LoTR Lawsuit Threatens Hobbit Production 427
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.'"
Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
Ob. quote:
"Is that a Hobbit over there?"
"No, it's a hobo and a rabbit, but they're making a hobbit."
Bad news all around (Score:5, Insightful)
...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.
Thought experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
This is going to sound wacky, but I really just want to think it through.
What if we made the kind of fraud that's apparently exercised by music and movie studio accountants, punishable by death?
How would that play out in society and culture?
but but the MPAA is for the artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad news all around (Score:3, Insightful)
This is common in Hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Thought experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to make it "punishable by death," just flipping make it ILLEGAL! I'm so tired of hearing about a-hole musician managers like Klein ripping off artists and swindling them out of song rights, talent agents taking their pounds of flesh from artists and athletes, and trusted personal financial advisors diverting funds from their clients to their own coffers. Just make it clearly ILLEGAL. Draw strong outlines around what compensation these people are allowed to make while in the service of their clients. Create template contracts that uninitiated people can use to protect themselves. As it stands, you need a lawyer and an accountant to make sure your lawyer and accountant aren't fucking you!
I think we're talking about two different things. You're arguing about unfair contracts. What the article is talking about (I believe) is out-and-out fraud regarding how much money is earned for a given movie.
Re:Bad news all around (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh good, motivation for murder. Copyright should have nothing to do with the life of the author.
Re:but but the MPAA is for the artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Something Good Could Come of It (Score:5, Insightful)
...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.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
If they didn't have extended copyright, they wouldn't have needed a contract to begin with. That's what he's saying.
Re:Bad news all around (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, my utter lack of faith in humanity says that particularly unscrupulous individuals would "arrange" things so that an author who didn't want to sell the rights to their work would have the creator killed and poof! Public domain now for me to create my crappy movie and destroy the work. While I wish I could believe that people would never sink so low, this IS an article about movie studios trying to claim a major film trilogy made NO money at all. If they thought they could get away with it and make money, I don't doubt that some of them would do it.
I can see a 20 year period after death being reasonable as any children they had should be grown capable of self-support by then and the incentive of making a derivative work of something 20 years old will often lose its allure unless it's a seminal work of culture in which case that's EXACTLY the compact society has made with the creator...we get the stuff back to inspire the next generation of creators. The current system we have is simply abusive of society as a whole though.
Re:Bad news all around (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup, just like every slave owner was perfectly within his rights to beat his slaves to death.
Wow, you are comparing efforts to enforce copyright to efforts to track down a sentient human being and force him back into servitude at gunpoint? I think you need some perspective.
(At least you didn't Godwin yourself though ;)
Re:Bad news all around (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe a lot of slashdotters aren't old enough to have kids, but it seems to me that providing for one's widow and/or children is one of the things that an author would likely be concerned about, and probably even consider to be a "need".
Nobody is talking about locking up works "forever". This is about books that were written and published long after Mickey Mouse made his first appearance, and Mickey is still copyrighted (which seems to be stretching it a bit TOO far in my opinion).
Re:They crossed up their net and gross reciepts... (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed.
Less savvy or just not very forward thinking in terms of technology.
[nerd-speak]
Tolkien pretty much gave away the movie rights because he (and whom else ever in his camp) never thought you could even make a movie out the LOTR. Would you have wanted to see a film adaptation using early 1970's film technology? Not as fun to watch if the Balrog looks Godzilla and the Nazgûl like some kind of Medieval Mothras, not to mention Treebeard looking worse than he even did in the films, or primitive miniatures making the cities of Middle Earth look like something made of Lego(s).
Technology may have been Saruman's downfall, but it allowed for a pretty cool set of movies.
[/nerd-speak]
Re:Damn leeches (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. They'd be even more free to screw people on the movie profits as they've already done! It's hilarious to see so many people on here actually defending a studio has screwed people who have worked on these films out of money and is a prominent RIAA member. The hypocrisy of this thread is astounding.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, I'm sure you saw all 3 LOTR movies in the theater at least once as you'll probably see the Hobbit (not to mention other movies made by that studio) which will allow them to continue their screwing over of people who may or may not deserve a cut in the money.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:3, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
In this case, I'd say it's not just copyright laws. Hollywood accounting [wikipedia.org] is in my eyes more clearly douchebaggery than using the broken copyright system. It might be absurd that the estate maintains a copyright what should be public domain, but it's even more absurd for New Line Cinema to claim the Lord of the Rings movies didn't make a boatload of money.
Well, one more advertising saying "Pirate it all" (Score:2, Insightful)
When is someone posting the extended version of LoTR box in 720p at PirateBay please?
Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
What work did the Christopher and Priscilla Tolkien do on this film exactly?
If The Deal Changes on The Back End... (Score:2, Insightful)
...then it needs to change on the front end as well. An author's overall compensation comes down to: "Lookit, we're going to pay you a teensy-weensy amount now so that you can stay breathing long enough to write a sequel, but don't worry, if this thing is really as good as you think it is, you'll make it all up on the back-end residuals."
