Tolkien Estate Says No Historical Fiction For JRR 337
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the estate of JRR Tolkien isn't just overprotective of his works, but of himself as well. The estate is in a bit of a legal spat with the author of a fictional work that includes JRR Tolkien as a character, and in part discusses his works. The estate is claiming that this infringes on Tolkien's publicity rights, but if that's the case, would it make almost all 'historical fiction' illegal?"
do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offspring (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really what it comes down to. The lawyers are just doing the bidding of Tolkien's offspring.
Sorry Public Figure (Score:5, Insightful)
Tolkein was/is a public figure, feels like there isn't much to stand on here especially if its fiction and portrayed as such. Seems like this fall well within the fair use realm.
70 years + is too damn much (Score:5, Insightful)
More evidence that the copyright term is much too long.
"The Estate Of" (Score:3, Insightful)
How come there isn't an Estate of George Washington? Is every dead person entitled to a perpetual corporate entity?
Re:70 years + is too damn much (Score:5, Insightful)
my Tolkien account (Score:5, Insightful)
Once upon a time there was this fairly cool guy called JRR Tolkien who wrote some popular books. Then he had some descendants who were leeching cunts. The lawyers on all sides lived happily ever after. The end.
This is OK because it's not fiction, right?
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:2, Insightful)
You could say that about anyone who inherits his dad's hardware store. It's not as if all Christopher Tolkien has been doing has been firing off lawsuits. In all likelihood nobody would have ever seen The Silmarillion were it not for him. How different would Middle-Earth fandom be then?
I have no sympathy for Hilliard (Score:1, Insightful)
From the Hollywood Reporter article [hollywoodreporter.com]:
Stephen Hilliard is going to court in an attempt to release "Mirkwood, A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien," to be published by Cruel Rune. The 450-page book is described as taking place from 1970 through near-present day in the United States and features six characters -- five fictional and Tolkien himself. "Mirkwood" is portrayed as both a piece of fiction as well as an exercise in "literary criticism." Hilliard hints that the book will take issue with the lack of female characters in Tolkien's works, including "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" series.
If you want to do literary criticism then critique the actual literature. Wannabes write "historical fiction" when they want to make a quick couple million slandering the name of somebody who earned his fame.
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:2, Insightful)
You could say that about anyone who inherits his dad's hardware store...
Except the hardware store would need to continue to be well run. Your analogy simply isn't good. The actual truth seems to be that current, over-extended, copyrights are just like family fortunes. In my opinion, wealth should be earned, not entitled. Indeed, I'd postulate that many of the world's problems are rooted in the undeserved transfer of the world's wealth.
Re:Bill Gate would love that (Score:1, Insightful)
"Jobs is the one who comes off as a fucktard."
So it's historically accurate?
Yes. Because Apple has always lagged behind the market, and has never invented anything original or successful.
Ah yes, They invented the computer, the mp3 player, the portable video player, touch screen phones, and touch screen tablets.
Jobs is as much of a hack as that cough he's got in his cancer ridden throat. But I gotta admit, he knows business, and he caters to idiots.
Re:Dead people have publicity rights??? (Score:2, Insightful)
He is dead, he cannot be harmed by your actions.
No? What if it was commercials of a computer-simulated Martin Luther King, urging everyone to vote Republican?
What if it was a porno featuring Marilyn Monroe doing a "2 boys 1 cup" with Bobby and JFK? Should none of their families and loved ones have any say in the matter?
Are we ghouls, that we can exhume the bodies of the dead for whatever purpose we choose? Do historical figures have no right to their own legacy at all?
Re:my Tolkien account (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:2, Insightful)
Except the hardware store would need to continue to be well run.
Define "well run"? Christopher Tolkien has published some fifteen volumes of serious Tolkien scholarship, which is more books than J.R.R. himself published in his lifetime.
In my opinion, wealth should be earned, not entitled.
