Or no Hobbits at all...

[Sauron the White]

First we saw the accountants and attorneys for Saul Zaentz go up against the accountants and attorneys of New Line Cinema. Then Peter Jackson assembled his own legion of numbers crunchers and did the same. Even the lower tier bit actors like Rosie Cotton got into the act and hired legal atalent to get their share of merchandising monies. Now its the Tolkien Estate with their own company of lawyers and forensic accountants.

The Battle of the Five Armies takes on an entirely new meaning.

[Sauron the White]

Three questions for our legal minded Downers...

1.- if this suit was filed in California why would New York law apply?

2. - Would the previous filings of Wingnut Films and Peter Jackson be available to the Estate and would Peter Jackson be a good possible witness to assist them?

3- This was posted on another site - halloffire.net - by an attorney. Is there any truth to this and could you explain what you think it means?

If the Estate REALLY wanted to play hardball, they could move in 2012 (1937 + 75 years) for copyright reclamation, voiding every single license or copyright assignment in TH JRRT ever made in his lifetime. The same could apply to the LR in 2010-11 (1954-55 + 56 years).

Thank you for the pro bono work.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

1.- if this suit was filed in California why would New York law apply?

New York law applies because all parties to the original 1969 contracts agreed that it would. This is legally valid and indeed almost standard in commercial contracts (read the fine print in a product warranty if you don't believe me). The case was filed in California because New Line is located there and therefore California has in personam jurisdiction. It's not all that unusual a situation.

2. - Would the previous filings of Wingnut Films and Peter Jackson be available to the Estate and would Peter Jackson be a good possible witness to assist them?

The actual filings- documents filed with the court- are matters of public record and open to anyone. Of course since PJ eventually settled a lot of stuff was never filed or submitted as evidence. Whether PJ would be a good witness is a judgment call for the lawyers. However, it's certainly possible that PJ's version of production costs might be rather different from what New Line is claiming!

3- This was posted on another site - halloffire.net - by an attorney. Is there any truth to this and could you explain what you think it means

I posted it, and was referring to the doctrine of Copyright Reclamation, a part of US law. The purpose behind it is to allow the heirs of an author or artist a chance to 'reclaim' the copyright as against any really crappy deal he might have made in his lifetime: the classic case is that of Superman's creators who sold the character to DC Comics for peanuts. Basically the way it works is that whenever a copyright by a *deceased* author comes up for its third or fourth renewal (at 56 or 75 years after publication) the author's heirs can apply to reclaim the copyright and void any assignments or licences the author may have granted in his lifetime.


I have absolutely no reason to think, incidentally, that the Tolkien Estate is remotely contemplating anything of the sort. I brought it up rather as the sort of the thing this mythical Mean Old Take-Our-Movies-Away Estate might indulge in., if it really wanted to be nasty.


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[Sauron the White]

Thank you William for those answers. Interesting to see that it was you in another form who posted that other information. Small world.

So now what happens? Is there anything that prevents NL from going ahead on this film right now while the legal dispute plods on for months or even years? Would the Estate have to ask for an injunction to stop the films from being produced.... or once done, distributed to theaters?

One of the things that I was looking forward to in the Jackson suit was a final resolution to this and a end to Hollywood accounting methods. I wanted to see all the dirty laundry aired in public, all the in-house merchandising deals revealed, and all the accounting gimmicks exposed. It seemed that Jackson and his legal team wanted that also. In the end they settled for the same thing that everyone else settles for - money and the prospect for even more money in the future.

I wonder will the Estate do the same or will they force the issue takin this all the way to a jury?