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Warner Bros., Tolkien Estate Settle $80 Million 'Hobbit' Lawsuit (hollywoodreporter.com)
Five years later and it appears Warner Bros. and the estate of author J.R.R. Tolkien have settled their lawsuit over the digital exploitation of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. "The Tolkien Estate and book publisher HarperCollins filed a $80 million lawsuit in 2012 alleging that Warners, its New Line subsidiary and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz Co. infringed copyright and breached contract by overstepping their authority," reports Hollywood Reporter. "The plaintiffs claimed that a decades-old rights agreement entitled the studio to create only 'tangible' merchandise based on the books, not other digital exploitations that the estate called highly offensive." From the report: The lawsuit brought the two sides into a new battle. Previously, New Line and the Tolkien Estate had fought over profit participation, coming to a deal in 2009 pegged as being worth more than $100 million. As Warner Bros. readied a Peter Jackson big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit, the Tolkien Estate began investigating digital exploitations when its attorney received a spam e-mail about the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Online Slot Game. The subsequent complaint filed in court talked about irreparable harm to Tolkien's legacy and reputation from the prospect of everything from online games to housing developments. In reaction, Warner Bros. filed counterclaims, alleging that repudiation of a 1969 contract and 2010 regrant caused the studio to miss out on millions in Hobbit licensing and decreased exposure to the Jackson films. Warners contended that digital exploitations was both customary and within its scope of rights. Those counterclaims became the subject of a side fight over whether Warners could sue for being sued. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that Warner Bros. had properly asserted contract claims.
Thank God the lawyers got paid. What is the point of "news" like this. Who cares?
Anyone intelligent enough to know who J.R.R. Tolkien is...is intelligent enough to know he's dead and his legacy remains set in stone, no matter much how much Hollywood rapes it.
That said, Tolkien would have gladly sold out to make sure his family would be set financially for life. He did so with the Hobbit movie rights. the only reason his son Chris now cares so much is because they got paid so much for LOTR; they don't need/want the raping to continue.
What? Is there a Sméagol realdoll available? Because that would be highly offensive.
#DeleteFacebook
Not exactly sure of what, but that's how a lawyer would put it.
This is why it's better for studios to buy out the property owners than to deal with the vagaries of estate holders. If you're Disney, buy Lucas Films, Marvel and others. Take old properties and write retconned stories around them like Pirates of the Caribbean.
Unless Warner starts buying up comic book companies we should expect them to lag behind Disney after litigation is done.
I guess the Tolkien Estate etal LLP Inc folks never read "Bored of the Rings" by the good folks at the Havard Lampoon? Maybe their lawyers can't read, only watch video.
... but the comments are garbage, so I'll just add to the landfill:
I watched the trilogy last year and it's a goddam fucked up waste of time.
The first movie was interesting.
The second went off on some tangential plot of vacuousness and the third didn't have many of the original characters and an impotent, wimpy, fizzle of an ending.
I don't really care who got what out of the LOTR deal because I only think of myself and I didn't get shit.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
As in, the estate was highly offended that they didn't get as much cash out of if as they thought they could have.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Unless Warner starts buying up comic book companies
Warner's DC Comics division has bought Charlton, Fawcett, EC (Mad), Quality, and others.
This shows how the plutocracy can economically pressure artists, appropriate their work, and suppress their message, and spit on them as their work makes tons of money they will never more than a penny of.
The significance of Tolkein's work is ground-shattering.
It embodies every value our civilization was built on, most of which are presently being torn to shreds by the media machine and its...associates...and their other businesses.
It's potential to inspire people against the status quo is enormous. So much so that it's a very real danger to the system.
The main purpose of the creation of the movies was not just to accumulate a mountain of gold, it was to suppress the message of the book and prevent a generation of young people from being truly inspired by it.
The story is similar with the burst of 'fantasy' genre fiction. Instead of allowing Tolkien the possibility to promote his book freely, the publishing industry, horrified by the success of Lord of the Rings, sprang to generate a wave of vacuous bullshit to choke its potential to spread.
Most people are not too smart, they think something like 'OH FANTASY, I KNOW THAT SHIT, SWORDS AND MAGIC AND SHIT, AND MIDGETS SMOKE WEED LMFAO', and that's exactly what the film and publishing industries, and their common associates, want.
Lord of the Rings is an order of magnitude above the rest. It's not 'fantasy' genre fiction, it's literary monolith, a mythology for the ages.
If you dig into this story and ask yourself some hard questions, the story around the treatment of the Lord of the Rings can open your eyes to how this society works, for who, and why.
A single, 3 hour movie would've done the story well enough (sans the padding, the Sauron backstory fan service, etc.). A two movie set (2 hours each, max.) could've given the story the properly padded, "Jackson" treatment without wasting our time.
Instead, we got a "profits before quality" trilogy that I'll never watch again. As a whole, it's the Tolkien equivalent of the Star Wars prequels - only it actually got worse as it went.
there lived a lawyer.
Saul Zaentz was born on February 28, 1921, to immigrant Jewish parents in Passaic, New Jersey.
What a surprise.
In 1955 he joined Fantasy Records, for many years the largest independent jazz record label in the world. In 1967 Zaentz and other partners purchased the label from founders Max and Sol Weiss. The partners signed roots-rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), fronted by former Fantasy warehouseman John Fogerty.
Guilty of unleashing that awful poison on the world
In 2011, Zaentz's company began several legal actions against small businesses in the UK to enforce their "Hobbit" trade mark, including the Hungry Hobbit cafe in Sarehole, near Birmingham and a pub in Southampton, England, which had traded as The Hobbit for twenty years. This raised the ire of many British correspondents such as Stephen Fry, who described it as "pointless, self-defeating bullying."
