Warner Bros., Tolkien Estate Settle $80 Million 'Hobbit' Lawsuit (hollywoodreporter.com) 71
Five years later and it appears Warner Bros. and the estate of author J.R.R. Tolkien have settled their lawsuit over the digital exploitation of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. "The Tolkien Estate and book publisher HarperCollins filed a $80 million lawsuit in 2012 alleging that Warners, its New Line subsidiary and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz Co. infringed copyright and breached contract by overstepping their authority," reports Hollywood Reporter. "The plaintiffs claimed that a decades-old rights agreement entitled the studio to create only 'tangible' merchandise based on the books, not other digital exploitations that the estate called highly offensive." From the report: The lawsuit brought the two sides into a new battle. Previously, New Line and the Tolkien Estate had fought over profit participation, coming to a deal in 2009 pegged as being worth more than $100 million. As Warner Bros. readied a Peter Jackson big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit, the Tolkien Estate began investigating digital exploitations when its attorney received a spam e-mail about the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Online Slot Game. The subsequent complaint filed in court talked about irreparable harm to Tolkien's legacy and reputation from the prospect of everything from online games to housing developments. In reaction, Warner Bros. filed counterclaims, alleging that repudiation of a 1969 contract and 2010 regrant caused the studio to miss out on millions in Hobbit licensing and decreased exposure to the Jackson films. Warners contended that digital exploitations was both customary and within its scope of rights. Those counterclaims became the subject of a side fight over whether Warners could sue for being sued. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that Warner Bros. had properly asserted contract claims.
Thank God (Score:1, Offtopic)
Highly offensive? (Score:2)
What? Is there a Sméagol realdoll available? Because that would be highly offensive.
Re: Highly offensive? (Score:1)
I don't know but I'm very pleased with my Warner Brothers One Ring butt plug.
Re: (Score:2)
What do the fiery letters say?
Re: (Score:1)
Ouch, in the high language.
You mean like Superman and Batman? (Score:3)
Unless Warner starts buying up comic book companies
Warner's DC Comics division has bought Charlton, Fawcett, EC (Mad), Quality, and others [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:1)
Some of us would say it's inappropriate to discuss comic books at the same time as Tolkein. Particularly mass-market comics involving 'superheroes.'
So... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tolkien sold rights to the movies only, not rights for Lord of the Rings themed online gambling, which is what the dispute is about, not parodies.
I have mod points ... (Score:3)
... but the comments are garbage, so I'll just add to the landfill:
I watched the trilogy last year and it's a goddam fucked up waste of time.
The first movie was interesting.
The second went off on some tangential plot of vacuousness and the third didn't have many of the original characters and an impotent, wimpy, fizzle of an ending.
I don't really care who got what out of the LOTR deal because I only think of myself and I didn't get shit.
Hollywood would do it all over again (Score:5, Informative)
A single, 3 hour movie would've done the story well enough (sans the padding, the Sauron backstory fan service, etc.). A two movie set (2 hours each, max.) could've given the story the properly padded, "Jackson" treatment without wasting our time.
Instead, we got a "profits before quality" trilogy that I'll never watch again. As a whole, it's the Tolkien equivalent of the Star Wars prequels - only it actually got worse as it went.
Film != book (Score:1)
You fuckers don't have the first clue about making something that respects its own medium and the source material at the same time.
And the lawyers in this story are far more interested in profits than any creative mind associated with this legacy.
"Highly offensive" (Score:2)
As in, the estate was highly offended that they didn't get as much cash out of if as they thought they could have.
Re: "Highly offensive" (Score:2)
Far more tacky, it was an Online Slot Game (screenshots are available for the brave). I'm sure Tolkien would have included them in The Scouring of the Shire. "And take your infernal contraptions with you," said Frodo as he hurled the last of the slot machines at Lotho Sackville-Baggins' rapidly retreating back.
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Naaaaaaah, the man behind the Tolkein Estate is Christopher Tolkein. The man is to all appearances a fundamentalist, scripturalist prophet of the legendarium his dad made. It's quite likely that the ultimate motivation behind the suit was actual offence.
Re:"Highly offensive" (Score:4, Insightful)
They were trying to avoid their IP being associated with gambling. Now I'm not a fan of absurdly long copyright terms, but even less a fan of using children's books to get kids into gambling.
Re: (Score:3)
Meanwhile in lottery commissions across the country, government employees are trying their damnedest to figure out how to get those kids to gamble. Lottery revenues are trending down in most states, especially those that for many years got fat on the Video Poker gravy train. Millennials - but especially those for whom smartphones have been around most of their lives - aren't gambling in nearly the same numbers as their elders. And for s
This is a major problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This shows how the plutocracy can economically pressure artists, appropriate their work, and suppress their message, and spit on them as their work makes tons of money they will never more than a penny of.
The significance of Tolkein's work is ground-shattering.
It embodies every value our civilization was built on, most of which are presently being torn to shreds by the media machine and its...associates...and their other businesses.
It's potential to inspire people against the status quo is enormous. So much so that it's a very real danger to the system.
The main purpose of the creation of the movies was not just to accumulate a mountain of gold, it was to suppress the message of the book and prevent a generation of young people from being truly inspired by it.
