Tolkien Estate blocks new Tolkien book

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

(...) Again, from my point of view the possible ethical violation here lies in giving permission and then withdrawing it for no good reason, wasting the authors' time and effort in the process.

The Estate notes that ADC agreed not to publish the letters or paraphrase them, and then did the latter anyway. I'm wondering why anyone was given access to this material in the first place -- mistake on someone's part? Did party A assume something party B had not actually agreed to?

It seems possible that this material was provided as research to generally help with an accurate description of familial relationships -- without however using it in a very specific way, such as publication or close paraphrasing, noting the Estate's statement includes...


'... that were reproduced virtually verbatim.'

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Galin

The Estate notes that ADC agreed not to publish the letters or paraphrase them, and then did the latter anyway.

Sorry, I should have read that more carefully.

Originally Posted by Galin

I'm wondering why anyone was given access to this material in the first place -- mistake on someone's part? Did party A assume something party B had not actually agreed to?

Well, it happens. Or perhaps they adopted a "write now, get permission later" approach since they had little idea at the outset what material they would end up including in the final version anyway. It's not an uncommon shortcut in some fields (don't know about biography), but it can lead to grief.

[Mithalwen]

Only time now to answer the easy point, Galin, the access issue is explained simply by the fact that copyright does not go hand in hand with ownership of the physical object. Copyright unless transferred belongs to the writer (unless they are commissioned or employed). So with a letter which by its nature usually is parted from its writer, the copyright stays with the writer and the manuscript goes to the recipient who is the legal owner of the artefact but has no right to publish the contents. So in this instance Hilary's descendent are the legal owners of the letters and of course may show them to whomsoever they wish. However noone may publish the letters without the consent of the estate. So the estate has no control over access to this material but it does over publication.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Galin

The Estate notes that ADC agreed not to publish the letters or paraphrase them, and then did the latter anyway.

I should note that I'm not sure exactly when ADC agreed to this, but that in any case they appear to have agreed at some point, and yet paraphrased the letters anyway. And so far at least, no one from the publishing company has spoken to this (that I know of).

That said, I don't know that the Estate ever agreed to using these letters in the specific ways that they object to in their statement, thus my...

It seems possible that this material was provided as research to generally help with an accurate description of familial relationships -- without however using it in a very specific way, such as publication or close paraphrasing, noting the Estate's statement includes '... that were reproduced virtually verbatim.'

Ah didn't see your post Mithalwen... thanks for the information.

[Mithalwen]

Galin I think that my cross post will answer that point. The Estate would not have provided access then quixotically withheld permission. Access to the letters was not theirs to grant. If you look at the Trust accounts you will see that some correspondents have returned or bequested their letters from JRRT to the estate but most letters he wrote will have stayed with the recipients as is the normal course of things. Now an interesting question might be if when a letter comes up for sale and it is photographed for sale say on E-bay if copyright is infringed if the contents can be read. NB None of the Downer legal eagles should take that as instruction since I haven't a bean!

Must pop out and then decide if I can persuade a certain terrier to yield his rat

[Galin]

Yes it did Mithalwen, thanks!

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

If you look at the Trust accounts you will see that some correspondents have returned or bequested their letters from JRRT to the estate

For some reason I've thought for most of this discussion that that's what happened with these particular letters, but I'm not sure why, come to think of it.

This is now starting to sound to me like a bit of a storm in a teacup.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

This is now starting to sound to me like a bit of a storm in a teacup.

Well, unless you've spent the last few years researching & writing a book...

Actually, I've been looking into the Estate's attitude a bit more, & I'm still not sure whether this is about privacy or pettiness:

Christopher Tolkien owns all copyrights to his father's works and the Tolkien Estate has an official editorial team that sifts through Tolkien’s paperwork and releases new sets of words from time to time.

Lúthien say she must tread carefully though when it comes to the words they publish and worries about legal issues should she include them in her dictionary because the Tolkien estate are very strict about their use.

The Tolkien estate has taken people to court in the past, most notably author Michael Perry for his book Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings. Wired magazine reported back in 2001 how "Elfconners", the name given to those involved with Tolkien's unpublished writings, had acted as "informal copyright police" and attempted to prevent publications by other linguistic scholars.http://www.reghardware.com/2010/11/1...eks/page6.html

