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imin
Valinor
Nov 22 2012, 5:30pm
Views: 91
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I am surprised so few have viewed this thread or posted in it.
here are some quotes from the article i think are worth a look:
'The lawsuit argues that Warner Brothers is trying to convert what was a limited right to profit from J.R.R. Tolkien’s intellectual property into an unlimited right to use The Lord of the Rings and its characters as they see fit. '
OK i dont know how they can legally show what is tangible or intangible but i do believe it is the estates right to have some control over JRRT intellectual property - otherwise WB will just do whatever it can to maximise their profits, they wont care about anything else.
Next section:
'It isn’t just the Tolkien estate and its charitable arm that are suing Warner Brothers; it is also HarperCollins, the holder of the English language rights to both Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. There is a lot at stake here for them as well. You now have a tug-of-war to decide who controls the iconography of Tolkien’s masterworks and their place in our society. On the one side you have the estate of the original creator and the publisher of his works. On the other side, there is the company behind one of the largest film franchises in history.'
For me the iconography should always be the source material, especially when the source material is better as is the case we have with JRRT compared to WB. I would prefer people found the books first, but the films are out there now so people can find them through the films, to me it doesnt mean the films have to be the defining mental image in the publics mind.
Finally:
'It is worth pointing out that it was the production company that folded at the end of round one between these two juggernauts. After laughably claiming that they didn’t make any money at all on three of the highest-grossing films of all time, the production company coughed up 7.5 percent of their profits to the Tolkien Estate in order to settle a lawsuit that paved the way for the filming of The Hobbit, according to the French paper Le Monde. We will see if they try to pull the same “we didn’t make any money” stunt on the next three films.'
Essentially saying that WB were not going to give the Tolkien Estate what they were due - its disgusting really they had the nerve to say a 3billion dollar franchise (from movies alone so far) made no money. Some people seem to forget there would be no movies if it were not for JRRT in the first place.
I can imagine WB doing the same thing again and Tolkien Estate having to go after what they are owed all over again in terms of the profits from the films.
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