Not sure how he thought this was going to work in his favour

December 19, 2023 5:43 AM

Copyright claim against Tolkien estate backfires on LOTR fanfiction writer. (slTheGuardian)
posted by Kitteh (89 comments total)

"There is no limit to stupidity. Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity."

— Gene Wolfe
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:18 AM on December 19, 2023 [20 favorites]

I don't love the idea of destroying the book. Obviously he shouldn't be able to sell it. This is leaving aside the question of whether he's a moron, which is a funny question to ponder but one that I think is sideways to whether ownership of IP qualifies a rights-holder (not, mind you, an author; the author is dead) to demand the destruction of a book.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:21 AM on December 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

Oh My.

This is such a significant Self Own that it might be my favourite of 2023, and there have been some DOOZY'S this year.
posted by Faintdreams at 6:25 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

I don't love the idea of destroying the book.

I believe (IANAL) that this means he needs to destroy all salable copies of the book, not that he needs to destroy manuscript copies. Destroying salable copies prevents him from, you know, selling them. Which he is not entitled to do, because copyright.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:29 AM on December 19, 2023 [16 favorites]

Explanation of why I am ROFL right now (reposted from Mastodon, where it was my reply on a similar thread):

The generally-observed-by-sane-people rule of fanfic is that you don't try to turn a profit off someone else's work. This goes double when they're dead but still in print because someone less forgiving than the author is seeing rents roll in and making grabby-hands. And it goes quadruple when there are TV/Movie rights in play.

YOU DO NOT SNEAK INTO MORDOR WITH A MARCHING BAND AFTER SENDING SAURON AN EMAIL SAYING I DOUBLE-DOG DARE YOU
posted by cstross at 6:31 AM on December 19, 2023 [104 favorites]

I wish this article explained more the merits of the case. The WashPo article has more detail that helps. In particular it says the judge found the fanfic violated the copyright on the original books, not the TV show.

Polychron apparently wrote “The Fellowship of the King” and contacted the estate with a copy of the book back in 2017, well before the TV show aired. It's certainly plausible that somehow some of that material ended up in the TV show and Polychron had a case. But the judge found otherwise.

Polychron also apparently has no problem with self confidence

“Some part of my creative subconscious took that as a command from your grandfather,” Polychron wrote ...

“I will never, ever believe that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien would not be proud of what I have accomplished, only by standing on his almost unscalable shoulders,” Polychron wrote.

Google Books has some sample pages of the book (for now). It clearly reaches well beyond the original source text; the first page has two women characters.
posted by Nelson at 6:37 AM on December 19, 2023 [24 favorites]

I love this - perfect laugh of the morning.

Christ what a (d)orc.
posted by whatevernot at 6:41 AM on December 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

From the "related articles page" on the grauniad, quality headline writing as always:

Trouble Harfoot? Amazon’s Lord of the Rings epic divides Tolkien fans.
posted by lalochezia at 6:42 AM on December 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

This chump canNOT have been terribly connected to Fandom Olds, because they would have TOLD HIM that among litigious literary estates (which is a lot of 'em) the Tolkien Estate stands absolutely supreme. It is the world-conquering Witch King of literary estates. It is the Palantir network of literary estates. It is the...

... yeah I'm gonna stop now before they sue me.

(Only half kidding. They really ARE litigious af.)
posted by humbug at 6:44 AM on December 19, 2023 [24 favorites]

I was discussing this with my wife last night and I really do sort of regret that the Tolkein estate has not followed the path of, say, Star Wars and recruited talented people to play in that world - what an expanded universe we could have! Even things like some of the video games that have gotten a little more latitude - Lord of the Rings Online is a great example - has been tremendously compelling to me. But fundamentally, while I regret that copyright is quite as long as it is, I am firmly on the side of copyright existing and being enforced.

And yeah, having friends who have worked on LoTRO, the Tolkien estate does not fuck around nor permit anyone else to fuck around, and they carry a very very big stick to enforce it. Their interests are more narrow than Disney but they're no less vigilant. Remains to be seen how that shifts now that Christopher Tolkein is dead, but there was never any chance they were going to let an unauthorized sequel slide.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:46 AM on December 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

Isn't filing the serial numbers off a well established path to publication now? Aren't there a ton of "original" works that everyone knows started off as popular fanfic--because the stories were originally posted to fanfic archives--before being removed and carefully altered to pass legal muster prior to publication?

