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Tolkien Estate Says No Historical Fiction For JRR
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the estate of JRR Tolkien isn't just overprotective of his works, but of himself as well. The estate is in a bit of a legal spat with the author of a fictional work that includes JRR Tolkien as a character, and in part discusses his works. The estate is claiming that this infringes on Tolkien's publicity rights, but if that's the case, would it make almost all 'historical fiction' illegal?"
That's really what it comes down to. The lawyers are just doing the bidding of Tolkien's offspring.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
No historical fiction? Would that include Irregular things like Web Comics?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Tolkein was/is a public figure, feels like there isn't much to stand on here especially if its fiction and portrayed as such. Seems like this fall well within the fair use realm.
More evidence that the copyright term is much too long.
Just change the character's name to R.J.R. Token (Ronald John Token), clearly explain on the cover the Token is a fictional character inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien and then tell the estate to get stuffed.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
How come there isn't an Estate of George Washington? Is every dead person entitled to a perpetual corporate entity?
Once upon a time there was this fairly cool guy called JRR Tolkien who wrote some popular books. Then he had some descendants who were leeching cunts. The lawyers on all sides lived happily ever after. The end.
This is OK because it's not fiction, right?
The Scribd document contains the text of Hilliard's court filing, but not what the Tolkien Estate said in its original cease-and-desist letter. It says it includes a copy of the Tolkien Estate's letter as Exhibit B, but there is no Exhibit B in the Scribd document. Until we can see the original language used in the cease-and-desist, it's hard to say whether there might be any valid complaint there. I get the gist of line 17 of this document, which amounts to "I can say whatever I want because of the First Amendment," but that's not strictly true, and it's usually a bad idea to go straight for the Constitution as your first line of defense. Case law could easily support the Tolkien Estate's position.
I'm sure there will be countless posts about the evils of intellectual property law, but I, for one, see no reason why this complaint and counter-complaint should not be weighed in the courts.
Breakfast served all day!
Eyeing the half dead orc, J R R Tolkien discreetly scanned the surrounding for those who might be watching. Once satisfied that the two were alone, he made quick work of his pants. Mounting the orcs lacerated leg, Tolkien muttered "Oh yes, my precious, your leg shall be mine. Oh yes". The orc said nothing and simply stared in quiet horror. His eyes said everything that could possibly be said.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
In addition to trademark and unfair competition issues the complaint includes: "(t)he Estate claims that it holds the rights of publicity to exclude others from the use of the name and personality of J.R.R. Tolkien in a fictional novel, and those rights include the right to preclude Hillard from authoring and Cruel Rune from publishing Mirkwood."
California has an unusually strong statute for "deceased personalities": California Civil Code Section 990 Deceased Personality's Name, Voice, Signature, Photograph, or Likeness in Advertising or Soliciting
Although it prohibits some commercial uses of a "deceased personality" there's an exception for "(a) play, book, magazine, newspaper, musical composition, film, radio or television program, other than an advertisement or commercial announcement ... " [emphasis added] From the complaint it's not clear what their argument is then re. "the rights of publicity" referred to in the complaint ...
IANAL
You make my point perfectly. Pause the video right at the very beginning. You'll see text at the bottom stating not only that "Gene Kelly" is a trademark, but that the images are copyright the Gene Kelly Image Trust. If Gene Kelly's estate wanted to put the kibosh on the whole project, it could have.
Breakfast served all day!
Tolkien could obviously leave his children all of they money he earned on his works during his lifetime. Also, his sons (and whoever else) has all the right to earn money on new works that they create. At issue is the question if an inheritor should be able to earn new money on a creation that they had nothing to do with. And not for nothing, but the original creator did not wholly invent the work themselves. They used constructs of plot and form, and often tropes and characterizations, that were not developed exclusively by themselves.. They were working off of the creation of another author themselves. We should have the opportunity to do the same.
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$tar -xvf
Only a select few would refer to Mithrandir by all his twenty three names.
And this is different from current reality how?
#DeleteChrome
Mixing fact and fiction is quaintly known in civilized societies as lying.
I'm not sure if you're joking; your argument would make all fiction mere "lying," because all fiction "mixes fact and fiction." Most fiction involves real places, and almost all involves a real species, i.e., human beings. A huge amount of fiction involves real people in one way or another, too, so readers will be familiar with the idea that claims made about real people in a work of fiction may not be true. It's only lying if you say things that are untrue with the intent that someone reading them believes them to be true, and that will not be true of anything which specifically calls itself "fiction."
Your analogy is very bad. There is a difference between leaving your offspring the rights to a creative work they had absolutely nothing to do with and leaving them the money you made from it.
Why? Your creative work is a business, just like any other. If you had lived, you would have been able to keep operating that business, making money of the works you did in the past (and any new ones you choose to create). Why should you be able to hand your hardware store down to your heirs, but not a media business? And by your own logic, which is worse -- handing your kids a pile of money, or handing them a thriving business to operate? Are lottery winners happy? No -- generally, they piss it away and end up in debt. On the other hand, if your heirs materially participate in the business of managing your creative works (as Christopher Tolkien did while his father was alive, and continues to do long after his death), then they don't "have absolutely nothing to do with" the creative work, do they? Comments like yours just sound like sour grapes to me.
Breakfast served all day!
And I don't think anyone has a problem with Christopher Tolkien having a copyright on his dad's stuff Christopher released, especially considering he had to do a hell of a lot of editing and whatnot.
The clock on unreleased works doesn't actually start ticking until released, anyway. Of course Christopher is entitled to that copyright, even if he did nothing. Copyright is incentive to publish works, he published a work that wasn't published, we aren't here to run around judging how much work it took, he gets a copyright.
The problem is twofold:
a) With copyright's irrational 'X years after death', this will result in a lot of stupidity. If Chris lives another 30 years, the copyright for LoTR will expire 70 years before the copyright on the Silmarillion, published only 20 years later, does.
Copyright needs to be for a set amount of time, period, and have nothing to do with how long anyone lives. That idea is just crazy. If we want to 'help their children', well, first off, 'children' do not need support for 75 years, and secondly, that's accomplished simply by having copyright be inheritable. I'd even be fine without taxing it. (Which we don't.)
And can I point out the inherent insanity of 'helping' orphaned dependents by having the clock start ticking on copyright's expiration? Even if the clock takes near-forever to run out, that really doesn't make sense in any logical manner.
b) Copyright is way too long to start with. Lord of the Rings should be public domain now. Hell, the Beatles should be. The Silmarillion should be bumping up against expiration if not already expired. 40 years is more than long enough to incentive people to make stuff.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?