Slashdot Mirror
'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.'"
Change name to "The Halfling". Problem solved.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The Habit.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
They should kickstart fund the signage and associated paperwork.
The "Fuck you Hollywood"
Here:
http://www.facebook.com/SaveTheHobbitSouthampton?ref=ts
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Terminate and Stay Resident? Am I increasing or decreasing my geek cred when I admit that's the only TSR I know?
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Dungeons and Dragons before it was bought by Wizards of the Coast.
It's UK copyright law. Life of the author plus 70 years.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
It's an American company doing the suing.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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.
Name it the Ten-Forward Lord Smoked Meat and Fish's Leaky Cauldron Pub and Mos Eisley Cantina of the Vulgar Unicorn.
With all the lawsuit Publicity, you'll never close. Throw in a walk-down like Cheers and a surly endangered animal smuggling bartender named Moe, and the lawyers will be your best patrons.
If you look at their website, you'll see they use likenesses of the characters from the movies in their advertising. If the pub was just using fan artwork or coming up with their own graphical material (while using the names), they may have been left alone. But they are using the faces from the movie in their own advertising and promotional material (posters, loyalty card). That's just asking for trouble.
Its not what it is, its something else.
....if nine of them showed up to the pub dressed as Nazgul.
And you don't think 20 years of operation just might demonstrate that it hasn't been defended in a timely fashion?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Interestingly, the original edition of the Lord of the Rings is in the public domain in the US due to an error by his publisher at the time. Tolkien had to go back and make a revised edition and market it with a note on the back pleading with fans not to buy the Ace Books edition that he saw no royalties from. So presumably a similar pub in the US (e.g. Bilbo Baggins, in Alexandria, VA) is on safer ground than this one in the UK.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Mr. Saul Zaentz has a long history of being a dick. Zaentz sued Creedence Clearwater's John Fogerty for plagiarizing himself (!) asking $140 million in damages, and lost.
Zaentz's perception is that he owns the 'brand' Hobbit, although he only owns screen rights.
If your idea of Nazi style jackbooted fascism is a bar being sued because they use direct images from the LotR movies in their advertising, then you're pretty well off, and really don't understand what the people that were actually exposed to fascist tyranny actually had to put up with.
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/
Of course they can't fight Hollywood, since they've been using stills from the movies in their advertising. Take a look at their website, that's obviously a photograph of Elijah Wood from the LOTR movies on their "One Card To Bind Them All" loyalty card:
http://www.hobbitpub.co.uk/drink-offers/
They're not fighting Hollywood since they don't have a leg to stand on. If they would have used original artwork instead of copyrighted images from a movie, I'd be on their side.
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!
... Shire Art?
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
If your idea of Nazi style jackbooted fascism is a bar being sued because they use direct images from the LotR movies in their advertising, then you're pretty well off, and really don't understand what the people that were actually exposed to fascist tyranny actually had to put up with.
First world problems: he has them.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
It holds all the water the lawyers can carry.
This case is not about the merits.
It's about a poor defenseless woman being outgunned in the legal arena and losing the case before it even starts because she's too broke to fight back.
Or they could pick a random name from the Völuspá, which is public domain. "Gandalf's", perhaps.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I know... the usual arguments apply but I'm going to reference Wikipedia anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit
Seems to me that, as is usually the case, art owes itself to art which came before it. A name here, a concept there, whether consciously or not, no one has truly original ideas or thought on their own. There are variations and twists but it's called evolution, not creation.
This quibbling and fighting in courts represents the utter denial of what it is to be human. We learn from each other. We teach each other. We entertain each other. And to place a restriction, an ownership or a price tag on human habit and human legacy isn't just tragic, it simply denies what and who we are. And we're just about the only animal on the planet that can do what we do. It's not the use of tools. It's not even that we speak a language. It's that we can teach each other things without having to live through the entirety of human development to advance further than picking up a stick to get bugs out of a tree.
When you put any kind of limit on that, you are in direct opposition to human development. Not that anyone can really do that successfully... well, maybe they can... I once heard about some sort of dark ages which somehow wiped out hundreds or even thousands of years of human development and knowledge so I guess it's possible. But will the next dark ages be caused by the courts and copyright law? Or perhaps it will be because of a war fought defending and imposing copyright law...
