Christopher Tolkien at it again....

[davem]

The Guardian has picked up the story http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...n-legal-battle & judging by the comments no-one is on the Estate's side.

And the Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...nal-novel.html

*****AND YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS*****

THE TOLKIEN ESTATE HAVE BANNED A BADGE (BUTTON) THAT MENTIONS THE NAME TOLKIEN http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/25...ate-censo.html

Yes. They have banned someone selling a badge with the name Tolkien on it. Of course, this, we must admit, massively impinges on the family's privacy....

[Galadriel55]

Well, the badge doesn't seem to favour people who read Tolkien... If it said something like "Long Live Professor Tolkien!", I'm sure they would allow it.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Well, the badge doesn't seem to favour people who read Tolkien... If it said something like "Long Live Professor Tolkien!", I'm sure they would allow it.

Maybe they thought someone would mistake the badge for one of Tolkien's own works & they'd lose money....

EDIT now, far be it from me to suggest that this sudden penchant for litigation has anything to do with the Estate's victory & massive payout from New Line Cinema of profits from the movies, but I have just found this video of the Estate's reaction to their victory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-7v4qnHP8

[Bêthberry]

Interesting difference in the titles of the articles. The Mail's "None Shall Pass" is clever while the Guardian's is misleading: "JRR Tolkien novel Mirkwood in legal battle with author's estate". Do you suppose the Guardian is trying to prove the Estate's point by suggesting people will actually think this is a new Tolkien book?

Originally Posted by davem

The Guardian has picked up the story http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...n-legal-battle & judging by the comments no-one is on the Estate's side.

And the Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...nal-novel.html

*****AND YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS*****

THE TOLKIEN ESTATE HAVE BANNED A BADGE (BUTTON) THAT MENTIONS THE NAME TOLKIEN http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/25...ate-censo.html

Yes. They have banned someone selling a badge with the name Tolkien on it. Of course, this, we must admit, massively impinges on the family's privacy....

[Pitchwife]

I'm not quite sure whether this is real news or satire, but if the former, the matter is reaching undreamt-of heights of absurdity. Will the Estate's next legal action be an attempt to get maps of Great Britain banned?

Originally Posted by G55

Well, the badge doesn't seem to favour people who read Tolkien... If it said something like "Long Live Professor Tolkien!", I'm sure they would allow it.

Yep. Nobody seemed to mind those stickers saying "Frodo Lives" or "Gandalf for President" back in the 60s.
It's all very sad.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Nobody seemed to mind those stickers saying "Frodo Lives" or "Gandalf for President" back in the 60s.
It's all very sad.

The 60's were just a bit before my time, but back then the LOTR and Tolkien names did not readily lend themselves to Olympian heights of moneymaking potential. Now they do, largely thanks to PJ and Co.
I still believe that the difference between the reactions of the Estate to what they perceive as potential threats to the copyrights on Tolkien's work in the past few years, and the generally more liberal stance in earlier years might be an effect of the movies' aftermath. Not saying they're right to be so heavy-handed, but at least that could be an explanation for it.

[davem]

Well, the Tolkien Estate have managed to make themselves look dumb & alienate loads of fans.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...response.shtml

&

Get them here http://www.zazzle.com/Harpocrates

[skip spence]

Just a question...

Knowing very little about all this, I spontaneously doubt that Christopher Tolkien, who must be ancient by now, personally is the driving force behind these copyright cases. Isn't it more likely that the Estate hired a bunch of good (and with good I mean skilled) copyright lawyers and told then to do their thing and serve the organization? Or am I wrong?

[davem]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Just a question...

Knowing very little about all this, I spontaneously doubt that Christopher Tolkien, who must be ancient by now, personally is the driving force behind these copyright cases. Isn't it more likely that the Estate hired a bunch of good (and with good I mean skilled) copyright lawyers and told then to do their thing and serve the organization? Or am I wrong?

