Or no Hobbits at all...

[Boromir88]

There's no sense in getting hot and bothered over an issue that concerns none of us directly and that cannot be influenced by any of us.~Estelyn

I agree with that statement that nobody should get hot and bothered about this because none of us have a dime to make either way.~Sauron the White

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with both of you on this. This suit does effect us. Maybe we don't have money to gain, and we may not be as personally effected by it as the Tolkien Estate, but when did the idea of as "common people" (or "fans") we have no choice but to sit idle and observe at a distance?

If New Line did cheat the Estate out of the money owed to them (which seeing the complaint by the Estate it sounds identical to what NL has done to the actors, Peter Jackson, and Saul Zaentz - this "creative hollywood accounting" crap). What New Line has attempted to do is cheat, and profit, off an author's hard earned work, that he spent years to write for our enjoyment:

Of course the L.R. does not belong to me. It has been brought forth and must now go its appointed way in the world, though naturally I take a deep interest in its fortunes , as a person would of a child.~Letter # 328

'I hope that you have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings? Enjoyed is the key-word. For it was written to amuse (in the highest sense): to be readable.'~Letter 181

An author who had to work late hours as a professor to scrape in more money, an author who's books I have enjoyed reading several times for many many years.

New Line is facing a public relations disaster, and I may not get a dime out of it, but I can try to make sure New Line doesn't make another dime off someone else's years of work and get away without paying for it.

This doesn't effect the fans? It certainly does. As fans we must sit and merely watch like little children as the "adults" duke it out, powerless to effect anything? No. I can make sure New Line doesn't get another cent from me, and I can try to persuade other effected fans to do the same; hoping New Line pays so dearly for a problem they brought upon themselves that they are never able to recover. Now, that is power.