Still, the Elvish scene is riven by all-too-human controversy. In 1999, Fauskanger received an email from an associate that included scans of two Quenya texts by J.R.R. Tolkien: unpublished translations of the Lord's Prayer and "Ave Maria." After writing a dense analysis of the texts, which are some of the longest Quenya writings by Tolkien known to exist, Fauskanger sent his 60-page manuscript to Christopher Tolkien for feedback. He also asked if he could publish a facsimile of Tolkien's original handwritten texts along with his own work. In return he got a curt letter from Cathleen Blackburn, the lawyer for the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate Limited, which continues to manage Tolkien's literary properties. Blackburn told Fauskanger that he could not legally disseminate his analysis, let alone a facsimile. Old flame wars on the TolkLang list were rekindled: Can you copyright an invented language or just particular texts in that language? Fauskanger believes he was well within the boundaries of fair use, but the Norwegian has no desire to alienate the estate. He just wants to publish an exceptionally obscure text in a tiny journal for no money.#The issue is compounded by the fact that a tremendous amount of Tolkien's linguistic material remains unpublished and in the hands of a fan cabal. In the early 1990s, the estate made thousands of pages of Tolkien's notes available to a handpicked crew of linguists known loosely as the Elfconners. The group includes a NASA scientist named Carl Hostetter and a Berkeley record store clerk named Arden Smith. After promising not to share the material with others, the Elfconners were supposed to prepare and publish at least a portion of these writings. But a full decade after the Elfconners first received copies from Christopher Tolkien, the clique has published only a few early lexicons in their increasingly irregular journals - a situation that recalls nothing so much as the Dead Sea Scrolls controversy. To make matters worse, the Elfconners have behaved as informal copyright police, pressuring other linguists not to publish their dictionaries and grammars. "It's against all principles of scholarship and decency for one scholar to try to use the law to prevent another scholar from publishing," says David Salo, who has yet to publish his 366-page analysis of Sindarin for fear of an estate suit. Unfortunately, all the Elfconners approached by Wired turned down requests for interviews. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9...ic=&topic_set=

As has been pointed out previously this isn't the first time the Estate has prevented publication of a book which has gotten a very long way towards publication before suddenly deciding they don;t want it to go ahead (Michael Drout was about to publish Tolkien's translation of Beowulf originally working with the Estate's permission - which was then withdrawn.)

I'm not saying the Estate is behaving any better or worse than other copyright holders who regularly use copyright in a heavy-handed way, either to protect their privacy (a -mis-use of the spirit if not the letter of that law) or just to assert their rights over the material - even when it would make absolutely zero difference to them if the material was made available. Probably they aren't. But that doesn't make it right, it only makes it legal.

[Mnemosyne]

Since I'm currently investigating issues surrounding access to those Tolkien manuscripts that currently exist in libraries (which by necessity also deal with copyright and the huge documentary editing project that is Christopher Tolkien's life), this whole kerfluffle is particularly timely. Because I'm still in the early stages of research, suffice it to say that I find the differences between Marquette University's access policy and the Bodleian's (which has been the Estate's repository of choice, although some additional LotR-based materials have made their way to Marquette) fascinating.

I just wanted to butt in to say that Fauskanger's analysis of the Our Father and Hail Mary did make their way up on his site and can be downloaded into a nice, hefty, 67-page Word file. His introductory remarks to the Quenya course also contain arguments about why you can't copyright a language, which I first read entirely ignorant of their context. But if they were in fact C&D'd I doubt they'd be up there.

And since the publication of the Wired article, Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon have come out with quite a few more issues, both new grammatical information and vocabulary--including Tolkien's sexy wordlist (turns out the Elves have a word for "hermaphrodite"). But they still hold the monopoly and will continue to publish at their own pace.

This is not at all, of course, to negate davem's point--namely, that this isn't the first time this has happened, and that the Estate's copyright policies have led to a lot of angst on the part of honest scholars. I just wanted to update some of the information in the article.

I hope to return to this thread when I have more information, if I'm not daunted away by it all first.

[garm]

Personally speaking, I am daunted - I happen to know a bit about the issues raised here, including details of the Perry book. This is not private knowledge, by the way. Anyone who's spent some time reading about Tolkien can glean this info.

Reports such as those pointd to by davem tend to be one-sided. I could comment - I've been meaning to, but I'm put off by the idea of being on the receiving end of a rant. This is a pity - I know I've not been active here very much, but davem's 'righteous indignation' as he may see it has put me off the Barrowdowns for good.

I'm sorry I've had to say this - there have been some enlightening posts by others here, who do try and hold a balance, but the overall effect of this thread seems sour (to me) and I fear that any facts I could bring to the discussion would be lost in a torrent of, well, opinion based to a large extent on one-sided internet chatter.

I don't have the energy for that sort of grief. I'm off. Thanks for listening.

garm

ps - purely as a matter of fact, the Perry book was published.

[PrinceOfTheHalflings]

Originally Posted by davem

As has been pointed out previously this isn't the first time the Estate has prevented publication of a book which has gotten a very long way towards publication before suddenly deciding they don;t want it to go ahead

I don't think they "suddenly decided" anything.

[Nerwen]

[Note: replying to a deleted post]

Originally Posted by davem

I'm not saying the Estate is behaving any better or worse than other copyright holders who regularly use copyright in a heavy-handed way, either to protect their privacy (a -mis-use of the spirit if not the letter of that law) or just to assert their rights over the material - even when it would make absolutely zero difference to them if the material was made available. Probably they aren't. But that doesn't make it right, it only makes it legal.

And I've said, they're quite possibly being petty and obstructive. But that doesn't make it immoral, just annoying. (I don't suppose there's much point stating again where I stand on the privacy issue.) As for the Wired article– well, again, I have no idea what the rights and wrongs of that business were and are; however from its general tone and use of loaded words like "clique" and "cabal" I think it might be as well to take it with a grain of salt.