I don't think lawyers act unilaterally. Behind this is either CT or his son Adam - probably both. That said Adam is probably taking over the reigns. We can't blame Adam for the Drout/Beowulf episode, but we may be seeing more of his hand in current events. CT is the 'figurehead' though.

The problem, as I mentioned, is that this kind of behaviour (& we've seen similar things coming out of Disney, & Warner Bros re Harry Potter) makes an organisation look bullying & alienates fans. Fans usually have a sense that a particular book/film/tv show sort of 'belongs' to them - not in any 'legal' sense, obviously - but that they are part of a community of likeminded folk & who have come together around a particular story & set of characters. This is CT/AT/the Estate coming along & screeching 'THIS IS OURS! YOU GET AS MUCH OR AS LITTLE OF THIS AS WE PERMIT - & IF YOU DO ANYTHING WE DON'T LIKE WE WILL PUNISH YOU.' Every action like this is about emphasising that the world & characters you love belong to someone else - they may be in your mind & heart but they are owned by someone else - & you can only speak about or refer to them if the owners allow you to. In short, it gets fans' backs up & is massively counterproductive.

This is all about reputation - if the Estate get a reputation for bullying & pettiness they will lose a lot more than they could possibly gain financially from asserting their rights. Over the last few months I've lost a great deal of respect for the Estate & CT/AT & that's down to their behaviour & their treatment of people who have done nothing wrong - & I'm not the only one. I wonder if anyone still feels just as positively about them as they did - or at least feels the same as they did?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I don't suppose that Christopher Tolkien, or any other trustee of the Tolkien Estate, actually reads everything that mentions even his own name, let alone JRRT's. The trustees leave that to the Estate's legal representatives (Manches of Oxford, I believe), whose advice I expect they follow in most cases.

Now, the basis of davem's annoyance seems to be that the Tolkien Estate can and does rigidly control the production and dissemination of all material by and closely related to J.R.R. Tolkien, including his image, languages and, apparently, favourite typefaces. I can't really blame them for wanting to do this, and to be honest I can't really fault the law for allowing them to do so. The point of libel laws is to prevent people from disseminating false written reports of our personalities and conduct, and the Tolkien estate is trying, by controlling the use of Tolkien's image, to maintain that protection for JRRT posthumously as I should like to do for my own family. It shouldn't be enough to transplant the false report into a loosely fictional environment and claim artistic freedom. As for controlling the use of material produced by JRRT, well that's nice and simple. JRRT isn't around to exercise that control, but the copyright still exists, legally in the hands of his heirs and successors. If there were no protection of copyright, publishers could simply take manuscripts they were sent, print them commercially and keep all of the profits. The authors would have to be content to see their names in print, while somebody else made a fortune from their work. In fact, it was something of this nature that started the whole Tolkien legal odyssey in the first place: I'm sure we've all heard of Ace Paperbacks. The basic principle seems to be that the Estate doesn't want to see people making money out of JRRT's name, image and ideas unless they get a cut of the profits and the project is one that they consider appropriate. If that means that I don't see (for whatever unfathomable reason) the verse Beowulf, then at least it also means that I won't have to read about a fist-fight in Balliol Quad between Tolkien and F.R. Leavis or Tolkien as the leader of an underground fascist group. Robot Tolkien would, I'm sure, be a great loss to us all, but I scarcely think that Manches are going to trouble themselves with him.

Since this work is to be published in the United States, U.S. law will apply rather than British, which I suppose is good news for those who like their literary criticism to be fictionalised. The Tolkien Estate would have far greater powers to prevent me from publishing works including Tolkien as a character. I'm not sure that I'd be happy doing that anyway: I didn't know him, and a fictonalised version of someone runs too great a risk of creating a new and inaccurate public perception of that person. Perhaps that is why the Estate is so keen to suppress such a use of JRRT, although I notice that the publication of Here There Be Dragons has gone ahead without their interference, and that a film is planned.

