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Lord of the Rings Books

Tolkien Estate Wins Court Order To Destroy Fan's 'Lord of the Rings' Sequel (nytimes.com) 136

Remy Tumin reports via the New York Times: It was supposed to be what a fan described as a "loving homage" to his hero, the author J.R.R. Tolkien, and to "The Lord of the Rings," which he called "one of the most defining experiences of his life." A judge in California had another view. The fan, Demetrious Polychron of Santa Monica, Calif., violated copyright protections this year when he wrote and published a sequel to the epic "Rings" series, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of California ruled last week. In a summary judgment, Judge Wilson found "direct evidence of copying" and barred Polychron from further distributing the book or any others in a planned series. He also ordered Polychron to destroy all electronic and physical copies of the published work, "The Fellowship of the King," by Sunday. As of Wednesday, Amazon and Barnes & Noble were no longer listing the book for sale online. Steven Maier, a lawyer for the Tolkien estate, said the injunction was "an important success" for protecting Tolkien's work. "This case involved a serious infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on a commercial basis," he said. "The estate hopes that the award of a permanent injunction and attorneys' fees will be sufficient to dissuade others who may have similar intentions."
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Tolkien Estate Wins Court Order To Destroy Fan's 'Lord of the Rings' Sequel

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  • Good old copyright (Score:2, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 )

    Come back in 2044 and make your fan stuff. It's not public domain yet and it still belongs to someone. If you don't like it, then call your legislature and demand they overhaul copyright law in your respective country.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 22, 2023 @12:18AM (#64097919)

      >buy your legislature

    • Yes. Let's lobby to get copyright changed. 5 years seems about right to ensure productive artists can live of their work. Anything longer is just detrimental to society.
      • While knee-jerk reaction would be positive, in reality it's too short.
        I am all for maintaining copyright until the author's passing. Many great works were written with large pauses in between, or over a long period of time (a decade or more).

        • by kvezach ( 1199717 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @01:46PM (#64099221)
          This paper [ssrn.com] argues that the optimal length is 15 years, or rather, that the optimal length was 15 years in 2009. It further states that optimal protection is likely to decrease as the cost of production for ‘originals’ falls (and vice-versa), and given how the internet doesn't seem to be making original content harder to produce, the optimum might be shorter now.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 )

        Just make it able to be renewed, but make it costly. So if you think you can still make a fortune off it, pay the public for the privilege of withholding the ability to create.

        • by JackieBrown ( 987087 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @10:55AM (#64098821)

          That's a great idea that in no way obvoiusly bennifits big corperations with lots of money versus everyone else.

          • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

            That's a great idea that in no way obvoiusly bennifits big corperations with lots of money versus everyone else.

            What renewal would do is eliminate the problem of "orphan works"-- that is, works that now are statutorialy still in copyright, but nobody has any idea who the copyright owner is and there's no way to find them to get permission.

            We're lucky in some cases; for example we know that Robert E. Howard's copyrights passed to his father, who gave them to his friend, who transferred them to his wife, who passed them to her daughter. So we know who to pay to reprint Conan the Barbairan. But the majority of works f

          • That's a great idea that in no way obvoiusly bennifits big corperations with lots of money versus everyone else.

            You missed the point that copyright already mostly benefits big corporations.

            You want to fix it to make things more reasonable? Renewals must be registered every five years. Miss the renewal deadline and it's public domain forever. No recovery. Renewal cost doubles each time. Fifty years maximum. If you can't squeeze enough money out in fifty years, it isn't worth copyright. If it's still extremely valuable after fifty years, those big corporations are getting screwed over at expiration in exchange

          • You failed to inform me why I give a fuck about what big corporations want.

            As far as I am concerned, they can fuck off and die a fiery death.

      • I hope you are being sarcastic, as 5 years is way to short.
    • by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak @ y a h o o.com> on Friday December 22, 2023 @06:08AM (#64098343) Homepage Journal

      In this case, the fan sued the Tolkien estate first, the copyright action was in retribution.