So if you IP crusaders want to shorten the time it takes for a book to enter public domain (presumably so you all can post your fan fiction without fear of a C&D letter), then make sure the publishers all get the memo to pay authors more up front. Anything else is a bait and switch. To put it into a cube-dweller analogy, it would be as if you were hired at a low base pay but told you would make it up in your end of year bonus. When end-of-year came around, you were told, sorry, we don't do bonuses anymore, oh, and by the way, you're working Christmas, too.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. They'd be even more free to screw people on the movie profits as they've already done! It's hilarious to see so many people on here actually defending a studio has screwed people who have worked on these films out of money and is a prominent RIAA member. The hypocrisy of this thread is astounding.
My sympathy fails for the heirs of rights to content produced so long ago.
The heirs seeking money didn't actually DO anything to earn it. Peter Jackson made a movie. The studios made it available, etc. These parties took action, so compensation seems reasonable. Did the heirs take any action at all that contributed to the product or the potential for it to exist?
Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
(before film is made) "Darned copyrights are keeping us from making a film!"
(after the film is made) "People are violating our film's copyright and should be punished!"
Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the hypocrisy of RIAA is astounding.
The reason for reducing the copyright times are just because it would enable derivative works. Kind of how Disney took "Cinderella" or other stories in the public domain and made money and new stories out of them.
The hypocrisy comes in when they refuse to ever give stuff back to the public domain.
The people being screwed in this case isn't the heirs to Tolkien it's us. They shouldn't get any money after so many years. They are the true "leeches". That doesn't help or develops our civilization or culture.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now. God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
The irony being that the movie companies are the big $$$ behind the ridiculous copyright extensions that are preventing them from not having to go through the JRR descendants to make movies.
I guess the next copyright legislature will make book copyright shorter than music or movie copyright.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
It still amazes me how respondents in this forum think that there is some level on which it's acceptable to STEAL.
I don't, which is why I'm arguing that the studio needs to pay the estate the money that they are owed.
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
In the bizarro universe where the purpose of copyrights was to promote the arts and thus enrich our culture, and its protections were for a limited time only with the express purpose of enriching the public domain. So, basically, the bizarre universe of the United States prior the year 1976.
For two hundred years, copyright served the purpose I describe and not the one you describe. This notion that an author's work is supposed to provide a life-long revenue stream for their children and their children's children is a recent invention, and contrary to the purpose of copyright, which is to encourage more works to be written. What has Christopher Tolkien done other than package up his dad's work? Maybe if he was operating under the same laws that his dad did when he wrote his books, then he'd have had to produce something of his own.
Sorry, I just don't buy that argument under any circumstance.
Okay, but the only reason author's have any right to an unnatural monopoly is because we, the people, agreed to compromise with them. The argument was the one that ruled the day from the authoring of our Constitution through to the Sonny Bono Copyright Act.
The discussion here seems centered on whether the studio should get the spoils or the public.
What a silly thing to say in a reply to my post where I argued that the "spoils" should go to the estate as contractually required. I think copyright law should be changed to match its original purpose, but that doesn't mean I think the movie studios, the very ones who lobbied for these ridiculous copyright laws, should be exempt from them! So basically it sounds like you missed my whole point. And I'm not the only one making this point. So pay more attention to the discussion, maybe?
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I'd normally side with the family, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Silmarillion? And what do you propose to do with that?
As for turning people on to Tolkien, everyone I know who reads sci-fi/fantasy read those books back when we were kids, before any of the derivative stuff was out. The books are sufficient and wonderful in themselves. And they had no trouble finding deeply-appreciative readers on their own strength.
On the other hand, I'm sure the movies are fine. They were done at the right time, when cgi was finally good enough. Still, should I show my son the movies when he's old enough? Or should see that he reads the books first? Doesn't this stuff work better when its your own visions stimulated by the full force of Tolkien's linguistic art, rather than just duping your visions from Hollywood?
Other than Blade Runner, the Wizard of Oz and the first Star Wars, Hollywood has never shown me a movie equal to the visual potential of the best sci-fi/fantasy books. It might be best to keep them away from our fine literature all together. Let them hire original scriptwriters. Keep the value of literature for literature.
The agreement was made 40 years ago. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, it looks like he did pretty well for an agreement made in 1969 by trying to require a percentage of the gross, but he did permit certain expenses to be deducted which were then gamed by Hollywood accounting.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the criminal movie business would just wait for stories to expire copyright, and make a mint off of them afterwards.
Like Disney and the Brothers Grimm?
Re:Damn leeches (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but if the copyright wasn't so onerous the studios could make the movie, and so could I,oor you, or anyone.
Sure, but in the meantime, I'm not going to let the studios off the hook for the stupid law they themselves are responsible for.
And they got what the contract said.
Are you sure? That's what the studio says, but they said the same thing about Peter Jackson and Stan Lee and it wasn't true.
Re:Bad news all around (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not a very good analogy.
Plumbers get paid for fixing the toilets at the time they fix them. And if the plumber dies before you pay your bill, you don't automatically get to forget the charges. Should the plumber have to buy insurance to cover that case? You might have life insurance to cover the fact that you won't be earning any more after you're dead, but do you buy insurance to cover your last paycheck because your employer won't have to pay it after you're dead?