...I was just thinking of how ironic it might be to be modded 'Troll...'
Trademark? Really? Does the owners of the Lord of the Rings franchise sell alcohol too? That's news to me. I wouldn't have for a moment suspected that much. Isn't the purpose of trademark supposed to defend a mark so that a similar, competing product or service doesn't get confused as another? It's kind of how Apple Computers prevailed against Apple Music... kind of.
A bit of information friend... since we became a nation of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation... the government/corporations (they've effectively become one and the same) and the nations people are no longer on speaking terms. Americans are way more pissed off than you ever will be, because our corporations crap on the world weekly but they defecate on us here in the states every few seconds. Please feel free to club a CEO or two. You'll win friends and garner respect here in the states.
While it does seem that way, think on this -
The Hobbit was published in 1937. Under life +70 copyright, it doesn't enter the public domain for another 30 years. This is ludicrous. 75 years after publishing, this stuff is part of our culture and should be free for all.
(Yes, I used to drink at this pub!)
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.
And put up an apostrophe, it will be pronounced the same in cockney.
the `obbit
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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.
"Terminate and Stay Resident" and "Tactical Studies Rules" were pretty much contemporaneous I think.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Did you see that tiny little text at the bottom of the site? It reads:
Site designed and built by frozendesigns.co.uk
Perhaps the pub should be raising some hell with them. Specifically on why they don't seem to understand the concept of building web sites using only original and/or royalty free images.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Your geek cred remains unadjusted. But your "Get off my lawn" cred shot through the ceiling.
The party doing the suing does in fact have trademarks on "The Hobbit" relating to alcoholic beverages.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4005:sj3a4.2.8
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4005:sj3a4.2.10
Both were filed in 2011 and since things like prior art and such don't apply to trademarks they seem to be well within their rights to sue. I'm against things like patent trolls and eternal copyrights as much as anyone else and I'd find it highly distasteful if they don't intend on actually using the trademarks for anything other than bullying people but this is a case where the pub in question probably should have known better.
I can't believe the owner of this pub was really "absolutely stunned" that this happened. If I ran a bar named after a fictional race that was featured in three highly successful movies with a fourth movie in the works using said fictional race as its name and used a bunch of copyrighted images and character names from those movies on my website I would be stunned if they didn't sue me.
When it comes to trademarks, it gets even worse for them. Trademarks must be actively defended, or else they are lost. As this pub has been going by that name for two decades, Saul Zaentz Company is almost 20 years too late to have a valid trademark complaint.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Thanks for that, all this time I was thinking:"Big bully Hollywood using lawyers for no good." Then I went to the site, that sort of looks like a Lord of the Rings fan club and thought:"Ah, shameless copyright infringement, nevermind."
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
The guy suing is a dick for sure, but ffs stop being a racist/anti-semite. Such comments are vastly more douchy than the crap that Mr Zaentz is pulling. Thinking that those of the Jewish faith have a monopoly on money-grubbing shows an immature world view - plenty of races and religions are just as avaricious.
I would think that an even better one is a fixed 40 years from the date of publication... and automatically falling into public domain if out of print for more a cumulative total of 10 years.
It encourages creators to continue creating, instead of sitting on their laurels and enjoying royalties of products that are decades old.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's one thing to tell them to take down material using stills from the films, which is a perfectly reasonable course of action. Forcing them to change their name/menu or go out of business is disproportionate.
AGAIN with the prior art!
From Wikipedia on "Hobbit":(debate away!)
"Evidence of earlier use
The only source known today that makes reference to hobbits in any sort of historical context is the Denham Tracts by Michael Aislabie Denham. More specifically, it appears in the Denham Tracts, edited by James Hardy, (London: Folklore Society, 1895), vol. 2, the second part of a two-volume set compiled from Denham's publications between 1846 and 1859.