      As much as I dislike excessive copyright, if you kick a sleeping dragon then you don't get to complain if it decides you are crunchy and would taste good with ketchup.

      • by JackieBrown ( 987087 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @10:58AM (#64098829)

        Yeah - I am glad you mentioned that. It made me read the actually artical

        In April, Polychron sued the Tolkien estate and Amazon. He claimed that “Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power,” an Amazon Prime Video prequel series that was released last year and is one of the few adaptations authorized by the Tolkien estate, infringed on the copyright of his book. He asked for $250 million in compensation

  • Sadly (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:14PM (#64097737)

    I haven't read Polychron's work, but it's probably more faithful to Tolkien's than Rings of Power.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mrbester ( 200927 )

      That was the problem. Plus he didn't get permission to expand upon that work from the Tolkien estate.

      As a bonus, he tried suing Amazon saying that RoP infringed _his_ copyright.

    • Rings of Power is the least faithful non-pornographic adaptation of Tolkien.

    • From what I've seen, a random text generation device would produce something more faithful to Tolkien's work than Rings of Power.

    • But the creators of Rings of power had a license to use the property, polycron didn't. If it's any good the writer has probably burned all bridges now to get a license.
  • So.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:20PM (#64097751)
    Where can we find a copy?
  • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:22PM (#64097755) Homepage

    Seems like an easy enough fix, just rename the story and any characters and locations from LOTR, then re-publish. Or just add a bunch of dick and fart jokes and claim it's now a parody.

    • "Bored of the Rings" is an existing parody.

    • Re:Search & Replace (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @12:57AM (#64097993)

      A couple decades ago, Donald Kingsbury wrote an excellent sequel to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series - it takes place after the second galactic empire has been established. Since Kingsbury did not have permission from Asimov's estate to do this, he used different names for the planets and historical people - the Mule becomes "The Clown" I believe, Hari Seldon is just "Founder", etc.). The backstory was still obviously recognizable.

      This is probably what this particular Tolkien fan should've done.

      Side note - I've mentioned it here before, but I think Kingsbury's story is significantly better than any of the "official" follow-ups. It's long and dense, but worth the time.

  • Copyright (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:25PM (#64097757)
    Copyright should end when the author dies.
    The idea of copyright was to grant the author an income while the researched/wrote/etc another book. Some books take years to write. For this I have zero problems with copyright.
    However the author once dead can no longer create any other works, this is now just an unearned income stream for the later generations.
    • Re:Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShadowRangerRIT ( 1301549 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:14PM (#64097801)
      I'm also okay with a reasonable minimum copyright time even if you die shortly after publication; if you're still writing at 80, or die at a young age, it's okay to have the proceeds of your work act as a small part of your inheritance and/or as a form of life insurance. Something like the greater of 10-20 years (pick your favorite number in that range) from date of publication or the lifespan of the author (if you're a corporation, you only get the 10-20 years, period), not a guaranteed 70+. There is no justification for your great-grandchildren to still be gatekeeping your works for profit.
      • Plus add a requirement to re-register the copyright after 20 years if you want to claim statutory damages.

      • Re:Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Elfich47 ( 703900 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @12:34AM (#64097957)
        I would prefer to see the following:

        The content creator can hold the copyright indefinitely. The moment the copyright is transferred to anyone else - person or corporation, the clock starts with a hard ten year run out. This gives the content creator an income as long as they are alive, and then there is a ten year window after they die while someone else holds the copyright.

        And yes, that means for big companies like Disney - they have to make the choice - does the copyright stay with the person who created it, or do they take then and start the ten year countdown.
        • "And yes, that means for big companies ... does the copyright stay with the person who created it, or do they take ..."

          Where I have worked all my life in software development, the company IS the original copyright holder, because the software is being written by employees acting as part of the company and not as private individuals (refer employment contract, including remuneration for said writing). I guess that is pretty standard for the vast majority of the software industry worldwide.

