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LoTR Lawsuit Threatens Hobbit Production
eyrieowl writes "J.R.R.'s heirs are suing for royalties on the LoTR films. Apparently they haven't gotten any money due to some creative accounting. Peter Jackson ought to understand...he had to sue the studio for much the same reason.
As for The Hobbit? FTFA: 'Tolkien's family and a British charity they head, the Tolkien Trust, seek more than $220 million in compensation...[and]...the option to terminate further rights to the author's work.'"
...on the one hand, the studios are greedy schmucks out to screw everyone all around.
OTOH, the next of kin should not be in the picture here. These are works
that should be in the public domain now for a variety of reasons. The
worthless relatives should not have the ability to interfere with any of
the greedy schmucks. The fact that a charity is involved is just a nice
red herring to confuse things.
Imagine if the Bard's estate could screw around with people like this.
That's the direction we are headed.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Looks like the deal was done maybe 40 years ago:
Under the contract, New Line was to pay a percentage of all gross receipts, after deducting 2.6 times the production costs, plus advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount, according to Eskenazi. (from TFA)
Nowadays it seems as though even the average slashdotter knows you take a portion of gross, because nothing involving MPAA or RIAA related-companies ever clears a 'net profit' (wink wink).
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed. I hope the movies were profitable enough that they can still clear some money for the family, but 2.6 times production costs of those movies is a hell of a lot, and 'advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount'- especially if that amount was a 1969 dollar amount, and not a percent-well, they could really end up with a contractually dictated 'nothing.'
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Unfortunately, you aren't a Hobbit, and this kind of stuff is so common it has it's own name and Wikipedia entry. Look up Hollywood Accounting. It's pretty simple and extremely sleazy. Remember that profits are simply income minus expenses. If you make $100,000 but it costs you $40,000 in expenses, you have $60,000 in profits.
Most movie earnings are reported in gross sales. Profits are slim, on purpose.
Let's say you are a Hollywood producer.
1) Make a deal with somebody to "share the profits" by using their idea.
2) Produce the movie by hiring sub-contractor "companies" that happen to have you has the CEO. These "companies" are very expensive, and payed based on gross sales.
3) Movie gets produced, makes record sales.
4) The "companies" previously hired are payed based on the sales numbers, leaving no money left to call a "profit".
5) ???
6) Screwed partner makes nothing because there are no profits to share.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
You, good sir, are the first Troll in a thread about the Hobbit. Expect to be turned to stone.
According to the studios, Spider-Man, Return of the Jedi and Forrest Gump all lost money and therefore no royalty on net income needs to be paid.
These people are simply criminals, and deserve to be locked up as such. However Hollywood is famous for making large political contributions, and their boys are in power at the moment. (not that the "other" party did anything about it either)
The MPAA is fighting to make sure the artists and copyright holders get what they are owed? Did they forget or is it just a bunch of BS and you should not feel bad about piracy and ignore them?
When they say "artists" they mean their accountants.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
...on the one hand, the studios are greedy schmucks out to screw everyone all around.
Remember that these "greedy schmucks" are the ones lobbying and influencing the law. You, I, the Slashdot community, we do not. But we are tax paying constituents. The only time we influence this is when we vote--and let's face it, it's not a voting issue.
When Sonny Bono and Walt Disney effectively controlled the government into changing these laws, they were done selfishly. Nowhere were we represented. To say that Senator Bono acted with only his constituents in mind is a joke.
So suddenly the double edged sword is coming back to cut one of the prime promoters today of these laws. Historically these term limits of enforceable copyright have only gotten longer. And their implications for the internet and digital media has been more than encumbering. I'm not saying these laws don't help the big companies and artists make more money. I'm only saying that it's getting to a ridiculous point. Time Warner/New Line Cinema might take it so hard from the Tolkien family that they realize their lost future profits 50 years from now is a small price to pay compared to all the material they could have in public domain to make movies and derivative works from.
Lastly, was anyone ever wondering why there was no Lord of the Rings movies officially for so long? It's because the Tolkein family was just looking for someone to get screwed by. They probably saw through all the other scams.
Hopefully this is a wake up call to those who have extended copyright for far too long. It will only start hurting themselves and actually inhibiting/endangering their profession.