So, yes, it is the "same difference".
Simple economics (Score:4, Insightful)
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
Please understand that when the government enforces a private monopoly, the taxpayers incur direct costs. The "private monopoly" in this case is the author's sole distribution right over his work. The enforcement of that right means that real tax dollars get spent on investigations into copyright infringement violations, as well as the imposition of legal consequences.
So, that means that if you are an author, the rest of us (even those who do not buy copies of your work) are paying out-of-pocket to enforce your monopoly on your behalf.
What do we get in return for this? The privilege of being able to pay even more money if we want to experience your work? Do you really think this is balanced?
The reason why copyright law has a term limit is to try and strike this (otherwise missing) balance. In return for spending our money to protect your private monopoly for a period of years, we eventually get your work for free, in the public domain. Thus, you have your incentive to create secured (in the form of a protected period of sole distribution rights), and we get a ROI on all the tax money we spent to give you that (specifically, the work for free, eventually).
The problem that frustrates many posters on Slashdot is that the term of copyright is now so long that it is no longer balanced. In response to this perceived injustice, many people feel justified in dishonoring the private monopoly, and obtaining the work for free.
Whether or not they actually are justified is a debate in which I am presently remaining silent (though I won't deny an obvious bias). However, I will state that the current copyright law is not at all balanced, and the public good is getting the losing end of the deal. There is clearly an injustice being perpetuated by copyright holders and lobbies at the present time.
As an aside, copyright infringement is illegal and (arguably) immoral. However, it is not theft. Theft is generally defined in terms of the harm done to the victim, rather than the benefit to the perpetrator. Finding an un-owned object and claiming it for one's self is not theft, even though one got something without paying for it. However, depriving the rightful owner of access to his property is theft, and that wording is often used in legal proceedings involving theft.
In the case of copyright infringement, the rightful owner still has full access and full control over his own work. You have a duplicate of the work, but since you haven't deprived the owner of the work, you have not "stolen" it. You have merely copied it.
To use the ever-popular car analogy...if I see your car on your driveway, and I build myself a separate car just like it....you still have your car. I have not stolen it. Though my copy of it might still be illegal.
But don't take my word for it. The supreme court already ruled that copyright infringement is not theft. Read all about it. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bad news all around (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no way to avoid this sort of comparison. If I cited any example of a bad law that should not be enforced, and it was just as serious as our bad copyright laws, most people would have no opinion on that law. and of the few who did, roughly half of the people would argue that it was a good law (especially here). Just try it. Is tougher sentencing for crack cocaine than regular cocaine about proportional to copyright law? How about occasional abuse of eminent domain clauses? Raising the drinking age to 21 and including members of the armed forces on post? You have to compare the abysmal but quite limited injustice that is current copyright law to something more serious, something that affected hundreds of millions and literally cost lives, broke governments, or caused wars, or you can't make a critical comparison at all.
Re:Damn leeches (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Sooo, would the same limitations on copyright apply to GPL'd code?
Because once the copyright expires, it's public domain.
Do you REALLY want to start limiting copyright so much or making it so complex that an organization like Microsoft could hire every IP lawyer around and start using GPL code?
Re:Damn leeches (Score:3, Insightful)
Because copyright isn't a right. It is a license society gives IP creators as a "consideration" to induce them to create because society finds it a valuable trade.
If copyright ends, you didn't lose it, the society took it back. Culture belongs to society, you just get use of it.
And the carpenter's home is his only as long as he pays property taxes. Stop paying those taxes and he'll either have to add on wheels and leave or lose it, in much less time than copyright lasts, to cover missed payments for use of the land.
Be glad artists were generally broke back in the day, unlike land-owners. If IP was as valuable as land back then, you'd be paying X% of the "assesed" value of everything you created and the IRS would be rummaging in your trash for scribbled-on napkins to tax(IP is copyrighted on creation, remember).
Instead of banking on royalties, perhaps you should start asking for payments up front and buying an annuity, if you want to provide for your unborn great-great-great-grandkids.
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:1, Insightful)
That is why no matter what you do, no matter in what sector you work, you must always demand a share of revenues not profits. Seriously people, revenues, not profits. I'm going to repeat it again in case you ever are in a contract negotation... revenues not profits. Also, you want a linear scale, not a sliding scale the "rewards performance" Such sliding scales are always set so that you only get a share at unrealistically high sales volumes. So again, here is what you always insist on: % of revenues, at a flat rate. Anything else is a non starter.
Re:Bad news all around (Score:1, Insightful)
"Do plumbers demand royalties for toilets they fixed for their children after they die? Nope."
I don't even know how such an astounding leap of illogic was moderated as informative.
In exactly what way is the work of a plumber vs. the work of an author the 'same difference'?
In what store may I go to buy a, let's call it a 'plumbed toilet fix'? Under your logic, if my toilet is backed up, I obviously wouldn't call a plumber.
After all, I wouldn't call an author if I wanted to read a book.