          I don't see that it

          • by Calydor ( 739835 )

            So that just means the ten year countdown starts immediately from the date of publication.

          • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

            Yes, the company isn't the creator on a work-for-hire, they just get the rights which would start the clock here. The creator still has to be a good old human in all cases.

            Speaking of work-for-hire, anyone else notice that photographers don't seem to understand the concept.

        • The content creator can hold the copyright indefinitely. The moment the copyright is transferred to anyone else - person or corporation, the clock starts with a hard ten year run out.

          In that case copyrights would all be indefinite. Authors generally do not sign over their copyrights to publish. Instead, they grant a publisher the exclusive right to publish their work while retaining the copyright themselves..

          • by Calydor ( 739835 )

            But it wouldn't be. The death of the author then becomes the trigger for the countdown as his ownership of the copyright gets passed to his heirs, granting them a ten year income as part of the inheritance (for however much or little the stories may be worth by then), and after that it's all public domain forever.

            • Provided the "author" isn't a shell company that's kept alive artificially forever to perpetuate copyright.

              Remember: Corporations are people. Just not as tasty when put into Soylent Barf.

        • I generally like this idea, as long as it's written in such a way that the content creator must be a currently living human who significantly contributes to the creation of the piece. Any idea about how to handle the use case where a work is created by multiple people, such as co-authors? My first thought is that one of them would need to be elected as the copyright holder, but that creates a corner-case problem if that designated copyright holder dies prematurely, because now the surviving partner will l
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        I'm also okay with a reasonable minimum copyright time even if you die shortly after publication; if you're still writing at 80, or die at a young age, it's okay to have the proceeds of your work act as a small part of your inheritance and/or as a form of life insurance. Something like the greater of 10-20 years (pick your favorite number in that range) from date of publication or the lifespan of the author (if you're a corporation, you only get the 10-20 years, period), not a guaranteed 70+. There is no justification for your great-grandchildren to still be gatekeeping your works for profit.

        I'd argue going one further.

        A lot of the reason "rights holders" want to keep their back catalogues locked up is that free access to classics will me fewer people will buy the latest dross they've excreted out.

        So I'd say you get a 3 (or maybe 5) year copyright for a minimal fee to cover processing, then a yearly fee increasing each year (I'd say doubling per year is not unreasonable) up to a maximum of 20 years including the initial period.

        This would be applicable to a corporation or individual.

    • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @04:00AM (#64098199) Journal

      Copyright should end when the author dies.

      I disagree - copyrights should be for a fixed term, say 25 years, regardless of the author's lifespan. The entire point of copyright is to encourage and promote the creation and publication of material. If an author can write one good book and then live off it for the rest of their lives there is zero incentive to write more works. Conversely, if they write a book and then get hit by a bus their family should still be allowed to get the earnings from the work they did writing the book.

      Having a fixed term of a couple of decades means that like any job you get to make money based on the continuous effort you are putting in and the quality of the work you do. What would be reasonable though is to prevent derivative works during the lifespan of the author. This would preserve the author's control of their "universe" to allow future works and would also require things like movies of a book to be under the author's control if they are still alive.

    • I agree with you generally, except that this would incentivise, for lack of a better term, "copyright assassination" - the deliberate termination of someone in order to release lucrative copyright.
      A reasonable amount of time (a decade or less) after an author's passing should mitigate this for the most part, or tie copyright to expected lifespan (eg, "100 years after the author's birth")

      This wouldn't apply to corporate-owned copyrights, of course. A hard time limit should be fine there because the interest

      • Publishing houses whacking authors so they don't have to pay for the copyright? That's a bit of a reach...

