Nerwen... in a previous post you asked this question of me. I am sorry but I did not give you a speedy answer. Here is what you asked of me
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Are you suggesting that lawyers for Tolkien Estate might claim anything which is treated in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion violates the copyright on the latter? I don't think they'd get very far.
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I make no claims regarding the copyright on SIL or LOTR. Both of those books were legally copyrighted under the law and as such have protections.
I do say that because of the timeline of the various publications and selling of film rights there are now problematic areas due to overlapping rights.
I refer you to the timeline in my earlier post showing that LOTR with its Appendcies was copyrighted in 1955 and sold as exclusive film rights to UA in 1969. After the death of JRRT, his son Christopher had a book length SIL published in 1977 and its copyright was registered at that time.
This created a situation where the many characters, settings and events found in the Appendicies and many of the same plus more are also found in the book length SIL. UA, and then Saul Zaentz, and now New Line Cinema, hold the film rights to LOTR and that includes the Appendicies with all the mention and description of First Age Events.
I contend that, and believe I have demonstrated that there are now overlapping rights regarding this material. It places the current film rights holder in a very tricky position regarding the Appendicies material.
In exchange with Willaim Cloud Hicklin yesterday, we agreed that New LIne could make a film which contained the following events and characters
- Feanor is shown to be the greatest of the Eldar making the Silmarils filling them with the radiance of the Two Trees
- Morgoth stealing the Silmarils
-Morgoth destroying the Two Trees by poisoning them
- Morgoth retreating to his great fortress of Thangorodrim with the Silmarils
- Feanor leading his people into exile
- War between the Eldar and Edain against Morgoth and his forces
- the defeat of the Eldar and Edain
- the union of Beren and Luthien and their lineage
-Beren and Luthien steal a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth
-Luthien becomes mortal and gives birth to Dior
-the city of Gondolin with Turgon as its king
-the wedding of Earendil to Elwing
-the overthrow of Morgoth
-the ship of Earendil is set into the heavens
All this is mentioned directly in the Appendicies and it says it is from The Silmarallion. So the current film rights holders could make a movie about all this.
However, all of those events are also mentioned and discussed further in the book length SIL which the Tolkien Estate retains film rights and Mr. Hickline says they will never be sold.
The publication of the book length SIL was a perfectly legal action and well within the rights of CT and the Estate. No dispute there. But it does create a very practical and thorny problem for the current film rights holders.
If New Line or a future designee of Saul Zaentz were to exercise their legal rights and make a movie of those events from the Silmarallion found in the Appendicies, they now have the unique problem of their work being held up to ridicule because another work presents a different picture of those events, settings and characters. And if they dare to refer to the book length SIL and use any of that material to make sure they get it right, then they run the very real danger of being accused of violation of the SIL copyright and using rights they did not have.
All this because the film rights were sold at a time when no book length SIL had been published or legally copyrighted. There was no competing book length SIL in existence that had been legally copyrighted when the film rights were sold. All that came years afterwards.
It puts the current rights holders in a position of damned if they do and damned if they do not. If they make a film and ignore the actual book length SIL and fill in all the blanks on their own from the Appendicies, they risk ridicule, derision and potential damage to their ability to market and do business with their product because "its not the real thing. You made most of this up and we can prove it by comparing the real book length SIL to your movie".
That situation did not exist when the film rights were sold in 1969. Now it does.
The publication of the SIL has greatly compounded the situation and created overlapping rights. I have said that the current rights holders could make a case that they now have a property which has been diminished.
We now have a situation where two more films were announced this week and at least one will be made up of material taken from the Appendicies.
I have said that these two parties, should work this out potential problems before this happens.
That will not happen. Both parties would much rather beat their respective chests and claim that they own certain rights and the other side does not and then proceed independently of the other. And for the next five to ten years we will again be debating, disputing and arguing about what was done, was it right and legal, did they go too far and all the same stuff that goes nowhere.