rights in it all simply by buying rights to the Appendices.

The answer is the selling of the rights by JRRT and the eventual publishing of much of that same material by CT years later. Both give the holders a legal claim

No, they don't. UA purchased the rights to make films based on what appears between the covers of LR. The existence of the Silmarillion at that time, or its hypothetical publication by JRRT himself before or after the UA deal, or its eventual publication by CRT, do not alter those rights one jot or tittle.