Legal Battle Brewing between Tolkien Estate and Warner Bros

March 13, 2013

According to reports, an $80 million lawsuit has been waged between the Tolkien Estate, the legal body which manages the property of J.R.R. Tolkien, and Warner Bros., the studios responsible for producing the Lord of the Rings film franchise.

It is currently understood that the Tolkien Estate has launched litigation proceedings against Warner Bros. for apparently overstepping their contractual copyright entitlements to merchandise falling outside the scope of the initial agreement.

As reported, the case was sparked into life due to the discovery of the existence of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring online slot game. A product the Estate claims the copyright agreement does not extend to in the existing contract. It is further claimed that the existence of this game has upset many fans of the Lord of the Rings books series, who believe the Estate is responsible for the game’s development and has subsequently stained the iconic status of the author’s works. The Estate is specifically agitated by the online gambling products and has produced a further list of product categories it believes are exempt from the initial contract.

Much of the case rests on the definition of the term ‘tangible’ products and its interpretation in the existing rights contract initially signed in 1969 with Zaents Co, a named co-defendant. It is understood that The Estates main contention seems to be that tangible products only consisted of the products in place at that time such as clothing, toy figures, etc and did not extend to the advanced technology present in today’s digital and downloadable gaming products, which are accessible across the smartphone, tablet and social networking spectrum. This prompted the Tolkien Estate to seek an injunction and launch an $80 million lawsuit.
Warner Bros. has yet to respond to approaches for comment.

Sources hollywoodreporter.com