Was this guy just unwilling to do that, or were they that high on their own supply?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:46 AM on December 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

Times like this make me miss Fandom Wank. They would've had a field day with this.
posted by May Kasahara at 6:51 AM on December 19, 2023 [12 favorites]

At least 85 percent of English language fantasy fiction post Tolkien is Tolkien tribute, now people are just rolling up trying to franchise the name. Come on, guys.
posted by kingdead at 6:51 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

were they that high on their own supply?

The author's introduction video for "The War Of The Rings" leads me to believe it's this.
posted by simmering octagon at 6:51 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't love the idea of destroying the book... whether ownership of IP qualifies a rights-holder (not, mind you, an author; the author is dead) to demand the destruction of a book.

But does it qualify the ring-bearer... (not, mind you, the forger) to demand the destruction of said ring?
posted by fairmettle at 6:59 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thus begins the War of the Rings to End All Wars of the Rings.

But... but what about the War of the Rings to end all Wars of the Rings to end all Wars of the Rings?
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:59 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Suing the Tolkien estate for copyright infringement is like putting on the One Ring and doing a solo dash into Mordor to challenge Sauron on his own territory, armed with a pointy stick
posted by BungaDunga at 7:02 AM on December 19, 2023 [9 favorites]

I can't believe nobody on his legal team tried to talk him out of it. Maybe they were too busy adding zeroes to his legal fees.
posted by fight or flight at 7:03 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

... contacted the estate with a copy of the book back in 2017...

He's lucky this act didn't get him sued in the first place.

And emphasizes his lack of understanding of how copyright, and derivative works, works. If you want to use someone's IP, you ask (and pay) first. It's like he thought they'd see how awesome his book is and thus give him the IP for free.

That he filed the lawsuit in the first place shows that he did think that's what happened too.

The legal filing looks like a "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" -- he sued everybody from Simon Tolkien to Jeff Bezos to "DOES 1-100". They were fishing for anyone to settle out of court or get removed until there was just the most "culpable" ones left.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:11 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yeah it looks like the literary equivalent of patent trolling. Except, you know, without even the fig leaf of a patent.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:13 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wow, that is some ancient Greek myth-level hubris.
posted by jedicus at 7:19 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

JUDGE: "The court finds that not only is your Lord of the Rings fan fiction work a clear case of copyright infringement, but also has terrible writing and insufferable puns."

WRITER: "Well, this is why we can't have nice rings."
posted by AlSweigart at 7:19 AM on December 19, 2023 [21 favorites]

I believe (IANAL) that this means he needs to destroy all salable copies of the book, not that he needs to destroy manuscript copies. Destroying salable copies prevents him from, you know, selling them. Which he is not entitled to do, because copyright.

It mentions all digital copies as well, which essentially means the book can't be made available in any way. I personally think the book should be accessible, so long as the author doesn't make any money from it. I know it's kind of a goofy thing to worry about when the guy is so clearly a crank, but I feel icky cheering on the estate banishing a book to oblivion. I guess I might feel differently if this were Tolkien suing and not a group of people who basically lucked into possession of something they didn't write either.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:20 AM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

The guy doesn't seem too bright. But copyright laws are still stupid and far too long.

Also Tolkien died in 1973 so before the Copyright Term Extension Act his works would have come into the public domain right about now. I can't believe a guy who idolized pre-Enclosure rural England would have been on board with corporate grabs.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:21 AM on December 19, 2023 [11 favorites]

What I really wanted to know is whether the fanfic is any good. Like, was this the case of someone who didn't realize that their work really didn't rise to saleable standards and through the same kind of failure to reason thought that they could win this lawsuit? Or was it someone whose work was saleable but somehow still didn't reason this out?

Goodreads seems to think that it's not that good. It appears to involve the missing Blue Wizards and the missing magic rings that are implied in Tolkien's background work, with Sam Gamgee's daughter as protagonist. Honestly, I too sometimes wonder about "the East" and what exactly the Blue Wizards did, and I could probably be an audience for this type of fanfic. The lawsuit is stupid, obviously, especially since he appears to have been mulling the whole thing since 2017, but I could see wanting to write the story.
posted by Frowner at 7:26 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

It clearly reaches well beyond the original source text; the first page has two women characters

This is why I wish the Wheel of Time was better written and more condensed. Women were brought to the front, though with lots of skirt straightening and braid tugging. I'm perfectly fine with well-written Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off. The world was both broad and deep, there is just a multitude of possibilities.
posted by Ber at 7:26 AM on December 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

"When he first arrived fifteen years ago, the minimal research he had done had suggested to him that the name ‘Demetrious Polychron’ would be nicely inconspicuous." --- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.
posted by SPrintF at 7:27 AM on December 19, 2023 [39 favorites]

Remains to be seen how that shifts now that Christopher Tolkein is dead, but there was never any chance they were going to let an unauthorized sequel slide.

