Film Rights to First & Second Age

[Sauron the White]

WCH - thank you for this answer

Theoretically, it could be done (although use of the title 'silmarillion' would create trademark problems independent of copyright concerns)

I take it then that your answer to my question is YES.

Regarding the title - the Appendicies - A - state that those incidents and characters come from The Silmarallion. I would state that my title merely says where I obtained this material. But fine.

Thank you for telling me what I could not put into the film. I feel I have more than enough on the plate for a full film with the list as I provided. And I appreciate your concern about the difficulties of making a film from a short synopsis. But that is sometimes how films are sold. I understand that one of the most beloved films of all time came from a simple greeting card.

Next question: Could the Tolkien Estate, sell the film rights to THE SILMARILLION to a producer creating a film of its tales including the following

- Feanor is shown to be the greatest of the Eldar making the Silmarils filling them with the radiance of the Two Trees
- Morgoth stealing the Silmarils
-Morgoth destroying the Two Trees by poisoning them
- Morgoth retreating to his great fortress of Thangorodrim with the Silmarils
- Feanor leading his people into exile
- War between the Eldar and Edain against Morgoth and his forces
- the defeat of the Eldar and Edain
- the union of Beren and Luthien and their lineage
-Beren and Luthien steal a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth
-Luthien becomes mortal and gives birth to Dior
-the city of Gondolin with Turgon as its king
-the wedding of Earendil to Elwing
-the overthrow of Morgoth
-the ship of Earendil is set into the heavens

If the Estate sold those rights, would a film maker have the legal right to make that film?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

If the Estate sold those rights, would a film maker have the legal right to make that film?

Ah, I see where you're going. You're suggesting that, were the Estate hypothetically to sell the film rights to The Silmarillion, then Zaentz would be able to attack that sale, or rather part thereof, on the basis that he already owns the film rights to specific incidents included in the Appendices to LR.

Possibly so.

However

A) it ain't gonna happen

B) the issue turns on whether JRRT sold UA an exclusive or non-exclusive license. If the latter, the Estate is free to sell another license to somebody else

C) the issue also turns on whether the JRRT/UA contract explicitly excluded the Elder Days- which well it might. Tolkien was very protective of that material.

(B) and (C) of course are irreducible unknowns, so long as the actual contract remains secret. And the whole exercise is moot, given (A).

[Sauron the White]

Mr. Hicklin... you previously told me this

There is NO grey area. There are no overlapping rights. There is no ambiguity, except in your fevered imagination. NONE.

You have been fair and good enough to walk through the previous exercise with me regarding the rights held by the currents LOTR film rights holder and rights held to future films in the hands of the Estate. The films I presented you with were in made up of the same events.

Do you still insist that there are no overlapping rights?

Regarding the second half of your post:

However

A) it ain't gonna happen

B) the issue turns on whether JRRT sold UA an exclusive or non-exclusive license. If the latter, the Estate is free to sell another license to somebody else

C) the issue also turns on whether the JRRT/UA contract explicitly excluded the Elder Days- which well it might. Tolkien was very protective of that material.

allow me to address each -
A) My rather limited abilities do not enable me to look into the future. As such I will leave that to those who can give me tomorrows lottery numbers today.
B)YES - however do you think the right to make films from LOTR is an exclusive license - and I realize you are not privvy to the contracts. I would have to believe that it is an exclusive license but I would be willing to be proven wrong.
C) In the absence of proof for such a claim, we have to proceed as if no such exclusion existed. But again, if you have proof I would be willing to be proven wrong.

Regardless, none of that has any impact on your statement chastising me and questioning my mental processes for stating that there were areas of overlap in the rights held by each party. I believe that has been clearly demonstrated with your able assistance.

[davem]

Now, although I much prefer to contribute to this discussion by way of withering put downs, I did just look up Tolkien Enterprises on Wikipedia:

Tolkien Enterprises (TE), a trading name for the Saul Zaentz Company, owns the worldwide exclusive rights to certain elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's two most famous literary works; The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. These elements include the titles of the works, the names of characters contained within as well as the names of places, objects and events within them, and certain short phrases and sayings from the works.

TE licenses these rights out to other companies for use as trademarks and service marks. It also owns the rights to certain copyrightable elements of these two works, such as film and stage productions. Tolkien sold these rights to United Artists in 1968, who in turn sold them to Zaentz in 1976.

[Sauron the White]

Thank you davem for that information. I guess now the $500 per hour attorneys can hold forth on what that means.

[Mithalwen]

Well clearly they licensed the musical (it says so in the programme apart form anything else), the LOTR character names are their trademarks which is largely protecting merchandise (though what attraction those creepy dolls that resemble the actors only enough to disturb is I don't know - they must make some money on them beofre they end up in TK maxx).

The main implication for any hypothetical film based on the other works would be that they wouldn't be able to call Elrond (and presumably Glorfindel)
Elrond and Glorfindel without the permission of T-Enterprises and coughing up the money. Tyoical that these are among the few characters in the whole shebang with just the one name.... I don't think you can trade mark dictionary words so they could probably use Blue Mountains and so forth butmaybe not Rivendell.

Now that I think of it I recall that the Elf who fulfilled the the role of Gildor wasn't called Gildor in the musical but Elranien(wandering elf) - which may suggest that not all the names are trademarked.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

No, StW, there are no overlapping rights. There may be bifurcated rights, which are a different thing.

[davem]

Here also is a list of "all the character, places, items, etc. which are copyrighted by Tolkien Enterprises."

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tolki...%27_copyrights

No mention of the words/names 'Silmarillion', 'Feanor', 'Turin', 'Numenor', or 'Valar'.