Beyond the Tolkien Estate

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

The extent of the Estate's rights is a tangled skein. They clearly think, for instance, that they retain enough rights to block the Lord of the Rings museum in New Zealand housing props, costumes, and miniatures from the movies. I'm not sure whether this matter has been resolved yet or not.

This past summer, the Estate apparently also contacted a site called http://www.shiremail.com, claiming that they own the rights to the word "Shire", which may be taking things a little far...

Both untrue. It seems our esteemed Press (not to mention webgossip) can't keep straight two completely unrelated entities: The Tolkien *Estate*, meaning the Tolkien family headed by Christopher; and Tolkien *Enterprises*, Saul Zaentz' merchandising money minter. It is the latter (i.e. they guy in Hollywood) who blocked the museum and sued shiremail- not the guy in France.