        I think a limited copyright for each work should be sufficient: 25 years or so, that start ticking when the work is first published (or when the author first asserts their copyright, for instance when they claim infringement before the work is published). But that pertains to specific works. The author's moral rights should lapse upon the author's death, and others should then be free to create der
        • More thinking something like Disney might find it cheaper to whack an author than lose a nine or ten figure lawsuit over rights.
          A flat 25 years makes sense though sure. Moral rights absolutely should lapse at death, where they even exist (they're not universally accepted to begin with)
          I agree with the absurdity over the Tolkien estate absolutely.
    • by adrn01 ( 103810 )
      I'd say end 10 yrs after death of author. If too soon, publishers will be leery of publishing works of authors old / sick enough that they might die before the book has sold enough to even cover cost of printing, etc.
    • Copyright should end when the author dies.

      The idea of copyright was to grant the author an income while the researched/wrote/etc another book. Some books take years to write. For this I have zero problems with copyright.

      However the author once dead can no longer create any other works, this is now just an unearned income stream for the later generations.

      I'd go even further, and say we should do it like the founding fathers did: copyright lasts 7 years, renewable to 14.

      • You're off by a factor of two. It was 14 years, renewable for an additional 14 years.
        And frankly, given how slow the transmission of information was back then compared to how quick it is today, it seems to me that copyright is far too excessively long today.

  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:32PM (#64097765)

    After this guy published his "homage" , this guy had the gall to sue the Tolkien Staten AND Amazon over Copyright Ingringement over "the rings of power series":

    But the following April, Polychron attempted to sue the Tolkien estate and Amazon over the spin-off TV series The Rings of Power, which he claimed infringed the copyright in his book. A California court dismissed the case after the judge ruled that Polychron’s text was, in fact, infringing on Amazon’s prequel, released in September 2022.

    Of course, he lost, he got countersuied, and here we are...

    By the way, this more complete article IS NOT behind a paywall

    https://www.theguardian.com/bo... [theguardian.com]

  • by seebs ( 15766 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:31PM (#64097821) Homepage

    The key point here isn't that he wrote a fic, and it wasn't "a loving homage", he was claiming that he owned the rights to LoTR and suing over it. His suit against Amazon was what brought him to the Tolkein estate's attention.

    I think if he'd made the fan work and not actively gone trying to pick a fight with them, they'd likely not have cared.

    • What balls, verging on psychosis.

      Reminds me of the episode of Portlandia where Matt Groening sues a guy for making Bart Simpson tshirts. "I'm not suing because he is bootlegging Bart, I'm suing because they suck."

    • by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @03:01AM (#64098135) Homepage

      So everybody sucks here:

      - The "Tolkein Estate" should not exist - Tolkein is dead, and anyway, LoTR was written 70 years ago, so the copyrights should have long since ended.

      - The fanfic author was an idiot for actually suing people as though he had any rights to the original works.

      Greed. It's greed all the way down.

      • If it's actually any good I think destroying it (even if you could do that) is the wrong call. In the worst case the copyright should become owned by the Tolkien estate, despite that I also do not think it should really exist.

  • by tyroxy ( 1291304 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:59PM (#64097871)
    https://archive.org/details/Th... [archive.org]

    What if the wizards and the elves were actually the bad guys?

    • That was an amazing book and really enjoyed the perspective. I highly recommend reading it.

    • There is also two books by Jacqueline Carey that take that premise; The Sundering and Godslayer. Basically the "Sauron" of the book gave a gift to mankind "Quickening" or lust so they end up procreating more and the other gods got jelouse and pushing him and started a war against him. He basically becomes the god of those lost and rejected by society. It's really good but very sad.
  • by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @12:23AM (#64097941) Journal

    >destroy all electronic and physical copies of the published work

    This judge doesn't appear to be familiar with how the internet works.

    • This judge doesn't appear to be familiar with how the internet works.

      Now that's one shocking revelation nobody expected...

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I think there's a good chance that it will be unavailable in 10 years, maybe even 1 year.