From what I've heard from the inside, the new Tolkien Estate heir is willing to turn the legacy into a franchise like Star Wars. Which does not sound good.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:33 AM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

sample of book.
He’s not much of a writer.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:36 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

The book can be read here. While the writing doesn't look so good, and this guy might be the on the most delusional, Quixotic book tear since the Venice teddy bear e-book controversy, I would root for him over Jeff Bezos and the IP-mining industry.

To quote Stephen J. Harper:

My god, your triviality...do either of you contribute anything to the world of Ideas or Art? And just how would you respond if you had created something of value that someone thoughtlessly tore down? Do you not know that there is greatness in each one of us? That there is greatness in you? What do you stand for? What do you defend?
posted by johngoren at 7:37 AM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

sample of book.
He’s not much of a writer.

Is it better than Rings of Power?
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:38 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think it's time to let the IP get some more interesting hands on it. I mean the "fellowship" was all dudes. The Hobbit, it was all dudes. One doesn't really notice that reading the books in the 1960s or 70s. All of JRRT's little civilizations and stories were really dude heavy. Oh sure you had someone like Galadriel who was like "oh my god she has ovaries and magic and she is definitely tempted to go nuts like is this an allegory for PMS or what but no she decides it's too risky and settles down into a cottage on a cloud" or you got "i am no man" Eowynn who is probably the best character and the sickest burn in the entire lore who saves Middle Earth basically but gets what for it? (Faramir. Ok that's not a kick in the face.) Anyway, I mean, the chump in the OP is clearly Not The Guy to do this, but if you look at what the Star Wars IP has been doing with like Mandalorian and Andor, stuff that Lucas never had the skill to pen, i'm like let the fertile fiction of Middle Earth go out into the world and let us see what blooms. Ok.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:43 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

He’s not much of a writer.

Woo, sadly no, he's not. It's more like he's writing down what he sees in his mind's eye when he envisions, eg, Bag End than like he's telling a story. This is a fellow who could use a writer's group and, I think, five or ten years on ao3 getting feedback. If someone can actually sit down and write a novel with a few interesting plot elements, they've got some kind of potential anyway, and a few years in the ao3 trenches might help. Better to be a prince among Tolkien fanfic writers than a clown among would-be published authors, IYAM.
posted by Frowner at 7:45 AM on December 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

I was discussing this with my wife last night and I really do sort of regret that the Tolkein estate has not followed the path of, say, Star Wars and recruited talented people to play in that world - what an expanded universe we could have!

[short opinionated essay ahead]

I think there’s a big difference between Tolkien and Star Wars for this, which is that the Star Wars universe was introduced with a slew of creatures and technology that implied huge backstories we knew nothing about. The cantina scene set the tone of a wildly complex and unknowable universe. In addition we get almost no backstory on three of the main characters (R2D2, C-3PO, and Chewbacca) or even a history of their people.

We never get a cantina scene in Lord of the Rings — and the characters and races we see are explained perhaps too much. There is some mystery in Middle Earth, such as the races that compose Sauron’s army, but on the whole there is the sense of a closed, finite world that was thought out in detail by its creator.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write good LoTR fanfic, but it’s hard to think of it as an "expanded" as much as a "new author crams stuff into the cracks" universe.

[end of short opinionated essay]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:47 AM on December 19, 2023 [30 favorites]

Now, the Urth Cycle, there's a universe that could be expanded on. And shouldn't be, because peaking behind the curtain of mystery would ruin the epistemological horror of that setting.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:51 AM on December 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

.... but if you look at what the Star Wars IP has been doing with like Mandalorian and Andor, stuff that Lucas never had the skill to pen, i'm like let the fertile fiction of Middle Earth go out into the world and let us see what blooms. Ok.

