Christopher Tolkien at it again.... - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

davem · 05-02-2011, 04:02 PM

Shocking to me that the Estate have cowed others with the threat of legal action - I think its fairly obvious that if the children's camp had also called the Estate's bluff they would have lost there too. The authors/publisher of the Hilary Tolkien bio would maybe find they too had a stronger position than they think.

Actually, the most shocking thing here is that the Estate must have known they were in the wrong & were just attempting to bully this author into destroying his book. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the Tolkien Estate are not alone in behaving in this way. The Estate tried to get a book destroyed by threatening an author with legal action & if he hadn't been brave enough to stand up to them that book would have been destroyed even though it didn't infringe in any way.

Its not a 'great' book - its a fun, lightweight piece, with some interesting ideas scattered throughout it - but this guy wrote it, stayed within the law, & was threatened with being dragged through the courts unless he destroyed it.

05-02-2011, 04:02 PM	#11
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	Shocking to me that the Estate have cowed others with the threat of legal action - I think its fairly obvious that if the children's camp had also called the Estate's bluff they would have lost there too. The authors/publisher of the Hilary Tolkien bio would maybe find they too had a stronger position than they think. Actually, the most shocking thing here is that the Estate must have known they were in the wrong & were just attempting to bully this author into destroying his book. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the Tolkien Estate are not alone in behaving in this way. The Estate tried to get a book destroyed by threatening an author with legal action & if he hadn't been brave enough to stand up to them that book would have been destroyed even though it didn't infringe in any way. Its not a 'great' book - its a fun, lightweight piece, with some interesting ideas scattered throughout it - but this guy wrote it, stayed within the law, & was threatened with being dragged through the courts unless he destroyed it. __________________ “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."