As for blurring the lines between fiction and reality, literary criticism and literature itself, well it's all a bit too much like playing to the gallery for my liking. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking in it - Tolkien's relative paucity of female characters was the subject of many early negative reviews, and I'm sure we must be into post-post-modernism at least by now. Such an approach runs the risk of creating poor criticism that is also dull literature, and failing to please even its own tiny target audience. Perhaps without the controversy of an attempted ban we'd be looking at yet another forgettable book in a long tradition of forgettable books.

[Anguirel]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

If that means that I don't see (for whatever unfathomable reason) the verse Beowulf, then at least it also means that I won't have to read about a fist-fight in Balliol Quad between Tolkien and F.R. Leavis or Tolkien as the leader of an underground fascist group.

... although I notice that the publication of Here There Be Dragons has gone ahead without their interference, and that a film is planned.

Well, I would very much like to read about that fist-fight, although I reckon William Empson would definitely have emerged victorious...

I'd never heard of the work you just cited; have wikied, and it looks quite similar to this Mirkwood thing, but plus better book jokes and King Arthur; is it worth a look?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

I'd never heard of the work you just cited; have wikied, and it looks quite similar to this Mirkwood thing, but plus better book jokes and King Arthur; is it worth a look?

I have no idea, never having read it. Having read that synopsis, though, I expect that I will eventually.

[davem]

Perhaps the reason the Estate went for MirkWood & not 'Here there be Dragons' is that Mirkwood was self published & HTBD is published by Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS & one of the biggest publishers in the world). I suspect they knew S&S would stand up to them but expected Hillard to back down.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Would you apply that same principle to the Estates of individuals you didn't like - should the heirs of Richard Nixon, Saddam Hussain or Myra Hindley have the right to prevent them being depicted in drama/drama-docs in ways that they didn't like?

Technically I can neither like or dislike any of those people, since I've never met them. Whether I approve of them or not doesn't change my distaste for misleading historical fiction about them. It would be easy, for example, to write a story in which Myra Hindley explains why she committed her crimes. It would be easy to have Saddam Hussein be forced to explain himself to the family of a murdered political dissident, but in the end those stories would have no real value, because they would reflect what the author would like those people to be, or wants the audience to think they were, rather than reality; whilst giving the appearance of reality by the use of real names and personas. Reality is always more challenging, and ultimately more beneficial to the observer, which is why the best historical fiction avoids painting too detailed a picture of any real figure. Even the Flashman books, which are deliberately outrageous, are based on solid research into all of the events and (long dead) characters portrayed, not just what George Macdonald Frazer thought would suit his purpose. If you use real people and events in a story you have a duty to them not to show them doing and saying things that they would never have done or said - you can't have Cecil Rhodes condemning imperialism, for example, or Richard the Lionheart extolling the virtues of England. One of the great advantages of history is that the events of the past have no overriding purpose or message; the facts seldom support any one view, and they make no account of sensibility or taste. The very nature of fictional writing ensures that it embodies one person's beliefs and opinions, and the very events bear out those opinions. To present the latter as the former is to present the author's opinions as historical reality, which is profoundly dishonest.

Not really - what the Estate were attempting to do was prevent the use of a historical figure (JRR Tolkien) in a fictional work. If that is not to be allowed then you effectively end both historical fiction which uses real people as characters (ie everything from WWII novels which depict Churchill or a recent Doctor Who episode which featured Richard Nixon, & the like, would not be legal) or even non fiction works like Carpenter's Inklings & the invented 'typical' Inkilings meeting in the chapter Thursday Nights. You wouldn't be able to use any historical figure without the permission of their Estate

The typical Inklings meeting was drawn from the actual words of the participants, drawn from their letters, diaries and other writings. Its purpose was to show what it might have been like at an Inklings meeting, not as a critique of the Inklings or how Humphrey Carpenter thought an Inklings meeting should have been conducted. It was therefore at worst a very well-researched and objective piece of historical fiction. There was nothing in it that could possibly offend the estates of the people involved unless they were offended by what their ancestors had actually said, which would be tough luck for them really. The purpose of Mirkwood is manifestly different. I can see why Tolkien's estate would like to stop its publication, and personally I can't understand why a literary critique can't be written and published as such. I doubt that the wider implications had occurred to them, to be quite honest; although some sort of standard for the presentation of reality in fiction ought to exist. In short, you can't libel the dead, but perhaps I'd have to read and watch a lot less drivel if you could.

