Christopher Tolkien at it again....

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by davem

Still, thank goodness a non profit organisation has been stopped from encouraging kids to play at Elves & Hobbits.

Look, I'm not defending the Estate here because I see no harm in the use of "Rivendell" in this case. But really, davem, you act as if the Estate has a lock on Trademark Infringement legal actions. This sort of thing goes on all the time.

I cannot credit the Estate with perfect judgement 100% of the time, but at least I think their intentions are on the pure side. That's more than one can say for a lot of other trademark holders who threaten litigation.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I cannot credit the Estate with perfect judgement 100% of the time, but at least I think their intentions are on the pure side.

I side with Zil here. It is ridicuuos how many things were stopped because of the Estate, but I see their side too. Their "protection of Tolkien's words" is quite understandable, because quite a lot of people see LOTR the way PJ made it, and maybe even worse. (The Estate should thank PJ for that.)

If I would say "hobbit" to a random person on the street, I bet that the image s/he will have in mind is an idiotic hairy drunken midget (unless they've really read the books). That is not what Tolkien means hobbits to be! This applies to just about everything. It's not really the Estate's fault if it is over-paranoid.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I cannot credit the Estate with perfect judgement 100% of the time, but at least I think their intentions are on the pure side. That's more than one can say for a lot of other trademark holders who threaten litigation.

OK - but.

First, this looks petty ('Taking candy from a baby' springs to mind) - & its exactly this kind of thing that makes people believe the stories about the Estate threatening legal action against people selling badges which mention 'Tolkien'. Second, as I pointed out, its a bit disingenuous to state that the Estate is rarely involved in court action, because its clearly not backwards at coming forwards when it comes to threatening legal action - & it always seems to be individuals who are a lot less wealthy & therefore unable to go to court against the Estate who get threatened.

The main issue for me here is the group on the receiving end of this letter - a children's camp. Now, it would seem to me that something like this would be likely to lead kids to discover & come to love Tolkien's world - & that this kind of action would be likely to engender the opposite feeling. Tolkien, we know, loved children (though one gets the feeling that CT wishes his father had written his works in a mix of Elvish & Anglo-Saxon, where it could be the preserve of academics). This is a camp where children would play at being Hobbits, Elves & Dwarves with their friends. I think Tolkien would have thought it a wonderful thing, but it looks like his family would rather protect their 'imaginary property' than let the children play. I have to say that the current behaviour of the Estate is souring Tolkien's creation for me.

I think anyone who has read my posts on this forum over the years will know how much Tolkien's work means to me, & how much time I've 'spent' in Middle-earth. I have shelves ful of books by & about Tolkien. I met my partner through this forum & our little boy is only here because of our shared love of Tolkien - we wouldn't have met otherwise. If anyone thinks I'm just on some petty minded vendetta against the Tolkien Estate - sorry, you're wrong. I do think we all owe a debt to Christopher Tolkien, but I also think that the recent behaviour of the Estate & its lawyers is unpleasant.

The kind of thing that this camp was doing was a perfect counterbalance to the simplistic movies & increasingly violent & dumb video games that Middle-earth is becoming in the popular imagination.

[Formendacil]

Since I hail from that part of the world... and since my extended family includes 4 or 5 cousins who've actually been to Camp Rivendell, I am finding myself inclined to agree with Davem at this point... at least regarding the Estate. I'm not really sure one can say that Christopher Tolkien is personally responsible... I mean, for one thing, how would he have found out about the camp? I really can't picture him trolling the Internet (and if so, Hookbill should watch out).

It's rather interesting to consider what Tolkien's own attitude in The Letters is to the borrowing of names:

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 258 To Rayner Unwin

I wish that 'Copyright' could protect names, as well as extracts. It is a form of invention that I take a great deal of trouble over, and pleasure in; and really it is quite as difficult (often more so) as, say, lines of verse. I must say I was piqued by the 'christening' of that monstrous 'hydrofoil' Shadowfax – without so much as 'by your leave' – to which several correspondents drew my attention (some with indignation). I am getting used to Rivendells, Loriens, Imladris etc. as house-names – though maybe they are more frequent than the letters which say 'by your leave'.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Since I hail from that part of the world... and since my extended family includes 4 or 5 cousins who've actually been to Camp Rivendell, I am finding myself inclined to agree with Davem at this point... at least regarding the Estate. I'm not really sure one can say that Christopher Tolkien is personally responsible... I mean, for one thing, how would he have found out about the camp? I really can't picture him trolling the Internet (and if so, Hookbill should watch out).

I'm inclined to agree with Formendacil here. It's a bit much to go after a little children's camp that's probably a non-profit organisation. However, such a target suggests to me that this is most likely lawyer's trawling. I suspect that the legal beagles have simply been given carte blanche to undertake a defense of Tolkien's copyright. In which case, one wonders if and when they will take to teh interwebs and insist that the Barrow Downs cease and desist. We knew we were wraiths, but pirates too?

It's rather interesting to consider what Tolkien's own attitude in The Letters is to the borrowing of names:

Names, like each word of Tolkien's invented language, would of course be very special to Tolkien, given how much his writing began with his philological explorations. Yet he himself took up "Mirkwood" from old lore and not a few dwarven names from Scandinavian literature.

Tolkien's work is spreading into cultural consciousness and how differentiate that from greedy attempts to cash in on the Tolkien name?

[davem]

When people love something they want to make it part of their lives - whether that's kids playing at being at Hogwarts, or being Elves or Hobbits with their friends, or adults naming their house Rivendell or Bag End, or their pets Sam or Bilbo - or their children (Terry Pratchett wrote of girls being named Galadriel or Arwen beck in the 60's.)

It happens - though it seems the Estate would prefer children's active participation in the world of Middle-earth to be limited to sitting in front of a screen & hacking up Orcs via their PS3, rather than being out in the countryside with their friends.

