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'The Hobbit' Pub Threatened With Lawsuit
An anonymous reader writes "'The Hobbit,' a small pub in Southampton, England, has been threatened with a lawsuit by lawyers representing the Saul Zaentz Company in California. The pub, which has traded under the name for the last 20 years without incident, now faces closure if it does not change its name. It's yet another example of big business throwing its weight around to get its way. The pub's landlady said simply, 'I can't fight Hollywood.'"
Troll?
Damn straight I'm a troll when it comes to calling out American thugishness around the world. Because you interfere in Canada, too, the same as you do everywhere.
Jackboot is the KINDEST term I could have for your government and legal system.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'd imagine most of their 20 years went by just fine because they weren't using movie stills in their advertising and promotional material on their public website..
http://www.thehobbitpub.co.uk/
So, if it's public domain, why the fuck hasn't somebody put it on Project Gutenberg already? It should be there.
And as an enemy of copyright, I don't care HOW it lost copyright, we should seize every opportunity to take back any bit of the public domain we can.
Fuck the estate!
This is absurd.
The pub will never impact the business of these greedy bastards.
Or they could pick a random name from the Völuspá, which is public domain. "Gandalf's", perhaps.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
You know, your snarky, self-righteous dismissal might come off as marginally less douchy if this guy wasn't some dickhead film producer who had fuck-all to do with the "success and work" of Tolkien.
It might, but I doubt it.
I felt sorry for this pub until I actually went to the website. The summary would have you believe the big guys are trying to crush the little guys over a little innocent naming. Not so-- Visiting the website will immediately welcome you with faces and figures from the films, trademark and copyright infringement everywhere.
I don't feel sorry for a pub that is trying to leech from the popularity of the source material and the films. Maybe it didn't start out that way, but that's what it appears to be now.
I was all for supporting this pub until I actually visited their website. Now I'm on the fence.
On the one hand, it seems like a trashy place blatantly abusing Tolkien IP, but on the other hand, fuck Hollywood.
I think I've decided to go with "Meh. Who gives a shit." on this one, guys.
Not if his name is Bilbo. I know people that have been named after characters in the book.
I think where the "problem" lies is that the name of the establishment is the name of the book which might possibly be putting it under trademark law which forces you to "protect it or lose it".
It's still bullshit of course. Books are over 60-85 years old and the man has been dead since 73'. Copyrights are rather disgusting when abused like this. His children can go out and get their own fucking jobs and write their own fucking novels.
AFAIK all the legal stuff broke out once JRR passed away. Pretty much much the classic story of heirs becoming idiots.
-- no sig today
Not idiots. Not at all. Greedy is what they are.
Pub has clear risk of losing as the whole thing is Tolkien/movie themed. Without approval by the rights holder. It's not just the name.
The problem is more complicated than that. Companies that don't pursue any infringement they find out about vigorously often end up losing their trademark. This leads to these silly types of cases where the company doesn't really care that some small pub somewhere is using its trademark but if they don't come down hard on them the fact that they knew about it and didn't vigorously defend their trademark could cause them to lose a trademark decision against someone they do care about. Don't blame the company, blame the law that forces companies to act this way or risk losing their trademarks.
Or they could just extradite the landlady and try her in California. That's how it works, isn't it?
Caution: May contain nuts.