No thanks. There's other fantasy material out there that has the sort of things you're asking for. I don't need LOTR to be updated to fit a studio exec's idea of a modern story.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:52 AM on December 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

Metafilter: This is leaving aside the question of whether he's a moron, which is a funny question to ponder.
posted by mhoye at 7:52 AM on December 19, 2023 [11 favorites]

Legolas by Laura is the only LOTR fanfic I will ever need...
posted by Windopaene at 7:57 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another key difference between Tolkien’s works and the Star Wars universe is that many of Tolkien’s stories were originally written to entertain his son, then expanded upon. Their history and connection to the Tolkien family is more personal. While Star Wars was always only a commercial franchise. I can see opening Middle Earth up for non-commercial or small-scale (economically speaking) storytelling use now that the original personal audience has passed on, but opening it up to the same sort of commercial or industrial-scale exploitation as the Star Wars universe feels contradictory to many of the main themes of the work itself, as well as to the history of its creation: the former feels like giving land to Hobbits to work and develop, while the latter is more like giving the same land to Sauron to exploit.
posted by eviemath at 8:28 AM on December 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

Suing the Tolkien estate for copyright infringement is like putting on the One Ring and doing a solo dash into Mordor to challenge Sauron on his own territory, armed with a pointy stick

You may think you're putting on the One Ring, but it's actually the Ice King's Crown from Adventure Time. It just turns you into a stanky old fanfic-writing wizard who no one wants to be around.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:28 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

I would root for him over Jeff Bezos and the IP-mining industry.

I'd probably root for him if he hadn't sued them first, on the dubious grounds that they'd stolen his ideas for the Rings of Power TV show. That was just asking for trouble, sorry!
posted by BungaDunga at 8:51 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

I did notice the linked version of the story included the fake version of the Marion Zimmer Bradley story, though. Actual way it went: MZB had a series of strokes in the late 1980s that rendered her unable to write. To keep money coming in, her lover and others in her circle started putting out ghostwritten books for her various series under her claimed authorship. Jean Lamb had written a novel for an MZB-authorized fanzine, and said circle wanted to buy it for a flat fee to republish as part of this scheme. Lamb declined, and they, not her, brought in lawyers to threaten her if she told anyone about the ghostwriting.
posted by tavella at 8:52 AM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Ah, no, I meant specifically the Star Wars expanded universe of novels, not the entire now-Disneyfied moneygrab Star Wars IP. Specific invitations to specific authors to explore different corners of the world. (And there's a ton of room there, really. The specific timeline of LoTR is heavily-specified but the entire Silmarillion? So many possibilities.)
posted by restless_nomad at 8:54 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ah, no, I meant specifically the Star Wars expanded universe of novels

You're thinking of Star Wars, but I'm thinking of Dune and the utter disaster the books not written by Frank Herbert were. As much as I would love more LotR, I don't think everything needs to be a franchise that keeps going and going... sometimes room for your own imagination is best.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:59 AM on December 19, 2023 [16 favorites]

A strong case has and can be made that fantasy as a contemporary publishing category was launched with a Tolkien clone, Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara. Much of the last few decades has been spent trying to live in the shadow of that or drag the field in new directions. We don't need more of it, and I say that as someone who has loved ME in its many and multifarious forms, from the original works to Bakshi to various games based on the IP.

The Star Wars analogy is understandable but counterproductive here. Bushels of SW content were produced over the decades in the form of books, comics, fan films, fan fiction, games, toys, and more. Everyone would like to imagine a The Mandalorian-level Tolkien IP spin-off, but it's parsecs more likely we'd get The New Ranger Order Academy, Vols. 1-33. Not only would that be wrong, but anyone who wants it is wrong to want it.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:01 AM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Also, yes, the horror of Dune. I have not yet seen the adverts for Water Sellers of Dune: The First Quintology, but I can only assume they're coming one day.

(Edit: I say that as one who loves Dune, and its various film, comic, etc. adaptations.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:03 AM on December 19, 2023

See if you stall a copyright troll long enough, dawn comes and it turns to stone.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 9:25 AM on December 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

It's certainly plausible that somehow some of that material ended up in the TV show and Polychron had a case.

...no it isn't? It is in no way "seemingly rational or probable" that anyone in the estate would even bother reading much less stealing from some nutter's doorstop that he mailed to them.
posted by tavella at 9:26 AM on December 19, 2023 [17 favorites]

I've got to admit - that takes some grade A high end self-delusion. The fact that Tolkien estate is so tight fisted about the IP is part of the reason that LotR:RoP fell short of people's hopes/expectations. Zealous doesn't begin to describe their defense of the canon.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:30 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

The Hobbit, it was all dudes.

