Film Rights to First & Second Age

[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.

[Sauron the White]

davem ... thank you for providing that list. I did access it and it says this right at the top

The list was on their website some years ago and is by no means official.

So it may or may not mean anything as it pertains to this discussion.
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WCH -

I hate it when otherwise good discussions come down to the old definition of terms. I remmeber my years on the debate team in college where they taught us that defining terms in your favor was one of the the easiest way to win a debate.

Despite our earlier exercise where it became very very clear that the film rights held by Zaentz and New Line and the film rights held by the Estate could well involve exactly many of the same things, you still insist that

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

It would have been a positive step towards furthering your position if you could have explained what you believe the two are and why they are different. But you simply made the statement like so much being handed down from On High. Which is of course your right.

So allow me to take out my trusty three volume copy of Websters Third International Dictionary (1981) and quote for you regarding the word OVERLAP as found on page 1,608.

among the offerings in a long list of offerings are

to extend over and cover a part of
to have something in common with
coincide in part with
to occupy the same area in part with

English is my first language. Heck, its my only language. I understand what overlap means and it applies perfectly here.

The only way it would not be if one of your A, B, C, options were true and UA was granted exclusive rights to everything from cover to cover of LOTR. Then could could make a case that it is the Tolkien Estate itself which has no right to use any of those things and in that case, an absence of rights on their part would mean no overlap as I claimed. I do find it hard to imagine that would have occured. However, I am not taking that position here without detailed knowledge of that legal arrangement.

My entire argument is based on the assumption that Zaentz and New Line own rights to the things in the Appendicies and the Estate owns the rights to what is in the book THE SILMARALLION. If someone can show factual information that shows either party does not have these rights, then my assumption changes.

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Mithalwen .... the absence of the index in the First Editions of LOTR is true as you discovered. It does not however have and impact on my argument regarding these rights.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

StW:

You do understand the difference between primary and derivative rights, don't you?

[Sauron the White]

Just to make sure we both are on the same page, explain it to me like I am a four year old ..... as Denzel Washington once said.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

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WCH -

I hate it when otherwise good discussions come down to the old definition of terms. I remmeber my years on the debate team in college where they taught us that defining terms in your favor was one of the the easiest way to win a debate.

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Mithalwen .... the absence of the index in the First Editions of LOTR is true as you discovered. It does not however have and impact on my argument regarding these rights.

I never said it did.... and how can one discuss the law of intellectual copyright without definition of terms ..?

Though I' m not a lawyer, half my family are and I have worked as a legal secretary/admin, and having seen my erstwhile employers eyes light up at the prospect of the billable hours they could clock up in dissecting knotty problems in a different field (they were licensing lawyers and the lunch at which we discussed exactly what constituted nude dancing was one of the more entertaining aspects of my time with them!), I would want to be very sure that the apendices were part of the rights deals before coughing up cash for a fim. I think there is a good chance they would not be included since they are appendices to the LOTR not an actual part of LOTR but I don't have the contract and I am not an IP lawyer.

Anyway I will leave it there while I still have the will to live ...

[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'.