[Nerwen]

[Note: this is a reply to a deleted post]

Davem, thanks for the clarification; however, I don't think we're quite approaching this from the same angle. I'm aware that copyright laws were never intended to block information, and I generally think it's very bad indeed when they're used for that purpose, as has been all too often the case recently (especially with their misbegotten internet offspring, the DMCA). However, I think what we're talking about is a grey area. There are considerations other than either profit or defamation– I mean, I think it reasonable if a deceased person's family doesn't want some private material published simply because it happens to be embarrassing in a sub-defamatory way, or indeed just because it is private. Again, I know this wasn't the original purpose of copyright law. What I'm saying is that I don't think it's wrong to use a law for another purpose than what it was meant for, if that purpose is not in itself wrong.

All the above, though, relates to your own hypothesis that the Estate's real motivation is to suppress some juicy bit of scandal... which remains just an hypothesis, anyway.

Having said all that, I do consider that giving people permission to use material, then withdrawing that permission at a point where it makes everything they've done pointless, is indeed "morally questionable". If that's what Tolkien Estate did, then they were in the wrong.