Do we really know that, though? I thought it would have been clever if, in the film version of The Hobbit, some of the dwarves, say Fili and Kili, or Ori, Dori, and Nori are actually female. Bilbo fails to recognize this (and thus fails to mention this in his account) because, well, beards. If I had made the film, there would have been a running gag of Fili nudging Kili, winking, and commenting, "Bilbo still hasn't twigged to us yet."
posted by SPrintF at 9:44 AM on December 19, 2023 [17 favorites]

The author's introduction video for "The War Of The Rings" leads me to believe it's this.

hbomberguy wouldn't touch this with James Somerton's d*ck
posted by elkevelvet at 9:57 AM on December 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

This kind of story mostly makes me sad. It'd be like if a guy I didn't like at work finally got face time with the CEO to pitch the big project he'd been advocating and planning for years. And it was so bad he got fired.

And they sent out a memo explaining why.

It is in no way "seemingly rational or probable" that anyone in the estate would even bother reading much less stealing from some nutter's doorstop that he mailed to them.

Some writers, studios, producers, etc. have a rule that they won't touch unsolicited manuscripts or story ideas precisely because they are worried about this sort of lawsuit.
posted by mark k at 9:58 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

There are differences right off in the opening scene between the Google Books version and the "sample of book" posted by Ideefixe (which looks to be an exhibit for a count filing)

Sipping tea beside her was her eldest daughter, Elanor ‘the Fair’ as folks called her, on account of her uncommon good looks. Despite these handicaps, Elanor was a kind if proudly outspoken yet thoughtful hobbit, mostly given to laughter, pleasant whimsy and occasional disagreements with her siblings

vs

Beside Rosie sat her eldest daughter, Elanor ‘the Fair’ as folks called her, on account of her uncommon good looks. Despite these handicaps, Elanor was a kind if proudly outspoken yet thoughtful hobbit, mostly given to laughter, pleasant whimsy, and occasional flights of fancy

posted by achrise at 9:59 AM on December 19, 2023

how does this affect the Muppet LOTR movie series that i wish for ?

closer or flurther ?
posted by MonsieurPEB at 10:13 AM on December 19, 2023 [16 favorites]

how does this affect the Muppet LOTR movie series that i wish for ?

I assume this would be all characters as Muppets except Sean Bean?
posted by Zargon X at 10:34 AM on December 19, 2023 [14 favorites]

how does this affect the Muppet LOTR movie series that i wish for

The Fellowship of the Brrrrring. Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip.
posted by The Bellman at 10:55 AM on December 19, 2023 [14 favorites]

Now, the Urth Cycle, there's a universe that could be expanded on. And shouldn't be, because peaking behind the curtain of mystery would ruin the epistemological horror of that setting.

Too right. Honestly I think Urth of the New Sun goes too far in that direction.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:06 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Loved LOTR in high school even though I started with The Two Towers, which was the first book that showed up in local bookstores in a (legally) pirated Ace books edition, then tried to reread it in college after I gave my girlfriend a fancy boxed edition for her birthday — and had kind of a physical reaction against it as I anticipated the words that I was about to read, which I’d had trouble with when I first learned to read and which led to a general rule never to reread anything that had really fascinated me first time around.

And now after decades, I don’t actually like it anymore and think it’s had a deplorable influence on fantasy as a whole because of all the endless and dreary imitation it’s inspired.

Once was enough. Once was actually too much!
posted by jamjam at 11:15 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

jamjam, there's another world out there where "cozy fantasy" and "weird fantasy" were the key influences on the modern genre, and only a select group of weirdoes like the epic stuff.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:31 AM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm so glad Rhianna Pratchett declared that she will not write any Discworld novels herself, nor give anyone else permission to do so.
posted by Pendragon at 11:46 AM on December 19, 2023 [18 favorites]

LOTR FAFO
posted by gottabefunky at 11:49 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

I kind of admire the audacity, but legally he has clearly Tolkien things too far.
posted by snofoam at 11:53 AM on December 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

But... but what about the War of the Rings to end all Wars of the Rings to end all Wars of the Rings?

This is how you get sued by Chuck Tingle.
posted by Literaryhero at 11:55 AM on December 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

is it just Smeagol are we scraping the bottom of the barrel with these puns
posted by elkevelvet at 12:05 PM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

jamjam, there's another world out there where "cozy fantasy" and "weird fantasy" were the key influences on the modern genre, and only a select group of weirdoes like the epic stuff.

