Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Recall that the Estate threatened legal action against a Canadian children's summer camp for their use of the words Elf, Dwarf and Hobbit - none of which Tolkien actually invented.
No, it was because the camp named itself "Rivendell."
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But why did they go after a non-profit (and that's a precise legal term in Canada) camp for children? Particularly when there are any number of other companies and organizations, some of which are clearly profit-based, that call themselves Rivendell?
Do a google search. There's a bike company, a Christian retreat, an organic farm, a golf club/course, a horse farm, a radio broadcast enterprise, a software company, a ski company, holiday cottages (in Norfolk), a fantasy radio station, a construction company, a bookstore, a mountain equipment company, a guest house in Namibia, an environmental services company. Some of them are recent; others, quite old.
Why go after a children's camp, particularly one designed to give city kids whose parents cannot afford summer camp a place to experience the joys of summer camp? Have any of these other enterprises been subject to legal charges by the Estate?
EDIT: Note, I'm not talking specifically about Grotta's book because I haven't read it. Yet it does seem strange that the Estate's lawyers are attempting to control scholarship. Other authors do not have an Estate authorising what scholarship is acceptable. Scholarship is supposed to be free, not controlled by one entity. Some of the thing the Estate wishes to defend I can understand and approve of, but there are some very strange things as well.