My work here is dung.
Uh, The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin. There are tons of notes and papers the Tolkien kept while writing his stories. Many of these offer insight into the world of Middle Earth, and would not have been easily accessible if it wasn't for the work of his son. Christopher Tolkien has spent a great deal of time going through his father's work, assembling notes from various sources to try to provide a more detailed history of Middle Earth. While the heirs aren't responsible for the original tale, they have done there share of work to get the story behind the story out and available to the public. Without the background, creating a movie like LotR would be much more difficult. The entire mythos was not well documented within the confines of the books. There were a lot of details that don't fit nicely within story form that were important to the movie. One of the biggest examples is the Elvish language. Much of the language has been put together from his original notes, which have been assembled by Christopher over the years.
This is definitely not a case were the children are sitting around trying to bum money off of their parent's work. I am very thankful for their contributions. Without their work, my knowledge of Tolkien would probably be limited to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
I agree the books should be in the public domain. But let's be honest here -- it's the usual movie production studio douchebaggery that is going to kill this production, not copyright. You know damn well they aren't thinking "Gee if only there were reasonable terms for copyright we wouldn't have to deal with the estate!" No, they are fully on board with life + infinite arithmetic progression copyright terms, they just want to twist the rules so they're the only ones who benefit. They've made their bed, and now they are trying to weasel their way out of sleeping in it.
Well, fuck them I say. I'd rather everyone who was contractually owed money for those movies gets it even if in my ideal universe they wouldn't be owed anything, rather than let the fuckers responsible for the current situation get away with this shit.
The enemies of Democracy are
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
That's because there would be NO ONE to screw if not for artificially long copyright periods.
The man is dead. He's been dead since 1973. You know... 36 years. The last book was published in 1955. 54 years.
Copyrights are not going to incent him to write any more books.
Copyrights as currently implemented primarily benefit corporations. Not human beings who are dead long before the copyrights run out.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Kinda makes all their protestations about piracy ring hollow. How dare someone else screw them out of a profit.
Brought to you by the same people who are so deeply concerned that someone might copy a movie without paying for it. Of course, the whole industry in Hollywood started out dodging Edison's patent royalties.
The one where the rights of private property and public good are balanced. The one where the rights of personal works and public culture coexist. Also, the one established in the FUCKING CONSTITUTION, where Congress is given the duty (emphasis mine) "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" .
Notice also that it explicitly says authors and inventors, and not the estates thereof, but that is a side issue. What is important is that the time be Limited. Unless you want to get a shovel and go excavate Ugg the fucking Caveman and pay him back royalties for your use of fire and the wheel. Pelts only.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Well, is that strictly true? Children of Huron was published a good deal more recently than that. In fact, IIRC, four times as many books have been published by JRRT since he died than when he was alive. Not to mention the audio tapes (which include JRRT reading from his work and singing Elvish poetry that doesn't otherwise survive).
This is all new material. Yes, technically it was all written before JRRT died, but not one scrap of it would have been released if there was no incentive by either Christopher Tolkien OR (more importantly) the publishing house to publish it.
This new material included such gems as The Silmarilian, one of the all-time greatest works of JRRT, and the one he put the most effort into. That was never published in his lifetime. Not because it was no good, but because the publisher didn't realize the market for High Fantasy was as extensive as it proved to be. The other material, likewise, was often not held back by the author, it was held back by the publishers.
I'm not saying extended copyrights are always good, but there ARE special circumstances where they are valuable.
Another example would be the repair and restoration of crates upon crates of Hemmingway material that was left, abandoned, in his house after his death. Most of it is damaged by fungus and rot, but it is salvageable. The costs for the repairs are all being covered by the value of the material being salvaged.
These are exceptional circumstances, you won't find anything remotely similar in the majority of cases, but the exceptions SHOULD be covered by law no less than the general rule.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually, Chris did a goodly amount of work recompiling the whole Middle Earth saga from notes, he tried to fill in unfinished stories of his father. He did try to clarify inconsistencies, add stories, and overall maintain the work that was left behind.
No, he wasn't responsible for the work that these movies is based on directly... But he did become the de facto caretaker of the fictional setting.