The story is similar with the burst of 'fantasy' genre fiction. Instead of allowing Tolkien the possibility to promote his book freely, the publishing industry, horrified by the success of Lord of the Rings, sprang to generate a wave of vacuous bullshit to choke its potential to spread.
Most people are not too smart, they think something like 'OH FANTASY, I KNOW THAT SHIT, SWORDS AND MAGIC AND SHIT, AND MIDGETS SMOKE WEED LMFAO', and that's exactly what the film and publishing industries, and their common associates, want.
Lord of the Rings is an order of magnitude above the rest. It's not 'fantasy' genre fiction, it's literary monolith, a mythology for the ages.
If you dig into this story and ask yourself some hard questions, the story around the treatment of the Lord of the Rings can open your eyes to how this society works, for who, and why.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You need to go outside once in a while. LoTR is not meant to be a manifesto.
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No, but it was indeed meant to be "a mythology for the ages".
He could have stopped at the Hobbit and we'd still have the same society we have today. I think there is little to be gained philosophically or culturally by reading LotR, It's a pleasant diversion to read, but it's not as some might say "ground-shattering".
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No, it's meant to be something to inspire "manifestos", as you say (nice use of a 'super special word' to make everything your opponent says wrong, by the way), and a great deal of other things
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As for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical.
The rest of the foreword is a pretty good read, and he expounds on that theme that the story is essentially unrelated to contemporary events.
Re: (Score:2)
I certainly believe that Tolkien wasn't pushing a message but 'merely' telling a story, but it really isn't difficult to see he was drawing on certainly topical themes to build that story upon.
Mainly, an idealized pre-industrial past vs. an evil caricature of the disruption of the industrial revolution. I think every generation uses a similar theme of 'better days' in its stories, it's hardly unique.
Re: (Score:3)
While we are engaging in hyperbole... surely George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four achieves all of the above, has proven to be far more descriptive of the real world (media control and alternate facts anyone?), and does it in a mere handful of pages compared to the morass of LoTR-themed books. (I guess that LoTR is as much a "literary monolith" as a collection three main books, and several related works can be.)
Re: (Score:2)
Hi, Christopher, didn't know you were on Slashdot.
Orcs are bad m'kay? (Score:1)
The main purpose of the creation of the movies was not just to accumulate a mountain of gold, it was to suppress the message of the book and prevent a generation of young people from being truly inspired by it.
Long before the book was written, in the 1930s, we tried putting that racial message to work here in Germany. [Spoiler alert: It didn't work out too well.]
In a hole in the ground (Score:2)
there lived a lawyer.
Regardless.... (Score:3)
Regardless of what side one might be on, or where one stands on the issues, one has to admit, the lawsuits have been every much as entertaining as the movies.
I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that if anything has caused irreparable harm to Tolkien's legacy over the years, it was Christopher's whining.
Zaentz can't dance (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
At what point do you overcome your "racism is bad" brainwashing and call things as they are?
Do you know why those areas, as well as those of attorney and money exchanger, have so many Jews?
That's because, back in the day, Jews were forbidden by law from owning land and having normal jobs. Additionally, from time to time they were sacked of all their possessions and expelled from wherever they lived, if not outright killed, for the "crime" of having "killed god".
So Jews learned from Christians that the way to survive was to be mobile. To have professions that had no physical burden locking them to
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I see I'm being stalked now
Re: (Score:1)
That's because, back in the day, Jews were forbidden by law from owning land and having normal jobs.
When and where and what was the rationale behind the laws?
the "crime" of having "killed god"?
that explains it all? one 'misunderstanding'?
In reality restrictions on jews were in place because they have an extremely high proportion of criminals. Which they still do today.
Jews didn't learn "the way to survive was to be mobile" from Christians. They learned this far before Christianity ever came. Because they we
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of sympathy for the poor criminals who had to find SOME way to survive. Not.
I'll assume you self-identify as a Christian. That being the case, do you know who fits everything you said? You. And yet, there is your God, telling you you'll be forgiven and shown mercy by Him IIF you forgive and show mercy towards others in the exact same way.
Guess who isn't going to Heaven?
As for stalking you, I have better things to do. Bye.
Re: (Score:1)
Bye jew, good luck in the next world war, you're gonna need it
5 Armies (Score:2)
But there were supposed to be five armies in this battle...
Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
Lord Of The Rings was written in 1949 - shouldn't it be public domain by now?
Why should "the family" benefit from a creators product when said creator is long dead? Wasn't the aim of copyright a temporary right to enrich the creator, so they will create more?
It seems fairly unlikely JRR Tolkien will write anything else. The encouragement isn't going to work.
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Wasn't the aim of copyright a temporary right to enrich the creator, so they will create more?
Nope, the aim of copyright was twofold: 1. enrich the king (and give the printers a cut so they don't complain), 2. enforce censorship (only the Worshipful Company of Stationers had a right to print). Anything else is pure propaganda.
Copyrights, since day one, are about as harmful as patents. Whose purpose also, guess what, was to enrich the king.
Beren and Lúthien (Score:2)
Well it looks like he just published a new book! Can't wait for the next one! :)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng... [bbc.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]