Demetrious Polychron is a fan-fiction writer. He wrote what he described as a “pitch-perfect” prequel to the Lord of the Rings books. Sure that the Tolkien estate would be eager to collaborate on publishing his books, he tried to contact them via letter, via lawyer, and via hand-delivered copy, all of which were ignored or rejected. So he decided to publish the book and a planned 397 sequels on his own.
Later, when Amazon produced their Rings of Power TV series, Polychron (rough translation: too much time) decided to sue Amazon and the Tolkien estate for infringing on his fan fiction.
The synopsis on the back of the book jacket, as shown in the above links, sounds extremely unoriginal and derivative, like it came from the mind of a Marvel screenwriter who needs to come up with an even bigger Big Bad after they killed the Biggest Bad What Ever Was in the last film, and shows a lack of understanding of Tolkien’s themes and religious outlook.
How is the Tolkien estate not suing him for having the audacity to actually publish this?
Typically, it’s a matter of the IP owner’s lawyers not being aware of it. My wife used to be involved in the fan-fic community, and it was, at that time, an awful lot of self-published stuff, with extremely small distribution, which largely flew under the radar of lawyers.
But, in this case, the doofus was intentionally and repeatedly bringing his work to the estate’s attention, so I really do wonder why there wasn’t any lawyer brought to bear earlier – the article from today indicates that, now, the estate has filed a lawsuit against Polycron.
Sure, it seems hopeless now. But if Tolkien has taught us anything, it’s that now is the time that brave Polychron needs to persevere against the odds and continue his quest. Damn the evil Tolkien estate! Good will triumph.
This reminds of a story where investors spent millions buying a copy of a book that details Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to make a Dune movie and believed that it gave them the rights to make a Dune movie themselves.
My guess would be that they didn’t want to be perceived as going after fanfiction. They wanted it very clear that this guy is doing something far beyond that.
Fanfiction is generally liked by copyright owners as long as it is kept free and clearly labeled as such. It means fans are engaging heavily with the work, and can even act as free advertising. And it almost never competes with the original.
My (extremely ill-informed) understanding was that IP owners need to defend against small infringements, even if they don’t care much, because not doing so makes it harder to defend against the big ones they do care about.
What I know is that this applies to trademark, but not copyright. What I don’t know is if the guy’s books infringed on trademark, but they likely do infringe on copyright by using copyrighted characters.
He knows or bets that the Tolkien estate is going to collaborate on new TV/film work and that it will a) be a prequel because that’s where the Tolkien material lies and b) cover the Rings of Power material because that’s the obvious choice to tie in to the films. So he doesn’t just write fan-fiction based on the available Tolkien writings, he goes to great lengths to ensure that there is a paper trail (sent via lawyer, hand delivered) showing that the Tolkien estate knew of his fan-fiction in particular.
Then when the programme is made, he rocks up with his lawyers and uses the paper trail and the inevitable similarities in two works based on the same source material to claim that they ripped him off. He’s probably not planning on winning at trial, he’s probably planning to get a “oh, just go away” settlement.
Sadly for him, the estate’s response was rather more emphatic than “oh, just go away”.
“Fool of a crook!” Ok, he’s not a crook, but it was too good not to use. And “ Steven Maier” is a great name for Tolkien’s lawyer. I wonder how much of this kind of thing he handles all day.
That’s trademark, not copyright. You don’t have to defend your copyright to keep it.
A trademark can be lost it can be shown to have become generic, which can happen if they don’t defend it. That doesn’t require a lawsuit by the trademark holder; they can just send a letter reminding you of its trademark status.
I’m reminded of a lawsuit I read transcripts in a while back – a guy claimed the makers of “Kung Fu Panda” had ripped off his original artwork and story lines, and he offered his work as evidence of the theft.
Turned out forensic examination of the stuff revealed he’d whomped it up AFTER Kung Fu Panda came out. His deposition turned into an excruciating destruction of his case.
Something all writers have to remember: other than submissions to The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, simply by definition you will think your writing is good- you’d hardly submit it otherwise. A would-be author has to bow to the opinions of others.
Well, I’ve sold stories to major magazines that I wasn’t happy with. But generally bad writers see only what’s good in their work, while good writers see what’s bad. Because if you think something is bad, you can fix it.