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The estate of Lord Of The Rings author J.R.R Tolkien went after Warner Bros today in an $80 million lawsuit over online slot machines and other digital merchandising. In the complaint (read it here), the Tolkien Estate Ltd, its trustees and News Corp-owned publisher HarperCollins have charged the studio, its New Line subsidiary and The Saul Zaentz Company’s Middle-earth Enterprises division with copyright infringement and breach of contract. It’s not the hugely successful movies they’re fighting over this time. Now its merchandising that the estate says was never anticipated as part of its original deal back in 1969. “The original contracting parties thus contemplated a limited grant of the right to sell consumer products of the type regularly merchandised at the time (such as figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing and the like). They did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services,” says the 26-page complaint. This legal move comes just under a month before the first movie in the Warner Bros-distributed and Peter Jackson-directed trilogy The Hobbit hits the big screen December 14. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, directed by Jackson, has made almost $3 billion in worldwide box office.
“Not only are gambling services outside the rights granted, but this exploitation of Tolkien’s well-loved work has offended and distressed Tolkien’s devoted fans, harming Tolkien’s legacy and reputation,” The Tolkien Estate said in a separate statement to Deadline. “The plaintiffs have been compelled to take this action to protect their literary and commercial assets and hope that the dispute will be resolved quickly,” the Estate and the publisher added. The Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins, who filed their complaint in federal court in LA on Monday, have requested a jury trial for their claims. Warner Bros had no comment on the suit. This isn’t the Tolkiens and Warner Bros’ first court battle. In 2009, the Tolkien Estate, HarperCollins and New Line came to an out-of-court settlement after the Estate sued had the studio over profits from The Lord of the Rings movies the year before. That settlement paved the way for Warner Bros, which had absorbed New Line in 2008, to make more Tolkien movies like the upcoming Hobbit. Bonnie Eskenazi, Ricardo Cestero and Elisabeth Moriarty of LA firm Greenberg Glusker represent the plaintiffs in this latest suit.
Related: UPDATE: ‘Hobbit’ Filmmakers Deny Claims Of Abuse In Animal Deaths
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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>“…this exploitation of Tolkien’s well-loved work has offended and distressed Tolkien’s devoted fans, harming Tolkien’s legacy and reputation,” The Tolkien Estate said in a separate statement to Deadline
Well, just give back all the money and Warners will get a hammer and smash all the hard drives with the LOTR movies and delete all the new HOBBIT footage. Then everyone can put this unpleasantness in the past and get on with re-reading the novels.
This is ridiculous. The Tolkien estate needs to stop trying to control the cultural effects of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. Tolkien was the sole creator and de facto owner of Middle Earth, but unfortunately he is no longer with us which means his ideas now belong to the public regardless of legal technicalities, whether the Tolkien estate wants to acknowledge this or not. He published his works and shared them with the (paying) populace, and there is an inherent contract there that implicitly states the public now has some degree of ownership as the consumer. I don’t like The Hobbit or LOTR being whored out any more than other Middle Earth fans, but this is an inevitability with hugely popular works. One could argue that all the Sherlock Holmes adaptations are whoring to an extent, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is dead and gone so he is obviously not going to be bothered by it. Anyone who profits from Middle Earth other than J.R.R. himself, even if it is “the Tolkien estate,” is doing so based off his accomplishments and not their own, so I definitely don’t see the estate as having any higher ground here than WB or Denny’s.
Eli, methinks though shouldst read up moar on copyright law. For thou hast ignorantz.
Really? You think the public are partial owners in what Tolkien created?
That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a very long time.
You think Tolkien would want to be associated with gambling??? Get real. Tolkien was a devoted Christian.
You know nothing about copyright law. Tolkien’s works are still under copyright, which is apparently never going to end, thanks to Disney. Sherlock Holmes is not, and is therefore up for public exploitation.
They’re right about the slot machines and other gambling-related merch. Tacky, and it waters down the brand.
Professor Tolkien shared his stories with the world. I think all parties involved need to stop this nonsense, and carefully examine what’s actually going on here… jealousy????? Perhaps greed as well???
Well, J.R.R Tolkien wasnt the only one to work on middle earth, when he died, his son Christopher tolkien took over his work and published mutliple books including the simarilion, the book of lost tales 1 + 2, the history of middle earth, the unfinished tales, children of hurin, and more. So saying the middle earth belongs to the public is wrong, Middle Earth belongs to the Tolkien familiy, who after JRR Tolkien’s death took over his projects,, read through all his notes and kept middle earth growing.
