Tolkien Estate blocks new Tolkien book - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

davem · 11-25-2010, 01:42 AM

Right, so, apologies to everyone for my brainstorm there. I've asked for the posts I deleted to be re-instated.

Anyway....where was I?

Copyright. And the real issue here is: privacy vs knowledge. The Estate is using Copyright law to protect the privacy of the family (or the FAMILY). Yet in order to do this they are preventing the publication of a serious work of biography. Is this acceptable. Of course, no-one likes to be embarrassed, or be made to look silly- or even to have grandad, or great aunt Mary shown to have been a bit silly back in the day. But is that sufficient justification to stop a biography of great uncle George's family being published? Or in other words, setting aside our own discomfort with being made to look a bit daft, & our equal discomfort with seeing our family or people we respect being discomforted in that way, is that enough of a reason to stop a book being published - bacuse what is being done here is not a trivial thing. There is zero difference bewteen preventing a book being published in the first place & burning every copy of it after its been published in the second place. The Estate, in order to protect the 'privacy' of the FAMILY have effectively 'burned' this book. From that point of view this behaviour cannot be simply brushed aside with cuddlsome statements about 'privacy'. Using Copyright law as match & petrol in this way is a very questionable procedure - burning books is a big thing (or even a BIG THING). I've tried to inject a bit of humour into the debate - & got shot down for it - to the extent that I felt it better to remove meself & me comments - but that seemed a bit dumb in a debate on censorship (despite the fact that I actually owned the copyright on my posts, which in a way justified me doing it.....& therein lies the rub...

11-25-2010, 01:42 AM	#29
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	Right, so, apologies to everyone for my brainstorm there. I've asked for the posts I deleted to be re-instated. Anyway....where was I? Copyright. And the real issue here is: privacy vs knowledge. The Estate is using Copyright law to protect the privacy of the family (or the FAMILY). Yet in order to do this they are preventing the publication of a serious work of biography. Is this acceptable. Of course, no-one likes to be embarrassed, or be made to look silly- or even to have grandad, or great aunt Mary shown to have been a bit silly back in the day. But is that sufficient justification to stop a biography of great uncle George's family being published? Or in other words, setting aside our own discomfort with being made to look a bit daft, & our equal discomfort with seeing our family or people we respect being discomforted in that way, is that enough of a reason to stop a book being published - bacuse what is being done here is not a trivial thing. There is zero difference bewteen preventing a book being published in the first place & burning every copy of it after its been published in the second place. The Estate, in order to protect the 'privacy' of the FAMILY have effectively 'burned' this book. From that point of view this behaviour cannot be simply brushed aside with cuddlsome statements about 'privacy'. Using Copyright law as match & petrol in this way is a very questionable procedure - burning books is a big thing (or even a BIG THING). I've tried to inject a bit of humour into the debate - & got shot down for it - to the extent that I felt it better to remove meself & me comments - but that seemed a bit dumb in a debate on censorship (despite the fact that I actually owned the copyright on my posts, which in a way justified me doing it.....& therein lies the rub... __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects."