Extent of copyright
Sergey Bratus
may I ask you - exactly WHAT is owned by Tolkien Estate of
JRRT's legacy?
Do they own the name Middle-earth (" Middle-earth TM ") ?
Do they own the Rings of Power and the Silmarils ?
Do they own the images behind the story or the archetypes?
Do they own the words and grammars of Quenya, Sindarin etc.?
Do they own the Tengwar and Angerthas?
Do they own the concepts of lands and objects appearing in LotR ?
Are the lands beyond the West also their property?
The Valar, the Elves, the Dwarves, the orcs - who do they BELONG to?
What if someone wants to use the languages, the names, the things
or the settings for his own original story? Should he/she be sued?
If yes, then Tolkien's mythology is already a dead one. When
"the living forms that move from mind to mind" become someone's
property they stop moving - they die. Imagine that whoever
came up with the names of Odin or Thor had claimed those to be
his own, to be used only by him or his children. Where would the
Eddas be now?
Of course, every good story in any mythology must have had zillions
of bad retellings, terrible sequels, awful 'prequels' etc. etc. I don't like
the way TSR used some of Tolkien's ideas. But isn't this the way
we humans enagage in sub-creation, telling stories of lands and things
we didn't invent, adding only a little of our own each time?
Isn't he who honestly tries to do so in his own right, "used or misused"?
A dead mythology is not that bad - after all, nobody (almost nobody)
nowadays writes sequels to the New Testament or tells the audience
about the new adventures of Loki. But imho Tolkien's myth is too
young to die, as much as we want to keep meddlers and tamperers away
from it.
Whats's your opinion?
watkins julia k
...
>Of course, every good story in any mythology must have had zillions
>of bad retellings, terrible sequels, awful 'prequels' etc. etc. I don't like
>the way TSR used some of Tolkien's ideas. But isn't this the way
>we humans enagage in sub-creation, telling stories of lands and things
>we didn't invent, adding only a little of our own each time?
>Isn't he who honestly tries to do so in his own right, "used or misused"?
...
>Whats's your opinion?
Here's my experience: Tolkien described M-E in such a way that it
invited me to think up stories and fill in blanks. I like reading
(and sometimes writing) fan fiction: I like seeing how other people
fill in the blanks. I like looking at all the different sketches and
paintings different artists have made of M-E themes. (I think graphic
artists must have it the easiest about dealing with copyright & trade-
mark stuff. Often "collection"-type arts books of recent artists will
have M-E images.) I like the good parts of the movies and ignore what
I don't agree with.
--Julie
Wayne G. Hammond
>
>As much as I admire wise provisions of all the copyright laws,
>may I ask you - exactly WHAT is owned by Tolkien Estate of
>JRRT's legacy?
>
>Do they own the name Middle-earth (" Middle-earth TM ") ?
>Do they own the Rings of Power and the Silmarils ?
>Do they own the images behind the story or the archetypes?
>Do they own the words and grammars of Quenya, Sindarin etc.?
>Do they own the Tengwar and Angerthas?
>Do they own the concepts of lands and objects appearing in LotR ?
>Are the lands beyond the West also their property?
>The Valar, the Elves, the Dwarves, the orcs - who do they BELONG to?
>
>What if someone wants to use the languages, the names, the things
>or the settings for his own original story? Should he/she be sued?
>
Let's put it this way: what do you think would happen if you wrote a
sequel to _Star Wars_, or a _Star Trek_ novel, and published it?
Lucasfilm, or Paramount, would be more than a little annoyed. With
them, as with the Tolkien properties -- well, there's the word. They're
properties, with copyrights and trademarks, covering not only words
but pictures and merchandise, film rights, audio rights, etc., etc. It's
a complicated business. The Tolkien Estate controls most of the
copyrights, Tolkien's publishers have some control and some of the
power to grant licenses (e.g. for computer games), Tolkien Enterprises
(formed, as I recall, at the time of the Bakshi film) has the word
"hobbit" trademarked, the copyright of the poem "Bilbo's Last Song"
is owned by an order of nuns (who inherited it from Tolkien's former
secretary, Joy Hill).
There's no simple answer to who owns what. Some things aren't "owned"
by anyone, e.g. the race of elves, which existed in mythology long
before Tolkien used them. And some of Tolkien's characters, places,
plots, languages, etc. can be used without permission to some degree,
under the fair use provision of copyright law. But in all cases there are
limits to what can be used, how much, when, and by whom. I'm no
lawyer, and would say only that one should be cautious, and courteous
to the Estate, whenever contemplating any sort of publication (including
electronic, on the net) or adaptation or performance or reprint.
Wayne Hammond
Wayne.G...@williams.edu
Carl F. Hostetter
> As much as I admire wise provisions of all the copyright laws,
> may I ask you - exactly WHAT is owned by Tolkien Estate of
> JRRT's legacy?
My own guesses follow:
> Do they own the name Middle-earth (" Middle-earth TM ") ?
No; the term _middle-earth_ far predates Tolkien!
> Do they own the Rings of Power and the Silmarils ?
Possibly and yes, respectively.
> Do they own the images behind the story or the archetypes?
This is vague; if by images you are referring to artwork, then
obviously the copyright is held by the artist and/or the Estate
(esp. if works are commisioned; and artists must obviously
obtain the permission of the Estate to publish works based on
Tolkien's writings).
> Do they own the words and grammars of Quenya, Sindarin etc.?
Absolutely, they are Tolkien's invention.
> Do they own the Tengwar and Angerthas?
Yes.
> Do they own the concepts of lands and objects appearing in LotR ?
Yes.
> Are the lands beyond the West also their property?
Yes.
> The Valar, the Elves, the Dwarves, the orcs - who do they BELONG to?
"Valar" as a term is Tolkien's invention; the other words are not.
> What if someone wants to use the languages, the names, the things
> or the settings for his own original story? Should he/she be sued?
Should they? I can't say. Might they? Absolutely.
> If yes, then Tolkien's mythology is already a dead one.
But Tolkien set up the Estate to manage his property (yes, _his
property_). He might have (foolishly, I think) put his property
in the public domain (where it will eventually end up anyway, but
not anytime soon), but he chose not to. So to all those who want
to ignore Tolkien's own wishes, I say: "Nuts to you". And given the
way Tolkien's material has been treated by the legion of folks who
do choose to ignore such niceties as the notion of property (i.e.
thieves), I wish that the Estate could maintain control of the
material forever.
|===================================================================|
| Carl F. Hostetter Carl.F.Ho...@gsfc.nasa.gov |
| |
| Ars longa, vita brevis. |
| The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. |
| "I wish life was not so short," he thought. "Languages take |
| such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about." |
|===================================================================|
Michael S. Pettersen
> A dead mythology is not that bad - after all, nobody (almost nobody)
> nowadays writes sequels to the New Testament or tells the audience
> about the new adventures of Loki. But imho Tolkien's myth is too
> young to die, as much as we want to keep meddlers and tamperers away
> from it.
as I can tell, within certain limits (selling the work for profit
would violate those limits).* I suppose that Tolkien wanted the reader
to share in the process of sub-creation, but not to the point of sharing in
the royalties...
Anyhow, sequels are seldom welcome additions to beloved stories. They usually
appear ludicrous beside the work of the master craftsman. Think of the
recent sequel to Gone with the Wind--and GWTW, beloved by many as it is,
is hardly in the same category as Tolkien.
That being said, there are ways of successfully following the great myths.
I'll mention just the one example of Wagner writing about Loki in
the 19th century.
You might ask Jerry Falwell whether the New Testament is a dead myth, by
the way.
--
Mike Pettersen, Otterbein College
mpett...@bclcl1.im.battelle.org
Perfect love casteth out fear.
* To get into the fine points, you could probably write, say, a love-poem
about Arwen, and get away with it; but if you wrote a novel which was set
in Middle-Earth without any effort on your own part to create your own
world, that would be plagiarism, and would probably (though I'm no expert)
be treated as such by the law.
Brian E. Clark
> You might ask Jerry Falwell whether the New Testament is a dead myth, by
> the way.
