[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

In 1969 there existed no bloody work titled the SILMARILLION outside of stacks of unsorted and sometimes unreadable papers strewn around various locations where JRRT worked. It may have existed in his mind. Fragments may have existed on scraps of paper. But THE SILMARILLION as an identifiable work that UA or anyone else (beyond some Tolkien groupies) would know about did not exist to be bought, stolen or anything else.

You see, copyright does matter– despite your own statements to the contrary. Tolkien owned the copyright on his work as soon as he wrote it. Publication has nothing to do with it. This is the basic point which you refuse to accept.

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I have tried to answer all your questions. Would you please be good enough to answer this for me that I have posed before?

Do you know of any other situation in publishing or in film rights where someone made a legal purchase of film rights and then, years later, some of those same contents were repackaged and sold in a longer format thus weakening the usability and exercise of rights of the original sale?

Because I know of not one situation like that. I spent several hours researching this to find out if there was precedent for it and cannot find one case where anyone did that.

But that's not what happened. The Silmarillion is not an expansion of the LotR Appendices. They are a synopsis of it. J.R.R. Tolkien owned the copyright on the Simarillion material from the moment he wrote it. He did, Sauron. He really, really did. Your personal beliefs do not change this in the slightest.

And while we're on the subject of belief:

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Its a free country so you can believe anything you darn well please. That changes nothing I said. Believe away. Please show me where I said the film rights holders can sue the Tolkien Estate for damages caused by publishing THE SIL. Please show me. I never said it. Some type of action may have come up in the discussion in passing over the last three pages but that was never my point. And if I never said it it cannot be the cornerstone of my argument. This is not about litigation or lawsuits.

Here we go again. Will you kindly explain what your argument is?

You say it's not about who owns the rights. You say it's not about whether the rights holders can sue for damages.

Then what is it?

Edit: Another thing: How do you think registering copyright affects an author's ownership of his work?

Don't say this doesn't matter– you've been arguing on this issue for ages.