Heh, more of this shit.
Remember, the only reason we can still watch the highly influential 1922 vampire movie Nosferatu today is because some people didn't destroy all their copies despite a court saying they had to.
DISOBEY DESTRUCTION ORDERS.
COPY ALL THE THINGS.
The author in question here was pretty shitty. He wrote his own sequel to called "Fellowship of the King", and then sued Amazon and the Tolkien estate saying they stole elements from his book. He lost, and the Tolkien estate countersued.
The guy played stupid games and won stupid prizes.
Hey this is a pretty interesting story, got a link?
Here a pretty good version of it
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086605684/try-as-she-might-bram-stokers-widow-couldnt-kill-nosferatu
In my opinion LotR should've already entered the public domain but thanks to Disney well have to wait until 2044 for that.
Can't have the already well-off children go without their steady income that they didn't have to work for...
Well how else are we supposed to encourage people to be related to people who develop intellectual property? It makes sense from a neponomic standpoint.
Embracer is gonna be the next one to beg for an extension.
Reasonable takes like this hurt daddy's profits... is u a domestic terrorist?
It may as well be, they’re endorsing all sorts of shit content lately (like the Golem game, or the ring of power)
Don't worry, they'll manage to get it extended again before 2044.
Should copyright for works that old be expired? Yes!
In the actual world we live in, was this guy ever going to avoid being sued so hard that his grandchildren will be embarrassed for him? No!
You've got to admire the lemming-like devotion to the legal cliff he threw himself off though. Writing a sequel to not only a copyright work, but one that is still in the cultural zeitgeist thanks to a 20-year old wildly successful series of films? Ballsy. Subsequently suing one of the largest companies in the world and the estate that produced the original works as infringing his copyright?
Chutzpa, I believe the term is.
20 year old films? I didn’t realise someone had made the movies before Peter Jackson…
checks date of release
…fuck
They did make an animation before Peter Jackson's release and I'm too afraid to look at that date
Yeah, this guy didn’t have a leg to stand on. There’s an independently owned cafe opposite sarhole mill (inspiration for “the shire”) on the street JRR Tolkien grew up on called “the hungry hobbit”. It’s been called that since 2005 - before the release of the hobbit film. A production company sued this tiny sandwich shop, sitting on a roundabout 3 miles south of Birmingham for the unauthorised use of the word “hobbit”. That was completely egregious imo. It’s now called “the hungry hobb” - they just took down the last two letters on the sign. I really should grab a sandwich from them one day.
Ballsy? He's an outright copyright troll and anyone celebrating him here in the comments should read the article...
He wrote a knockoff book and then tried to claim Tolkien's characters as his own and sue his estate? Does nobody remember the days of BS software patent trolls trying to claim they invented "the app" or "method for clicking on things with the mouse cursor?" Do we remember how mad we were at those shysters?
This guy deserves whatever he gets.
Look, I agree his works shouldn't be destroyed, just not monetizable.
But the dude poked a bear with a sharp stick... Suing the creators of the story/characters you've built your content on for copyright infringement? Brilliant move....
Right? Like I’d go write Harry Potter 8 and then sue WB lol that guy is nuts.
Copyright's explicit purpose is to encourage new works.
Any form of "unpublishing" is theft from the public. You wanna say a guy can't make money on a thing? Great, fine, go nuts. But nothing any human being put effort into deserves to be lost forever.
Going after the copyright holder for infringing on your work, which by merely existing commercially infringes on their copyright, is one hell of a way to get sued out the arse...
Having said that, it is a crime that LOTR still hasn't entered the public domain yet.
Yeah, I'm not sure what this idiot thought would happen...
The author then filed suit against both Amazon and the Tolkien estate, claiming the streaming series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” had borrowed from his sequel and infringed his copyright.
The gall.
I honestly wouldn't even be surprised. What was it, that thing with Star Trek Discovery taking plot points from some adventure game with space-faring tardigrades?
Tolkien Estate? What's that? People profiting off of the work of an author who has been dead for 50 years?
Copyright law is fucked up.
This guy was just deluded to think he was in the right or could win.
I was going to write a Star Wars sequel and then sue Disney for copyright infringement, until I heard this story.
The only sane thing to do in response to this is the same thing that SHOULD have been done when Paramount went all sue happy on folks making unofficial Star Trek stuff.
Creators should stop making things related to their works and consumers should stop consuming and giving Paramount money for the official works.
The lesson being if the rights holder for something wants to keep it all to themselves, let them, forget it exists and starve it out of profitable existence. Spend the time and money with content, creators, and consumers that don't believe sucking up ever dime that's not nailed down is, or should be, the ultimate goal.
Did you even read the article? This dumbass wrote a book based on LotR characters and then HE tried to sue the Tolkien estate and Amazon. This person actually probably needs mental help if they think this could have worked, it was such an incredibly bad idea that there has to be some kind of mental health crises involved.
Worth also mentioning the Tolkien estate is notoriously letigous. There are piracy sites that specifically ban Tolkiens works from being uploaded for that very reason.
What was this guy thinking? He was clearly violating copyright.
Is he just soft in the head, or is he up to something us not crazy people can't see?
First two books in the series were "Fellowship of the King" and "The Two Trees" so...I'm not entirely convinced they were even very original stories...
Demetrious Polychron
holy shit what an incredible name, don't even care what's this about, I'm with him. President Polychron 2024.
While this is piracy adjacent, good on Amazon and Tolkien's estate for shutting down that trash lol
More to the point, who's got a link so we can judge this fanfic for ourselves?
I think it's okay to let this one go doesn't seem like there is any value in his work.
I do think it's time to open up the rights to older IPs and let the community make their own stories within universes though. I loved all the star wars EU stuff as a kid.
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