I'm inclined not to excuse the Estate & place all the blame on the lawyers for this one - if you let your dog run loose & it savages an innocent person then you are responsible - if you claim you didn't know what Rover was doing then you would rightly be asked 'Why not?' - & I wouldn't be surprised to hear an announcement in the next few years about a 'Middle-earth World' in Orlando, Florida (they all seem to be built there for some reason.

I'm afraid that once a story enters into the public consciousness the writer loses a certain amount of control - & when lawyers get involved, threatening to punish people for expressing their love of a particular story which has moved them & brought them joy, then something is very wrong. Plus - as I quoted a few posts back:

Extending control over the identity of important people to their estates after death is, I think, to mistake how culture and art work and to elevate property rights to an importance that does us very little good. The identities of famous people as varied as Einstein, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe become part of our culture’s language. That cultural meaning then becomes part of the language of our cultural conversations, and as a part of that language it then has meaning that can be used in the sorts of compressed and symbolic ways that culture and art thrive on. To remove the identities of dead people from this language in the absence of payment for their use would substantially damage our culture.

& that applies even more to stories- which also "become part of the language of our cultural conversations, and as a part of that language it then has meaning that can be used in the sorts of compressed and symbolic ways that culture and art thrive on." And therefore to 'remove the stories from this language in the absence of payment for their use would substantially damage our culture' infinitely more.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I'm inclined not to excuse the Estate & place all the blame on the lawyers for this one - if you let your dog run loose & it savages an innocent person then you are responsible - if you claim you didn't know what Rover was doing then you would rightly be asked 'Why not?' - & I wouldn't be surprised to hear an announcement in the next few years about a 'Middle-earth World' in Orlando, Florida (they all seem to be built there for some reason.

Ah, when lawyers and lapdogs breathe their last. The analogy is incorrect, though, as lawyers are limited to bark and not bite. Yet I doubt we'd ever agree on that.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Ah, when lawyers and lapdogs breathe their last. The analogy is incorrect, though, as lawyers are limited to bark and not bite. Yet I doubt we'd ever agree on that.

Well, either the Estate know what their employees are doing & approve of it, in which case the fault is theirs, or they have no idea what their lawyers are doing & are just giving the carte blanche to threaten legal action, in which case the fault is theirs...

Interesting responses from some here (not yourself, btw) - when its something that can be interpreted as being the fault of the other side ("the authors of these books must have known they were in the wrong"," they must have been intending to publish something that would have adversely affected the family", etc) then the Estate knew all about it & were just defending their rights, but when its something that can't be interpreted as being the fault of the other side (threat to drag the organisers of a children's summer camp through the courts) then 'most probably' the Estate knew nothing about it & its all down to over-eager lawyers.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by davem

& that applies even more to stories- which also "become part of the language of our cultural conversations, and as a part of that language it then has meaning that can be used in the sorts of compressed and symbolic ways that culture and art thrive on." And therefore to 'remove the stories from this language in the absence of payment for their use would substantially damage our culture' infinitely more.

Speaking of language, one thing that concerns me is that, eventually the estate will decide the languages and grammars Tolkein created are themselves part of the estates property, and prohibit thier use without sanction (i.e. trying to learn how to speak Quenya or Sindarin, or write or translate into it, will become itself a prosecutable/suable act.) They might also start going after anyone who uses any of the written forms. I know for a fact that there are several Japanese animes that have used Tolkein's runes at one time or another (Yes Tolkien did not create runes, but if I recall Tolkinian Dwarvish includes some runes not found in actual Norse, and I've seen some of those runes used in anime.) Also since (as far as anyone knows) Tolkien created the world "orc" they may start going after all of the roleplaying games that use that word for a race. In short, I'm worried that this is just the opening salvo of an attempt by the estate to ultimately gain control over all fantasy that they can.

[Galadriel55]

What will they ban next? Will the public be prohibited from reading LOTR because Tolkien wrote it?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by davem

I think anyone who has read my posts on this forum over the years will know how much Tolkien's work means to me, & how much time I've 'spent' in Middle-earth. I have shelves ful of books by & about Tolkien. I met my partner through this forum & our little boy is only here because of our shared love of Tolkien - we wouldn't have met otherwise. If anyone thinks I'm just on some petty minded vendetta against the Tolkien Estate - sorry, you're wrong. I do think we all owe a debt to Christopher Tolkien, but I also think that the recent behaviour of the Estate & its lawyers is unpleasant.

First, I don't recall questioning your appreciation of the books. I would not presume to do so, even if I saw reason for it, which I do not.

Second, I've already said I agree that the reaction to the children's camp was, to the extent of my limited knowledge of the situation, in my judgement unwarranted.

Here's where we diverge, though, apparently. Things like the children's camp story earn an eye-roll from me, maybe a head-shake. That's the end of it. The Estate's actions don't affect my enjoyment of anything Tolkien created. If Peter Jackson's ham-fisted treatment of LOTR, with head-scratching mis-characterizations of Elrond, Arwen, and most infuriatingly, Faramir, could not sour the works for me, that isn't going to be accomplished by the sometime knee-jerk reactions from a few old men at the Estate, especially when I don't see any intentional malice behind it all; just questionable judgement.

Originally Posted by davem

The kind of thing that this camp was doing was a perfect counterbalance to the simplistic movies & increasingly violent & dumb video games that Middle-earth is becoming in the popular imagination.

Perhaps it's things like those "violent and dumb video games" that have led to the hypersensitivity of the Estate, and they're now unable to see the sheep among the goats.

It seems we have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding how seriously matters such as the ones you introduce here should be taken. I believe I've said all I can really say about this, so I'm respectfully retiring from this thread.

Cheers.