Perhaps the reason the Estate went for MirkWood & not 'Here there be Dragons' is that Mirkwood was self published & HTBD is published by Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS & one of the biggest publishers in the world). I suspect they knew S&S would stand up to them but expected Hillard to back down.

Perhaps they liked Here There Be Dragons, but thought that Mirkwood was awful. I suspect you may be right, though. I can't blame them for trying, because I can't imagine that they would object to something sympathetic and this wasn't after all a factual account of Tolkien, but the product of a mind that had never known him personally. I'd feel differently if the Estate had tried to suppress embarrassing revelations about JRRT or, indeed, anyone else.

[davem]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

Now, the basis of davem's annoyance seems to be that the Tolkien Estate can and does rigidly control the production and dissemination of all material by and closely related to J.R.R. Tolkien, including his image, languages and, apparently, favourite typefaces. I can't really blame them for wanting to do this, and to be honest I can't really fault the law for allowing them to do so.

Not really - what the Estate were attempting to do was prevent the use of a historical figure (JRR Tolkien) in a fictional work. If that is not to be allowed then you effectively end both historical fiction which uses real people as characters (ie everything from WWII novels which depict Churchill or a recent Doctor Who episode which featured Richard Nixon, & the like, would not be legal) or even non fiction works like Carpenter's Inklings & the invented 'typical' Inkilings meeting in the chapter Thursday Nights. You wouldn't be able to use any historical figure without the permission of their Estate.

The point of libel laws is to prevent people from disseminating false written reports of our personalities and conduct, and the Tolkien estate is trying, by controlling the use of Tolkien's image, to maintain that protection for JRRT posthumously as I should like to do for my own family.

But you can't libel the dead. And the Estate is not attempting to use libel, but 'copyright' - which doesn't (& never has) applied to a dead individual's personality or character. And whether or not you would 'like' to maintain such protection for your own family, legally you don't have that right.

It shouldn't be enough to transplant the false report into a loosely fictional environment and claim artistic freedom.

But legally it is enough.

The basic principle seems to be that the Estate doesn't want to see people making money out of JRRT's name, image and ideas unless they get a cut of the profits and the project is one that they consider appropriate.

Would you apply that same principle to the Estates of individuals you didn't like - should the heirs of Richard Nixon, Saddam Hussain or Myra Hindley have the right to prevent them being depicted in drama/drama-docs in ways that they didn't like?

I didn't know him, and a fictonalised version of someone runs too great a risk of creating a new and inaccurate public perception of that person. Perhaps that is why the Estate is so keen to suppress such a use of JRRT,

But again, you're missing the point - its not about what the Estate is keen to do, or what they'd like - its about the law & their rights under copyright. They don't have the right to demand what they did.

As for blurring the lines between fiction and reality, literary criticism and literature itself, ..... Such an approach runs the risk of creating poor criticism that is also dull literature, and failing to please even its own tiny target audience. Perhaps without the controversy of an attempted ban we'd be looking at yet another forgettable book in a long tradition of forgettable books.

Again, this is not about 'running risks' - & if it was I'd say the risks of such a 'ban' on the use of historical figures in fiction/Lit crit are infinitely greater - its about what's legal & what isn't. The Estate simply don't have the rights they were claiming - & nor should they. Set aside the fact that this is about JRRT - this is very simple - should a writer be able to use historical figures in fiction or not? If you oppose JRRT being used as a character in this book you ought equally to oppose any work of fiction - book/movie/TV series - which depicts historical figures.