Christopher Tolkien at it again....

[Galadriel55]

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

[davem]

The Copyright notice in the books states that it is prohibited to reproduce, store or transmit in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the publishers.

Any copyright holder could prevent public reading of their work if they wanted. Again, its interesting to read in Carpenter's biography & elsewhere of Tolkien's 'inspirations' - we all know about The Kalevala, The Eddas, Beowulf & The Mabinogion, etc, but he was also 'inspired' by more contemporary works thoughout his life - from Andrew Lang's Fairy books, William Morris' works & Wyke-Smith's Marvellous Land of Snergs http://www.tolkiencollector.com/snergs.htm - read this piece because I think its important to see how much Tolkien drew on the stories he & his children grew up with.

However,while Tolkien was 'inspired' by the works of earlier writers, those who follow him are 'ripping him off'. Copyright is certainly being pushed by a number of holders, to be extended both in time & in what is actually covered. What cases like these do is not simply stop the 'offenders' (the writers of Hilary's bio & Hillard as well as those who run camps like this one) but they also attempt to scare others out of doing the same thing - or even risking becoming a target. And its always small groups or organisations who get targeted by large copyright holders in order to set an 'example'.

This is certainly not something that the Tolkien Estate is alone in doing, & its not the worst, but it does seem to be getting worse. If control of the Estate at some point in the future falls into the hands of individuals who do care only about exploiting Tolkien's works for money then we could find it becomes less & less tolerant of any use of Tolkien's work that they don't benefit from. If they set up an official Tolkien Forum, with either membership fees, or which earns a lot from advertising they may decide that sites like this one infringe their copyright & send out a cease & desist letter - & I doubt the Barrow Wight would have enough cash to fight them in court over whether the Downs constitutes 'fair use' (& different countries have different definitions of 'fair use' - actually it doesn't legally exist in the UK as far as I'm aware).

[davem]

Well, you've probably all seen this already via TORn

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr...dispute-184053 "JRR Tolkien Estate Settles Dispute Over Novel Featuring Tolkien As Character "

After the Tolkien estate learned of the book, it sent Hilliard a cease-and-desist letter, threatening a lawsuit if he didn't cease publishing the novel and destroy all copies.
According to the settlement, the book will now be released with a modified reference to Tolkien on the cover and will also include the disclaimer, "This is a work of fiction which is neither endorsed nor connected with The JRR Tolkien Estate or its publisher."
As a result of the settlement, Hilliard is dismissing his lawsuit in Texas.
"The settlement terms are confidential, but the agreement adequately addresses the Estate's concerns about Mr. Hillard's book," says Aaron Moss, attorney for the Tolkien Estate.

So the Estate have gone from

" threatening a lawsuit if he didn't cease publishing the novel and destroy all copies."

to

"a modified reference to Tolkien on the cover and will also include the disclaimer, "This is a work of fiction which is neither endorsed nor connected with The JRR Tolkien Estate or its publisher."

Which looks to me very like the Estate backing down after Hillard called their bluff. Clearly they never had a leg to stand on legally but expected Hillard to back down in the face of their threats. Maybe others who have been on the receiving end of their bullying should stand up to them as well?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Well, you've probably all seen this already via TORn

No, as a matter of fact, on the new Middle-earth social network.

Maybe others who have been on the receiving end of their bullying should stand up to them as well?

Every legal case depends on the details, where, despite sayings to the contrary, God may not always be, as I've never thought of him as a barrister/solicitor but more on the judicial end of things.

Seriously, each case may depend on a different matter. This one was so clearly a situation of a legitimate historical fiction that obviously the Estate didn't have much to stand on. Also, it probably helped matters considerably that the case was set to be heard in North America, which has a substantially different legal milieu, and where the author would be quite a long arm's away from British retribution.

[davem]

Shocking to me that the Estate have cowed others with the threat of legal action - I think its fairly obvious that if the children's camp had also called the Estate's bluff they would have lost there too. The authors/publisher of the Hilary Tolkien bio would maybe find they too had a stronger position than they think.

Actually, the most shocking thing here is that the Estate must have known they were in the wrong & were just attempting to bully this author into destroying his book. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the Tolkien Estate are not alone in behaving in this way. The Estate tried to get a book destroyed by threatening an author with legal action & if he hadn't been brave enough to stand up to them that book would have been destroyed even though it didn't infringe in any way.

Its not a 'great' book - its a fun, lightweight piece, with some interesting ideas scattered throughout it - but this guy wrote it, stayed within the law, & was threatened with being dragged through the courts unless he destroyed it.

[Mnemosyne]

So, does that mean I can publish my fan fiction in a for-profit venue? I mean, given what I've heard of this novel (and now that it's squeaked out clean, I should probably read it) it starts with the premise that Middle-earth, its races, and its history are all real, but doesn't use any of Tolkien's actual characters, except for the fictional Tolkien who translated the whole... I'll have to ditch a couple of side characters and side scenes, but otherwise I'm only stealing the races and the setting.

Or do I have to insert myself discovering the material evidence for the stories I've already written to make it squeak by the Estate?

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

So, does that mean I can publish my fan fiction in a for-profit venue? I mean, given what I've heard of this novel (and now that it's squeaked out clean, I should probably read it) it starts with the premise that Middle-earth, its races, and its history are all real, but doesn't use any of Tolkien's actual characters, except for the fictional Tolkien who translated the whole... I'll have to ditch a couple of side characters and side scenes, but otherwise I'm only stealing the races and the setting.

Or do I have to insert myself discovering the material evidence for the stories I've already written to make it squeak by the Estate?

I think– though I haven't read the book in question, so I'm not sure – that actually setting something in Middle-earth itself would be going a bit further than Stephen Hilliard did. Anyway, as this case never went to court we don't know who would've won– so I hardly think it sets a precedent.

On that note, Davem, it's not clear to me Hilliard "called the Estates's bluff" or "stood up to them" at all. Surely if that had been so, either they'd have gone on to sue each other as threatened, or the Estate would have backed off altogether? After all, if Hilliard and his publishers had wanted to put these disclaimers on the book, wouldn't they have done so to begin with?