So if your father spends his whole life working his ass off in a coal mine to put food in his children's mouths, then dies of black lung disease when you're fourteen, his savings should all go to the state and your mom should have to go door-to-door looking for a job, huh? What is the incentive to earn wealth if you're not entitled to use it how you wish -- including making your family comfortable? Even Warren Buffett, who is not generally in favor of big inheritances, has said he will leave his children enough money to do whatever they want (just "not nothing").
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:'historical fiction' ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mixing fact and fiction is quaintly known in civilized societies as lying.
I'm not sure if you're joking; your argument would make all fiction mere "lying," because all fiction "mixes fact and fiction." Most fiction involves real places, and almost all involves a real species, i.e., human beings. A huge amount of fiction involves real people in one way or another, too, so readers will be familiar with the idea that claims made about real people in a work of fiction may not be true. It's only lying if you say things that are untrue with the intent that someone reading them believes them to be true, and that will not be true of anything which specifically calls itself "fiction."
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:4, Insightful)
Your analogy is very bad. There is a difference between leaving your offspring the rights to a creative work they had absolutely nothing to do with and leaving them the money you made from it.
Why? Your creative work is a business, just like any other. If you had lived, you would have been able to keep operating that business, making money of the works you did in the past (and any new ones you choose to create). Why should you be able to hand your hardware store down to your heirs, but not a media business? And by your own logic, which is worse -- handing your kids a pile of money, or handing them a thriving business to operate? Are lottery winners happy? No -- generally, they piss it away and end up in debt. On the other hand, if your heirs materially participate in the business of managing your creative works (as Christopher Tolkien did while his father was alive, and continues to do long after his death), then they don't "have absolutely nothing to do with" the creative work, do they? Comments like yours just sound like sour grapes to me.
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:2, Insightful)
At issue is the question if an inheritor should be able to earn new money on a creation that they had nothing to do with. And not for nothing, but the original creator did not wholly invent the work themselves. They used constructs of plot and form, and often tropes and characterizations, that were not developed exclusively by themselves.. They were working off of the creation of another author themselves. We should have the opportunity to do the same.
OK, but suppose your dad isn't a writer, he's a carpenter. And suppose he builds himself a fabulous house, with his own hands. Every nail he hammers himself. This is an awesome house. And then he dies. By your logic, should your mom, you, and the rest of his offspring be allowed to live in a house that they had nothing to do with? Not only that, but your dad didn't even wholly invent the work himself -- the house sits on land, which was here long before your dad ever was. It gets power, water, and sewer from the city services -- so the house is kind of public property, really. It was OK for your dad to live in it for a while why he was alive, but when there are homeless people on the streets, why shouldn't you have to work to put a roof over your own head, the way your dad did?
Re:do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-greedy-offsprin (Score:4, Insightful)
And I don't think anyone has a problem with Christopher Tolkien having a copyright on his dad's stuff Christopher released, especially considering he had to do a hell of a lot of editing and whatnot.
The clock on unreleased works doesn't actually start ticking until released, anyway. Of course Christopher is entitled to that copyright, even if he did nothing. Copyright is incentive to publish works, he published a work that wasn't published, we aren't here to run around judging how much work it took, he gets a copyright.
The problem is twofold:
a) With copyright's irrational 'X years after death', this will result in a lot of stupidity. If Chris lives another 30 years, the copyright for LoTR will expire 70 years before the copyright on the Silmarillion, published only 20 years later, does.
Copyright needs to be for a set amount of time, period, and have nothing to do with how long anyone lives. That idea is just crazy. If we want to 'help their children', well, first off, 'children' do not need support for 75 years, and secondly, that's accomplished simply by having copyright be inheritable. I'd even be fine without taxing it. (Which we don't.)
And can I point out the inherent insanity of 'helping' orphaned dependents by having the clock start ticking on copyright's expiration? Even if the clock takes near-forever to run out, that really doesn't make sense in any logical manner.
b) Copyright is way too long to start with. Lord of the Rings should be public domain now. Hell, the Beatles should be. The Silmarillion should be bumping up against expiration if not already expired. 40 years is more than long enough to incentive people to make stuff.