As a devoted Tolkien fan, I’m offended and distressed at the Tolkien estate for being so sue happy.
Luckily Christopher Tolkien, an out of touch million year old son of Tolkien hiding somewhere in France can’t possibly live much longer. Perhaps control of the estate will pass to a more friendly Tolkien…
I can totally understand the Tolkein estate. Slot machines are too far. Middle Earth should not be destroyed by using low class merchandising techniques.
HA-HA! Suits perfect to those ugly orcs at WB, it’s not long ago when WB lawyers were crying over on mod team plans for making Middle Earth mod in one game, a project of fans were crushed without mercy from big corporate a-holes who care only for money! Now, let them taste their own bad medicine YEAAAH!
Totally agree with what you said, and thank you for saying it so well!
It seems to me that the Tolkien estate has both the legal and moral high ground here. As for them being “greedy,” Tolkien foolishly sold the movie rights for a pittance, and the family has made virtually nothing off of them. If the producers had any conscience at all, they would have gifted the estate with a percentage of the gross.
I understand copyright law, and if you read my comment more closely you would see that I’m not arguing the technical validity of the lawsuit. I obviously disagree with the status quo regarding copyright laws. J.R.R. Tolkien is no longer around. He was (and rightly so) the sole owner of HIS creations while he was alive. Now that he is gone I see no difference between the Tolkien estate’s money grubbing and WB’s money grubbing. I don’t like that people using The Hobbit or LOTR on gambling stuff and at Denny’s is happening because it’s lame as hell, but what I’m saying is that it is an inevitability with popular works. It will happen eventually, and you might as well stop fighting it, it’s an exercise in futility. Just let things be and realize that the source material will ultimately prevail as keeping its historical and literary integrity.
It would be dumb to say if Tolkien was still alive. I don’t know if you have ever watched the documentary “The People vs. George Lucas” but it’s quite interesting, and while I don’t agree with the entire assertion they seem to be making, I do think there are some good points.
You are correct, Christopher Tolkien should indeed have complete control over The Silmarillion, Unifinished Tales, etc. and be entitled to all of the profits reaped from them. When he dies, however, why should any one person or group be more entitled to profit from them than another? These people didn’t create or contribute to Tolkien’s works. LOTR and The Hobbit are 100% J.R.R. and not Christopher though, so as long as there’s no profiting from post-J.R.R. books then it’s my personal opinon that WB, Denny’s, the local pub downtown, or the kid next door should be able to perpetuate and profit from this cultural wonder themselves if they so choose. Plenty of people profit from Shakespeare, and plenty of people bastardize his works as well, but in the end the integrity of his primary material that HE wrote is better for it. You can’t destroy true integrity.
Hmmm, so Warner is permitted to profit from JRRT’s work and his family is not?
Saul Zaentz once sued John Fogerty for performing his own material and WB sent cease and desist letters to 10 year olds for putting up Harry Potter fan sites. I have no sympathy for either of these vultures. If they stepped beyond the bounds of their contractual limitations with some merchandising deals, then turnabouts fair play.
I guess I’m just against the general spirit of these organizations suing each other back and forth while J.R.R. Tolkien is dead and gone and can no longer give his first hand opinion on the matter. I understand the Tolkien estate has every right to sue here, but what does it actually accomplish? Are slot machines undermining the integrity of Tolkien’s works? The answer is no, because a work’s intrinsic integrity can never be undermined by external superfluous things like slot machines. The fans of the books are never going to have their enjoyment of the books affected by the fact that slot machines exist unless they choose to be upset about it. The people who enjoy the slot machines are more than likely people who will never read the books or care about what Middle Earth is all about anyway. George Lucas has done his best to undermine the integrity of his original Star Wars films (by his own hand, no less, which is even worse than an external organization messing with a creator’s intellectual property), but they are still loved by Star Wars fans. Christopher Tolkien is insecure about something that he doesn’t really need to worry about. The LOTR/Hobbit books are compelling and unique enough on their own that they can never be replaced by films, amusement parks, or slot machines. The most these extras can do is exist alongside them, but they will never outshine or replace them. I love the LOTR books, but I also love the movies. I majored in English and Film, and I find that both succeed on very different levels, which is perfectly fine. One succeeding does not undermine the other in any way.
If Peter Jackson had his way he would get JK Rowling to go through JRR Tolkien’s Papers, Christopher is admirable but he is not a creative person Judging from his Lack of response to the NZ Media about JRR Tolkien’s Posthumous Honor in the Mountains of Fiordland
He comes over as Indifferent to his own Family.