Keep in mind the man with the balls so huge he sued Amazon and JRR Tolkien’s grandson, claiming they infringed on his Lord of the Rings fanfic with the Rings of Energy TV sequence? In a surprising flip of occasions that nobody (besides actually everybody) noticed coming, he misplaced badly and now owes the Tolkien property $134,000 in authorized charges.
The entire thing started again in 2017 when Demetrious Polychron registered his e book, “The Fellowship of the King,” with the US Copyright workplace. He then despatched a letter to Simon Tolkien, director of the Tolkien Property and grandson of Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien, describing the e book and requesting a evaluation of the manuscript.
After receiving no response, he employed a lawyer in 2019 and contacted the Tolkien Property once more with one other proposal to collaborate on the mission. The property rapidly stated “no,” at which level he personally delivered a duplicate of his manuscript to Simon Tolkien’s dwelling for consideration.
When that additionally went ignored, he knowledgeable Tolkien that he supposed to “publish TFOTK, and an extra six e book sequence, independently.” And so he did in September 2022, proper across the time The Rings of Energy first aired. Shortly after that Polychron filed his lawsuit, claiming that The Rings of Energy took concepts from The Fellowship of the King and demanding $250 million in compensation.
All of it sounds fairly foolish, however as we famous when Demetrious filed his lawsuit, this kind of criticism could be a actual headache, particularly for writers who haven’t got the sources to go to struggle in a courtroom. Again within the days of Usenet and BBSes, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski had (and has) a widely known zero tolerance coverage towards followers posting story concepts for worry that somebody would attempt to declare possession of an concept that appeared in an episode, whereas creator Marion Zimmer Bradley as soon as scrapped an concept for a novel she was engaged on as a result of a fan who had written an analogous story threatened to sue for co-authorship and half the revenues earned.
Related issues occur in videogames: In 2021, author and photographer Clayton Haugen sued Activision over allegations that the Name of Obligation: Trendy Warfare character Mara was based mostly on a personality he created for a mission referred to as November Renaissance.
On this case, although, it appears the matter was extra reduce and dry. A BBC report says Polychron’s case was dismissed, with the choose ruling in reverse: that Polychron’s e book infringed upon Amazon’s present. The Tolkien Property then fired off a lawsuit of its personal towards Polychron looking for to halt additional distribution of his e book, and final week a everlasting injunction towards The Fellowship of the King and the six sequels Polychron had deliberate was granted. The choose on the case additionally described Polychron’s lawsuit as “frivolous and unreasonably filed,” and awarded authorized charges to the Tolkien Property and Amazon within the sum of $134,000.
“This is a vital success for the Tolkien Property, which is not going to allow unauthorised authors and publishers to monetise JRR Tolkien’s much-loved works on this method,” Steven Maier, the Tolkien Property’s lawyer, stated. “This case concerned a severe infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on a business foundation, and the property hopes that the award of a everlasting injunction and attorneys’ charges shall be adequate to dissuade others who might have comparable intentions.”
It was a daring gambit to make sure, however frankly I can not say I am stunned by the result. I’ve reached out to Polychron for remark and can replace if I obtain a reply.