Zaentz countersues the Estate

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Recoveryanonymous

In any case, the movies only covered a limited portion of Middle Earth; Merp would be showing all of it. Many locations would be designed by the team. Based on Tolkien, of course, but the films couldn't really be a source of inspiration for Fornost, or Dol Amroth or a variety of other places.
There might be some similarities between Merp and the films in the design of the "iconic" locations, but didn't Alan Lee work on the trilogy too?

Quite so. I was merely trying to suggest some rationale for WB's attitude, but it does seem to derive more from sheer bloody-mindedness than any kind of genuine intellectual property issue. If they have so little confidence in their own ability to produce and market successful Tolkien-themed video games that they feel threatened by a fan mod for Skyrim I'm not really sure how they can think that putting a stop to its development is going to somehow improve their own success. Are they threatened by a non-profit mod because they fear that more people will buy Skyrim (rather than their own RPGs) as a result or some equally absurd concern? I notice however than in addition to having the license to produce film-related material WB also owns Turbine, Inc. which makes the specifically book-related The Lord of the Rings Online. Nonetheless, I would be curious as to whether there was any precedent or evidence for mods causing the kind of market "confusion" among consumers about which WB claim to be concerned. Where is the cease-and-desist against, say, The Third Age: Total War?
Frankly I despair of this 'Melkorism' among corporations, destroying things simply because they themselves did not create them and can't profit from them: "all gold (in Middle-earth) seems to have had a specially 'evil' trend"... (Morgoth's Ring)