I have read hundreds of those fantasies, cupcakeninja, mostly by women, from Nicola Griffith, Samantha Shannon, and Audrey Niffenegger to Carole Nelson Douglas and Deborah Coates (who should write more books!), all the way to Jayne Ann Krentz (aka Amanda Quick) for whom I’m not ashamed to admit a certain fondness, and only wish there were more and that they offered a better living to their authors.

I particularly recommend Jill Harper, who wrote four books set in a universe where Armageddon happened and the forces of darkness won! And the world is ruled by demons constrained by rule of Law, though Satan is apparently hors d'Combat and hasn’t been seen since the Final Battle.
posted by jamjam at 12:08 PM on December 19, 2023 [15 favorites]

I don't love the idea of destroying the book.

Take that with a bit of a handwave. It's more legalese for "...and if you decide to end-run this courts decision by, say, giving away mountains of the infringing material, or decide 10 years from now to try this stunt again thinking you'll find a more understanding venue, you get to start that conversation explaining why you intentionally violated the terms of the last courts ruling, which is a very, very bad way to start".
posted by kjs3 at 12:43 PM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made copy of the infringing fanfic was uploaded to a different archive under a different user account.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:45 PM on December 19, 2023 [11 favorites]

I'm guessing it's not the Jill Harper who wrote Functional Analysis: A Practitioner's Guide to Implementation and Training (Critical Specialties in Treating Autism and other Behavioral Challenges).
And not the Jill Harper who wrote The Journey Home.
And probably not the Jill Harper who wrote A Fall Through Time.

Unfortunately, those are the main ones I see from googling. (There's also the theater director Jill Harper, but as far as I know she hasn't written any books.)
posted by Spike Glee at 12:54 PM on December 19, 2023

Dark Light of Day is the first book in Jill Harper's 'Armageddon' series.

I had a difficult time finding it myself, and wouldn’t have without the title.
posted by jamjam at 1:19 PM on December 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

When I was 12, I wrote a sequel to Brideshead Revisited and I planned to type it up, using WordPerfect 5.1, and send it to Evelyn Waugh, who would be pleased and would have it published. Shortly after, I read his diaries and learned that he would not have been pleased, and furthermore, he had been dead for years.

In other words, even though I don’t understand how he could be so deluded when he has an Internet to tell him about copyright and an AO3 and Royal Road for when he decides to write anyway, my inner tween understands where he’s coming from.

(It has occurred to me that Brideshead Revisited should be public domain in 10 years, which means I’ll be over here manifesting The Brideshead Murders.)
posted by betweenthebars at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

She's listed as Jill Archer in the link. In any case, it's been added to my list of books to look out for.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:27 PM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'd think fanfiction could "turn a profit off someone else's" characters, cstross, but you should not draw attention by starting lawsuits obviously, and you want the fanfic be such twisted slash that they'd fear the streisand effect.

If you're asking for donations for your Two Hobbits One Ring scat porn video, then yeah sure Tolkien's estate has legal rights to issue take downs, but the moment they do so it'll become more popular than that cup video.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:28 PM on December 19, 2023

And draconian and vastly extended copyrights for popular fiction in particular are just stupid.

I would be all in favor for updates to copyright law that forbid estates or corporations from inheriting or owning fictional IP in particular after the original creator (or creators) has passed away. I think that the world would be a better and more interesting place if copyright just ended when the original authors or artists died.

Would that lead to badly written books or wild abuses of the so-called canon of a particular fictional world? Yeah, sure, but that already happens even with authorized works protected by extended copyright laws.

On the other hand it would also lead to some pretty amazing stories and adventures that we never get to see widely published because of those copyright laws.
posted by loquacious at 1:31 PM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

but I'm thinking of Dune and the utter disaster the books not written by Frank Herbert were.

I think posthumous LotR and Dune dovetail quite interestingly. Both estates were managed by the author's son. Christopher Tolkien was fanatical in controlling his father's IP, releasing his unfinished writings at a trickle and shutting down as sort of spin-offs. Everything that came out under Christopher Tolkien's watch seemed scholarly and humourless and was lacking the spark of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings (which is probably why it all went unpublished during JRRT's life).