      It's apparently pretty terrible, and of little interest except as a curiosity. If the DMCA the Internet Archive and other sites hosting it, any torrents will probably die, and eventually it will fall off Usenet.

      There is a lot of stuff you just can't find online anymore.

    • No, and despite the silliness of the case, I question the wisdom of the judge that doesn't understand primitives like branching and entropy. Unenforceable is unenforceable.

  • Misleading title (Score:4, Informative)

    by bettodavis ( 1782302 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @12:35AM (#64097963)
    There are tons of Tolkien fanfics and unofficial sequels, prequels and in-between-quels and nobody bats an eye.

    This clown tried to sell his fanfic and later was suing the Tolkien state over Tolkien's books rights. And naturally, got crushed like a bug.
  • It is beyond ridiculous that an original work is a "copyright" violation.

    • And that is why moral rights, including control over derivative works, should die with the author. Copyright was not invented to provide authors with an income, but to foster creativity.
      • Copyright was invented for both, actually, but certainly not for feeding author's random heirs four generations down the road.

  • Copyright is a few-year privilege we give to creators to encourage creativity.

    Not a cash cow to be milked for generations.

    Link to encourage creativity:
    https://play.google.com/store/books/details/The_Fellowship_Of_The_King_The_War_Of_The_Rings_Bo?id=iH6iEAAAQBAJ&gl=US
    • by Barny ( 103770 )

      The loony sued Amazon because he was upset his fanfic was made non-canon by their series. Fuck around/find out distilled to its most bitter dregs.

      • Copyright exists to promote creativity.

        Here, as usual, grossly over-extended copyright terms are being used to stifle creativity.
        • You didn't really address what the grandparent comment said. Apparently the Tolkien estate has never sued for fan-fiction up till now, loud and offensive though their rejection of it may be.

          • The estate of an author who has been dead for FIFTY years should OBVIOUSLY have NO say on the issue of copyright of his works, because any of his creativity that the copyright would encourage DIED WITH HIM.

            Any creative challenging the Tolkien parasites deserves support.
  • Bad Source (Score:5, Informative)

    by Barny ( 103770 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @02:18AM (#64098075) Journal

    For shame, Slashdot. You linked the "big bad evil stopping the underdog" version.

    For those interested, the events happened:
    - Guy writes LotR fanfic prequel, with a lot of detail to make it fit in the official canon
    - Amazon makes LotR prequel with official permission
    - Guy gets miffed that his fanfic is now non-canon
    - Guy sues Amazon for copyright infringement
    - Fuck around/find out closes the loop

    A far better source that doesn't try to reshape events for a specific narrative. [theguardian.com]

    • Re:Bad Source (Score:5, Interesting)

      by loonycyborg ( 1262242 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @03:27AM (#64098163)
      But please explain to me why court ordered destruction of ALL copies of the fanfic? Aren't you supposed to be able to write anything as long as you don't distribute it? Copyright by its nature covers only distribution. It really reeks of book burning if there exists certain works that should be destroyed wherever they're found.
      • "as long as you don't distribute it"

        -1, offtopic
        Polychron was distributing copies, so your "question" is moot.

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )

      The guy is upset that his frequent and excessively detailed description of dwarf cocks is now non-canon.

  • Apparently the Tolkien Estate is a corporate zombie designed to extract money from anyone who tries to use Tolkein's work now that he's been dead a while. If a project tries to use Tolkein's work, they sue, until they settle out of court and collect a tidy sum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    The Tolkien Trust is the family's trust designed to donate the Tolkien Estate's money.

    So basically it's a typical aristocratic vampire family, sucking off grandad's legacy, making sure nobody can use his work without

  • That copyright has been going more than long enough, how much more money could the modern day Tolkien clan possibly want to make? 6 movies and Hollywood bent a whole country over backwards during production. This really has been going on long enough.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @05:53AM (#64098321)

    I guess we can agree that someone who puts work into something should have the right to benefit from it. If you create something, you should have the right to market it, and you shouldn't have to worry that some dickhead goes and steals your work to market it instead because he has the better facilities and can easily outpace your ability to market it. Think what would happen if you wrote the next "White Christmas", some large recording studio hears it and could press copies without paying you a dime.