Eventually you have start calling kettles black
If the estate doesn't get its money, Tolkien might retroactively decide not to write those books.
We should extend copyright forever.
Regardless of what side one might be on, or where one stands on the issues, one has to admit, the lawsuits have been every much as entertaining as the movies.
I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that if anything has caused irreparable harm to Tolkien's legacy over the years, it was Christopher's whining.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
As a point of interest, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer John Fogerty (leader of Credence Clearwater Revival) wrote a song back in the 1980s about Saul Zaentz himself. Called "Zanz Kant Danz", it had lyrics like "Zanz can't dance, but he'll steal your money. Watch him or he'll rob you blind." Zaentz sued and a settlement forced Fogerty to rename the song "Vanz Kant Danz". Zaentz was pretty infamous in his day for his treatment of Credence. In an industry known for abusing its artists their record deal was infamously bad, called by some the worst deal in the entire industry for a major band. To be somewhat fair to Zaentz, Fogerty agreed to this deal and his agreement with his bandmates gave him the authority to do so. Fogerty has a real problem, in my opinion, of refusing to accept any responsibility himself for bad decisions he made, such as allowing Zaentz to siphon off band royalties into an off shore trust that didn't seem to accomplish anything but transfer their wealth to him. Zaentz was not a good guy at all and I can't say I'm surprised that approximately 3 years after his death he somehow is part of a lawsuit alleging infringement and a contract breach. If there was anybody who could cause legal problems from the grave, he'd be the guy.
The main purpose of the creation of the movies was not just to accumulate a mountain of gold, it was to suppress the message of the book and prevent a generation of young people from being truly inspired by it.
Long before the book was written, in the 1930s, we tried putting that racial message to work here in Germany. [Spoiler alert: It didn't work out too well.]
Dear Tolkien Estate,
when are you going to wake up and come after the NZ tourism board, airports, Weta, trinket salesman, ex-farmers who now run $80 a seat "tours" of movie sets or parts thereof, etc, etc, etc?
I read the books, but this is getting ridiculous.
Still a fan of LoTR
But there were supposed to be five armies in this battle...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Lord Of The Rings was written in 1949 - shouldn't it be public domain by now?
Why should "the family" benefit from a creators product when said creator is long dead? Wasn't the aim of copyright a temporary right to enrich the creator, so they will create more?
It seems fairly unlikely JRR Tolkien will write anything else. The encouragement isn't going to work.
"Cats like plain crisps"
Tolkien died a long time ago.
In his lifetime he did okay of royalties.
https://www.quora.com/Was-Tolkien-rich-during-his-lifetime
His kids have made a fortune though "I find it offensive to common sense to argue that the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien (who are as dismayingly numerous as Kennedys in the court filing) are entitled to a shilling for work in which they had no hand and which was completed in 1949." and there has been a horrible family feud. This is pretty fucked: He said: "My father is very angry with me - angry to the point that he never wishes to have anything to do with me again. He will never see my children. And I grew up thinking this was such a wonderful person." The rift followed a disagreement over how the family should deal with the adaptations of the book - the first two instalments of which have broken box office records.
Christopher Tolkien has never forgiven Simon, a barrister and novelist, for supporting Peter Jackson, the New Zealand-born director who adapted the books. He wanted nothing to do with the films because the rights to them had been sold 30 years earlier and the family would not gain financially from the project.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1422943/J-R-R-Tolkiens-grandson-cut-off-from-literary-inheritance.html
That's harsh man. And if you're reading this Christopher, I thought your Silmarrillion sucked bad. It was as boring as shit. Ha ha! I tried to spellcorrect that but the suggestion was "Millionaires"
More:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-brief2-2008jul02,0,2775685.story
and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9686451/Simon-Tolkien-JRR-Tolkiens-grandson-admits-Lord-of-the-Rings-trauma.html
Supposedly the Tolkien Trust is a charity.
Christopher Tolkien: "The Trustees regret that legal action was necessary, but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives."
A "charitable trust that gets 50% of their fortune and distributes money to such causes as Save the Children, the Darfur Appeal, the National Campaign for Homeless People and UNICEF." Sounds nice but what happens with the other 50%? Are his kids getting a cut of that? I can't find any article which tells me. Remember IKEA is run as a charity too. http://mentalfloss.com/article/18575/ikea-worlds-largest-charity
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/warner-bros-tolkien-estate-settle-80-million-hobbit-lawsuit-1018478
Christopher Tolkien: "The Trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed films of ‘The Hobbit."
Yeah. Those pandas must be fucking over the moon.
Saul Zaentz Co sounds worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_Estate
Kids go t rich. Lawyers get richer.
How is this contributing to society? Tolkien has long gone. Jackson and New Line made a fortune. Society's debt has been paid. Fuck Sonny Bono. These things should be in the public domain.
Conan should be in the public domain. Robert E. Howard committed suicide in 1936 at age 30. And in theory they are public domain but try and do anything any you risk a cease and desist from Paradox who claim ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian#Copyright_and_trademark_dispute
Fuck lawyers. Fuck the greedy pigs who parasite off work they played no role in creating. Add Star Trek too. Roddenberry is dead and there are more fitting people out there who could carry his legacy better.
You fuckers don't have the first clue about making something that respects its own medium and the source material at the same time.
And the lawyers in this story are far more interested in profits than any creative mind associated with this legacy.
Learn to rationalise and stop bullshitting yourself and everyone else.
Well it looks like he just published a new book! Can't wait for the next one! :)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...