Brian Herbert took the other path and hired the hackiest of Star Wars authors to cowrite an entire series of prequels, sequels, and side-quels, diminishing the worlds of Dune down to the pulpy sci-fi that Frank Herbert elevated above when he first published the Dune serials.

I don't know which is worse - tightly guarding a popular IP from any future interpretation or producing extremely mediocre follow-up work.
posted by thecjm at 1:35 PM on December 19, 2023 [5 favorites]

loquacious, I've seen two arguments against copyright expiring with the author's death.

The first, more common, argument is that allowing an author's estate to control and enforce copyright means that the author's family and in particular children can be provided for. There are of course arguments against this; after all, most of us don't get to keep on earning after we die so why should authors get special treatment?

The other argument is that, especially for successful authors, it is not a good idea to create an incentive for writers to be conveniently dead such that their IP can immediately be freely exploited....
posted by Major Clanger at 1:40 PM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Also, who needs to die when the intellectual property is owned from the start by a corporation, not a single author?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 1:47 PM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

All Dune fans should know Brian Herbert books suck by now. It's best if you never read them nor even acknowledge their existance.

We should expire regular "retrospective" copyright within some reaosnable time frame, but we could perhaps leave them, or their their estate with some "prospective" copyright, in which the estate can deny access to named legal entities. In practice, their lawyer would simply send off denial letters to most major publishers, Disney, Netflix, etc. If you're some nobody who writes a facfin, then they could stop you writing more after they discover you, and your work cannot be sent through profitable distributors like Disney, but then cannot really do anything about your pre-notification work. It's basically a rule by which authors can exclude profitable capitalists who do not pay them, but they cannot do much to anyone else.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:53 PM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, who needs to die when the intellectual property is owned from the start by a corporation, not a single author?

The idea of work for hire, where the owner of a person's intellectual property output is a corporation, is a complicated and exploitive beast too, just ask Jack Kirby.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:55 PM on December 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

All said, this does not bode well for my Death of a Salesman sequel.

Thought: I wonder if as copyrights on the original material expire the better fanfics will become become products in their own right.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:28 PM on December 19, 2023

I think that's inevitable, really.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:36 PM on December 19, 2023

Thought: I wonder if as copyrights on the original material expire the better fanfics will become become products in their own right.

*Walt Disney's frozen head begins chuckling quietly, then louder, and louder, then loud enough to rattle the windows*
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:40 PM on December 19, 2023

I'm not terribly surprised some delusional ninny thought he could sue the Tolkien estate and Amazon for copyright infringement on a thing they owned and he didn't. I am surprised he got a lawyer to say "yes, I will take on this case." A good lawyer would know there was no winning and that suggesting otherwise is dangerously close to malpractice.
posted by jscalzi at 4:07 PM on December 19, 2023 [13 favorites]

Thought: I wonder if as copyrights on the original material expire the better fanfics will become become products in their own right.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the more famous, serializable characters to be in the public domain. There've been plenty of spin offs and retellings of various quality, some very good IMO. Mary Russell has a series, there's The Seven Percent Solution, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar(!) did a fun book about a young Mycroft dealing with slave traders in the Caribbean.

(It's a bit complicated though--until recently a few later stories were still protected. So the Doyle estate asserted broad rights to the character based on stories that were written later. Legally murky but they would threaten distributors as well as authors and AFAICT often get some payments.)
posted by mark k at 4:26 PM on December 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Can I write that sequel to The Sun also Rises or not?
posted by oldnumberseven at 6:52 PM on December 19, 2023

no one is stopping you

I need some really good Silmarillion fanfic. Maybe that'd help me remember who any of these fricken people are
posted by Baethan at 7:04 PM on December 19, 2023

Dark Light of Day is the first book in Jill Harper's 'Armageddon' series.

Oddly, it’s called Demon’s Advocate in Libby for my local library, but the cover matches and says Dark Light of Day.
posted by jimw at 10:08 PM on December 19, 2023

His prose isn't bad (I've seen worse in published authors) but he's much too telly instead of showy.
posted by signal at 5:09 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Comment and response removed. Please avoid using homophobic tropes, even for humor or irony, as mentioned in the Content Policy
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:58 AM on December 20, 2023

YOU DO NOT SNEAK INTO MORDOR WITH A MARCHING BAND AFTER SENDING SAURON AN EMAIL SAYING I DOUBLE-DOG DARE YOU

Speak for yourself.
posted by Flunkie at 5:33 PM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]