    I guess we can at least agree that this would not be fair, and that this would go against the spirit of how innovation and profiting from innovation should work: Whoever invents should benefit from it.

    Since works where the majority of the value resides in its idea are nontrivial to protect against multiplication (or, in simpler terms, if copying is a trivial matter because you don't have to multiply the molecules), some kind of legal protection is the only way to ensure this is the case. So yes, I do agree that some sort of copyright should be in place, if only to protect the creators of a work against organizations that could easily surpass the creator's ability to reproduce it and rip him off.

    But the current lengths are simply and plainly insane. An example: "Love me do" by the Beatles was released in October 1962, written by Lennon/McCartney. John Lennon is dead, but Paul is still alive (hush, conspiracy loons!). Provided Paul dies today, the copyright would expire just shy of the year 2100. Almost 150 YEARS after the song was released for the first time.

    To put that in perspective, in 1882, 150 years ago, the 1812 overture [youtube.com] was debuted.

    As a funny side note, the copyright of "Mein Kampf" expired only in 2015, and before that the state of Bavaria had the rights to the book (and used them to prohibit its printing where it could). So... yeah, there are good arguments for an insanely long copyright...

    In most other cases, I think we can agree that it's more detrimental to invention than it is to further it by aiding the creator. Because a copyright that expires 3 generations after the creator's death doesn't help him. It's like saying I should be allowed to collect rent from the houses my grandfather who was a bricklayer built. Why the hell would I work if I could just do that?

    Perpetual copyright is not sensible as an encouragement to create. When I can milk a single successful invention forever, I have no reason to keep inventing. If I can milk a single successful song for royalties forever, why continue writing songs? One could argue that it enables me to write the songs I want instead of the ones that sell because i'm not dependent on that anymore but: Should it be that way? Last I checked our society, and our economy, was meant to demand you produce what society and economy wants, not what fancies you.

    Give people an incentive to produce. Let them benefit from creating, but don't make it forever plus 70 years. That's not encouraging, if anything, it's detrimental to the alleged purpose.

    • As a funny side note, the copyright of "Mein Kampf" expired only in 2015, and before that the state of Bavaria had the rights to the book (and used them to prohibit its printing where it could). So... yeah, there are good arguments for an insanely long copyright...

      So copyright is good in that it can be a tool of censorship? Oh my. You are a potential dictator. I do not like that.

  • Forget copyright for a while, how good or bad is the book ?
    • by sfsp ( 655361 )

      Polychron was foolish for suing because of Amazon's Rings Of Power; it was a prequel that was at least founded in canon.

      Fellowship of the King, OTOH:

      ""Publisher Description (https://fable.co/book/the-fellowship-of-the-king-by-demetrious-polychron-9798986410456#about)
      Long before Annatar, the original Rings of Power were forged by the Elven Lord Celebrimbor and the Dwarven smith Narvi in Eregion near the Misty Mountains. These first magic Rings were far more powerful than those that came after and were corrup

  • Tolkien died in 1973, so his copyright ends (in most countries) on 2043-12-31.

  • Fun fact: Bram Stoker's heirs sued the producers of Nosferatu and obtained a judgement ordering all copies of that film to be destroyed. Fortunately, at least a few copies survived.

  • Isn't an author generally allowed to write "in the universe' of $FAMOUS_PERSON so long as he writes under his own name, distinct from the original?

  • I'm sure I'm displaying my ignorance to one and all here, but I've got to ask. . . Copyright originally covered only the actual published works, I think? When did it come to include such abstractions as characters, character names and similar descriptions, settings, etc? (And how, if at all, does that tie into trademark law?)

...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"

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