Christopher Tolkien at it again....

[davem]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

In this case the Estate threatened severe action. It appears both parties' lawyers met, settled, and reached a compromise to add a disclaimer. I doubt either party got exactly what they wanted, but they were both happy enough with the settlement to no longer pursue court action. Anyway, that's the nature of lawsuits, you fire out however hard you can and then *hopefully* reach a suitable agreement by all parties. There's no reason to stand up and proclaim any great victory or that the Estate will (and should) stop trying to be such lawsuit-happy bandersnatches.

Not exactly - what you're talking about is a situation where someone is charged & taken to court on criminal charges. This was a civil case where the Estate threatened to take Hillard to if he didn't withdraw his book & destroy all copies (I can't recall whether they asked for damages too). In this case he counter filed & effectively said 'Come & have a go, if you think you're hard enough'. At which point the Estate responded 'Er.....OK, tell you what ..just change the cover font a bit & put a line on the back cover saying the book isn't authorised, &, er, we'll say no more about it...'

Seems like the Estate expected the same response from Hillard as they got from the publishers of Wheelbarrows at Dawn & the owners of the children's camp - that he would just back down & do as he was told.

Simply put, - 1)I demand you pay me a million dollars or I'll drag you through the courts & bring down the whole weight of the Justice system on your head, 2) You refuse & tell me in no uncertain terms that you ain't paying a penny 3) We get together & have a 'discussion' & come to an agreement that you'll hand over $5.

Now, you could argue that we've come to a 'compromise' & there are no 'winners', but I don't know how many people would be convinced by that. Most of the reports I've read are of the opinion that if it had come to court the Estate would have lost as copyright simply doesn't cover the person & character of a dead individual, only their works. Its also highly questionable whether the Estate would have won the Camp Rivendell case, & I reckon that a decent lawyer could have won the case for Wheelbarrows at Dawn too. And perhaps if the Tolkien family don't agree with the actions Manches are taking they should look for new lawyers to represent them.