Film Rights to First & Second Age

[Sauron the White]

from WCH

So, a prima facie declaration that The Silmarillion was a separate work with an independent existence- and moreover, one which everyone even dimly aware of Tolkien in the late 60s knew was supposed to be nearing completion.

I remember The Shadow used to proclaim "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows." I guess he had nothing on you. By the way, when you are not looking into the future expecting your contractual partners to screw you, could you define "to be nearing completion"? By your own timeline there was a good ten years between when everybody was suppose to know these things and when the SIL was published. But it makes no difference. None. Zip. Nada.

from Nerwen

I just want to know whether, in your mind, we have or have not disposed of the copyright question? Can we get a definite answer from you on this one?

Mr. Hicklin is attempting to soften or mitigate his previous firm statement that there is no difference - NONE - between what I called a copyright and what I called a legal registered copyright. When I quoted the link where it said that one can gain additional damages from statuatory law, that one can gain repayment attorneys fees, and one can use the filing as evidence - and I take that to mean they save tons of work producing other proof in court - those are definite differences that go beyond the limited word PROCEDURAL. The link that you provided clearly spells out some additional benefits one can gain from taking the steps and spending the money to get a registered copyright. And I believe we have disposed of the copyright question and it has no impact on my main point either way.

I never ever ever claimed that the Tolkien Estate or CT did not have the right to have the SIL published as a book. Never.

The value of the rights held by the legal film rights holders were severly diminished by actions taken by CT with the publication of the SIL.

from WCH -

In any event, the synopsis in the Appendices does not purport to be 'The Silmarillion.' By its own terms,

So what?
It does list a whole bunch of First Age historical events which it says are taken from The Silmarillion. Where else in 1969 could you pick up a published book by JRRT and find that information? And it all was sold to UA in film rights. LOTR is much more than the story that ends with Sam going back announcing his return safe and sound. Its also the Appendicies.

UA wanted the Lord of the Rings. They didn't care about The Silmarillion.

How do you "know" for certain what UA wanted?
What I know for a fact that does not depend on some mystical powers or abstract reasoning is this: UA bought the films rights to LOTR from JRRT and gained the film rights to everything in that book including the Appendicies. They gained the usage of a whole list of events from the First Age that JRRT says are part of The Silmarillion. They gained the right to use those in a film.

It is foolish and silly to speculate and argue about what somebody wanted and what you may know about it. Lets look at the facts. The facts say what happened.

In 1969 there existed no bloody work titled the SILMARILLION outside of stacks of unsorted and sometimes unreadable papers strewn around various locations where JRRT worked. It may have existed in his mind. Fragments may have existed on scraps of paper. But THE SILMARILLION as an identifiable work that UA or anyone else (beyond some Tolkien groupies) would know about did not exist to be bought, stolen or anything else.

You make it sound like the first page of Appendix A was the purpose of UA's purchase!

It matters not one jot or tittle what UA 's purpose or motive was in their purchase. I could not care less if they were more concerned about page 7, 353, 869 or 1012. It matters not. They bought the whole darned thing lock stock and barrel. They bought film rights to LOTR from cover to cover and that includes the whole contents including the Appendicies.

I have tried to answer all your questions. Would you please be good enough to answer this for me that I have posed before?

Do you know of any other situation in publishing or in film rights where someone made a legal purchase of film rights and then, years later, some of those same contents were repackaged and sold in a longer format thus weakening the usability and exercise of rights of the original sale?

Because I know of not one situation like that. I spent several hours researching this to find out if there was precedent for it and cannot find one case where anyone did that.