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Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
31–40 of 89 posts
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#32> In April, Polychron sued the Tolkien estate and Amazon. He claimed that “Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power,” an Amazon Prime Video prequel series that was released last year and is one of the few adaptations authorized by the Tolkien estate, infringed on the copyright of his book. He asked for $250 million in compensation. > Polychron said in court documents that he was inspired by Tolkien and the original “Rings”…
These allegations sound similar to the Mexican Inn Cafe Tragedy.
Details deleted, sorry.
Thank You, American Courts. \s
Who is right does not matter in court if someone who is rich enough stands to lose enough money.
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really should not matter. It shouldn't even be allowed to ban non-commercial fan fiction.
This wasn't non-commercial. The author was selling his book, and was trying to extort Amazon into paying licensing fees for it as well.
Kind of like patent trolls patenting an invention someone else is already actually using
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This person tried to sue the estate for copyright infringement to the tune of $250M because he thinks think they lifted something out of his fanfiction for Rings of Power, as if he somehow had ownership of Tolkien's setting. This was just a countersuit because he put himself on their radar in the dumbest way possible. play stupid games win stupid prizes. There are plenty of fanfictions that go to market safely by fil…
I don't think us courts for courts should be in the business of handing out stupid prizes. Instead, they should be measured and consistent with our longstanding social agreements. Someone has to be the adult in the room and seek the moral high ground.
Courts aren't moral entities, they're legal ones. This person went out of their way to put a completely unnecessary legal target on their back. This is absolutely 100% a stupid prizes scenario.
I love fan creation and believe it should be enshrined properly in fair use doctrine, but god damn, I cannot imagine being stupid enough to make fan work of an IP and then sue the IP holder because I think they took my idea. Holy fuck.
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#35I think it is unconscionable that we can use the force of the state to coerce someone to delete ALL copies of a work they created. I'm fairly anti-copyright but I get that they probably shouldn't be able to sell the books (even though the author has been in the ground for decades), fine. Give them a fine, write up a ticket, community service or whatever, but deleting everything just seems so brutish.
This person tried to sue the estate for copyright infringement to the tune of $250M because he thinks think they lifted something out of his fanfiction for Rings of Power, as if he somehow had ownership of Tolkien's setting. This was just a countersuit because he put himself on their radar in the dumbest way possible. play stupid games win stupid prizes. There are plenty of fanfictions that go to market safely by fil…
[deleted]
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
No aspect of copryright is morally defensible, which is why the lawmakers who created it merely defended it on the grounds of encouraging innovation in science and art.
So you are perfectly OK with laboring for years to conceive, design, and build as unique work of art, writing, or software, from which you could earn a living, and then it being OK for me to just slap my name/label on it and out-market you, taking all the gains and leaving you destitute? Or, are you just someone who does not expect to ever create anything of value?
It’s important to keep in mind that intellectual property is a notion that arose in Western Europe in the early modern period and can still seem foreign to much of the globe. Even if nearly all countries have now implemented IP legislation for trade reasons, in practice it might go unenforced unless the plaintiff is politically connected. The cutthroat environment that you describe above is still how things often work in Asia, but people go on creating works of their imagination regardless.
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are they bothering to ask anyone to destroy it?
Because he egregiously misbehaved with his, and this is the resulting punishment. You and I can keep whatever copies we may have.
> Because he egregiously misbehaved with his, and this is the resulting punishment
This is like some new form of justice, where, if you hit someone with a hammer we punish the hammer?
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#38I think it is unconscionable that we can use the force of the state to coerce someone to delete ALL copies of a work they created. I'm fairly anti-copyright but I get that they probably shouldn't be able to sell the books (even though the author has been in the ground for decades), fine. Give them a fine, write up a ticket, community service or whatever, but deleting everything just seems so brutish.
Pfft. This is a classic example of fuck around and find out. Dude decided to try to sidecar one of the most beloved canons in recorded history instead of coming up with his own IP, then decided suing the estate that controls said IP was his ticket to a life of luxury. Biting the hand that feeds doesn't even begin, they should have been profoundly grateful that the estate tolerated their existence up until that point.
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#39I think it is unconscionable that we can use the force of the state to coerce someone to delete ALL copies of a work they created. I'm fairly anti-copyright but I get that they probably shouldn't be able to sell the books (even though the author has been in the ground for decades), fine. Give them a fine, write up a ticket, community service or whatever, but deleting everything just seems so brutish.
> He also ordered Polychron to destroy all electronic and physical copies of the published work, “The Fellowship of the King,” by Sunday.
It sounds to me like the order applies to published copies rather than to his original manuscript.
Re: Tolkien estate wins court order to destroy fan's 'Lord of the Rings' sequel
#40> In April, Polychron sued the Tolkien estate and Amazon. He claimed that “Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power,” an Amazon Prime Video prequel series that was released last year and is one of the few adaptations authorized by the Tolkien estate, infringed on the copyright of his book. He asked for $250 million in compensation. > Polychron said in court documents that he was inspired by Tolkien and the original “Rings”…
> Is there even a shadow of truth in this allegation?
I certainly don't see it. Rings of Power is set as a distant prequel to Lord of the Rings; Polychron's novel was an immediate sequel. There are necessarily some characters and other elements of the setting which appear in both, but that's because they're both derivative works of Tolkien's writings, not because one is derivative of the other.
Here's the specific list of similarities claimed by Polychron. To my eye, most of them are either trivial (e.g. a woman rides a horse, a character is dark-skinned, someone says "this is a map", someone makes a heroic last stand), or involve the shared usage of elements from Tolkien's work (e.g. the doors of Khazad-dûm, orcs as corrupted elves, a character is named Théoden).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.88...