The text contains a long list of sprites and bogies, based on an older list, the Discovery of Witchcraft, dated 1584, with many additions and a few repetitions. The term hobbit is listed in the context of
boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies
In the December 2003 Oxford English Dictionary newsletter, in the "Words of Choice" section, the following appears:
4. hobbit â" J. R. R. Tolkien modestly claimed not to have coined this word, although the Supplement to the OED credited him with the invention of it in the absence of further evidence. It seems, however, that Tolkien was right to be cautious. It has since turned up in one of those 19th-century folklore journals, in a list of long-forgotten words for fairy-folk or little people. It seems likely that Tolkien, with his interest in folklore, read this and subconsciously registered the name, reviving it many years later in his most famous character. [Editor's note: although revision of the OED's entry for hobbit will of course take this evidence for earlier use into account, it does not yet appear in the online version of the entry.] "
Even if it is an American company, the courts would follow English law.
Wouldn't be too sure, it seems the norm for british nationals to be groundlessly extradited to the US... Basically, the US says "extradite this person" and the UK seems to say "ok" no matter what.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
or showing your age (er, lack thereof)
Lack thereof? For knowing about Terminate and Stay Resident programs?
But "Whosover files first wins", in trademark law.
Erm, no. Usage prior to registration is a defence against trademark infrinement, at least in the UK. http://www.inbrief.co.uk/intellectual-property/defences-to-trademark-infringement.htm
Well one of them, I generally prefer the Shooting Star - about 200 yards further down the hill these days (as it has a better pool table). Over twenty years I have been drinking at the Hobbit. Last night a group of my friends all gathered there for a drink in the mistaken belief they could do something about this.
I don't think anybody is going to argue the film is not infringing copyright, even in the early 90s there were posters of illustrations from the book on the walls. They introduced a range of cocktails based on characters in the books (Gimli, Legolas and so on). When the films were introduced they brought in pictures from the films and hung them on the walls. They make "The Hobbit" T-Shirts. They have a life size statue of Aragorn from the movies in there. So discussions on the "hobbit" being an English word and prior art are irrelevent - they have posters and paintings from the film and book in there.
The point is that they have been called The Hobbit for a very long time and this lawsuit has popped up only because of the new film coming out. And SZC has probably been trawling the net looking for targets, I think that after the first trilogy films came and went and there was no mention of it there was an assumption things would remain the same for ever - I do remember a conversation at the time about copyright and the name of the pub. Among my friends there is a huge amount of anger about this because The Hobbit has been a bit of an institution in the alternative/student scene in Southampton as long as anybody can remember.
Having said that - nobody believes that anything they can do will change this and there are probably already re-branding plans on the horizon. The best possible outcome now is that they use the massive publicity to their advantage and choose a similar style of name - I have heard "The Camelot" mentioned as a possible option (and I don't think anybody can claim copyright over the Arthurian legends). Stella - the landlady - is not an idiot, I'm sure she's looking at all options. But from a legal case it's pretty clear where the law stands and there is no fighting that.
Spoken like true war-mongering bully.
Throw a bit of religious fundamentalism in there and you will be totally setting a good example for all those nasty islamic terrorists....
Invaders must die
I seem recall that Carl Sagan got some sand in his vagina after sending a C&D to some scientific team for naming their project the "Sagan." So they renamed it to "Butthole Astronomer". Think he sued them for defamation. I'm guessing he lost. Then he died. So yah I'd name it that, and nail the "Change your name or we'll sue" notice to the wall.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You would be surprised - but yes. It is normal.
My sister has entered the lawsuit with Mad Dog Athletics because she uses the word "Aerospinning"... and MDA happened to have trademarked the word "spinning(R)". During the course of hearings it turned out that MDA lawyers in Czech Republic were sending threatening letters to publishers of Czech-English dictionaries demanding either
a) Removing the trademarked word "spinning" from the dictionary
b) Accompanying the word "spinning" with "TM" and their name as respective trademark owners.
You would be surprised but publishers are just publishers making their living out of books and nobody is really interested in having legal battle with some US companies because of one word... We know at least about 3 dictionaries that surrendered to their demands and removed the word "spinning" from Czech-English dictionary.
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.