Bad example. For two thousand years people have been reinterpreting and
appending the messages of the NT. Witness how people link Christianity
with capitalism, or with a particular stance on birth control. Witness the
very recent idea that a godly person (in the US) must vote Republican, or
sport a Greek fish on his bumper. :)
-brian
--
"Saints fly only in the eyes of their disciples." - Hindu proverb
Sumner G. Hunnewell
A few comments on the copyright and what you can and what you can't use
by a few useful examples. Gandalf Technologies used to have a wizard as a
logo but they had to change that because it related too closely to Tolkien's
Gandalf versus the Prose (?, see, this newsgroup is even making me lazy) Edda
Gandalf which is rather vague. I have seen t-shirt designs changed from "Lord
of the Rings" to "Trilogy". I know of or know people who have been written
rather nasty letters by those who own the rights to Tolkien's works (or a
derivation thereof). According to Taum Santoski, Tolkien's solicitors have a
large inventory of various illegally (not approved) products. Runes, the
futhork, as you know are pretty much up for grabs even though Tolkien based
most of the runes in The Hobbit on them. I know that you know much of this,
but I thought it might give people an idea that it isn't right to create a
product without permission (well, it isn't legal either).
One good thing...the Tolkien estate pretty much stays out of organized
Tolkien fandom, but then again, I've never known a fan to make a living off of
any of this (though there seems to be a greater business sense in Western
Europe).
Going through the 1993 VTs...almost done. I will be doing the Small
Press column for Amon Hen, and I hope to be more inclusive and list/review all
Tolkien fanzines (there are about 100 worldwide...I haven't counted, it's too
depressing).
Will we be seeing you in Berkeley?
Hildifons Took
Sergey Bratus
: That being said, there are ways of successfully following the great myths.
: I'll mention just the one example of Wagner writing about Loki in
: the 19th century.
This is exactly what I had in mind - Norse myths were not copyrighted.
: * To get into the fine points, you could probably write, say, a love-poem
: about Arwen, and get away with it; but if you wrote a novel which was set
: in Middle-Earth without any effort on your own part to create your own
: world, that would be plagiarism, and would probably (though I'm no expert)
: be treated as such by the law.
But this is REALLY a fine point. As an addition to Norse mythology,
Der Ring can be considered plagiarism too - Wagner made no effort to
create his own world, he took a setting and tone that already existed.
That would be equivalent to taking Elrond, Gandalf, Aragorn etc. and
making them act in yet another Middle-earth story. Of course, Wagner
wrote an opera...(The Opera)...
Speaking of operas - do you think that, if New Testament belonged
to somebody, JC-Superstar would have to be approved by the proprietor?
I'm sure many people on that group would advise an author of a
Tolkienist opera to consult Tolkien Estate first.
I do believe that the above successful "plagiarisms" were
preceded by many unsuccessful (i.e. no-good) ventures.
Maybe we should tolerate mediocre Middle-earth stories for a while
(maybe a very LONG while) so that a great Middle-earth story could
appear some day, rather than discouraging all such stories from the
start. And I don't think that a mediocre writer can really cash in
_that big_ on Tolkien. A bad book is always a bad one - with all
the consequences.
Best regards,
Sergey (who is NOT writing any sequels)
Louis Epstein
: In article <3kclg6$5...@chaos.dac.neu.edu>, sbr...@lynx.dac.neu.edu
: (Sergey Bratus) wrote:
: > As much as I admire wise provisions of all the copyright laws,
: > may I ask you - exactly WHAT is owned by Tolkien Estate of
: > JRRT's legacy?
: My own guesses follow:
:
: > Do they own the name Middle-earth (" Middle-earth TM ") ?
: No; the term _middle-earth_ far predates Tolkien!
: > Do they own the Rings of Power and the Silmarils ?
: Possibly and yes, respectively.
: > Do they own the images behind the story or the archetypes?
: This is vague; if by images you are referring to artwork, then
: obviously the copyright is held by the artist and/or the Estate
: (esp. if works are commisioned; and artists must obviously
: obtain the permission of the Estate to publish works based on
: Tolkien's writings).
Nota Bene:this is not always honored...certainly not by fanzines...
and I have a letter from Christopher Tolkien that he sent to me
after I wrote to Ballantine protesting the replacement for 1975's
Tolkien Calendar of JRRT's own art with Tim Kirk's greasy horrors,
saying "I write to say that I have seen this Calendar,that I think
it is dreadful in itself and a disgraceful piece of exploitation
on the part of the publishers,and that I warmly support
any attempts you may in a position to make to diminish its sales and
give publicity to its nature."
Obviously that calendar was 1)published,and 2)not endorsed by the
Estate.
Louis Epstein
(MORONDIL,National Tolkien League)