Quote:
Originally Posted by Recoveryanonymous
In late November, The Tolkien Estate sued Zaentz and the their sub licensee Warner Brothers. In addition to the slot machines, Warner Brothers never had the legal rights to "non-tangible digital media". Entities such as Merp were beyond their jurisdiction, rendering their Cease and Desist void. The Tolkien Estate had inadvertently saved Merp.
Now however, Zaentz is counter suing the Estate, threatening to throw Merp back under the rule of Warner Brothers and undo the Estate's actions. This conflict between these two juggernauts does, in a way, decide the fate of fan projects like Merp.
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I have heard about this, although I didn't realise that the Estate's suit possibly put the project in the clear. It did seem at the time that WB was concerned that a fan-made project would threaten their own products; I've only played the Battle for Middle-earth games (surprisingly fun) and the Return of the King tie-in button-masher (stress relief if nothing else) but those are from before WB had the license. I'm led to believe that the more recent video games have not done particularly well so I can see why they might be concerned, but that's still a rather petty reason to issue a cease and desist, as well as showing a lack of confidence in their own products. In addition it seems like the fan project is a long way from completion, and it would be a shame if this counter-claim would put something with such effort devoted to it in jeopardy again.
That being said, and judging from the images I've seen, doesn't the mod largely use designs from the films? Their summary says:
"We use the films for inspiration, but base our visual design mainly on the descriptions in the books and the works of Ted Nasmith and John Howe."
but judging by the Rohan buildings, Treebeard etc it's still largely reminiscent of the films. I can see why it might be treading on a few toes in that regard.