Christopher Tolkien at it again....

[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.