
The JRR Tolkien Estate Can Go Fuck Itself - jancona
http://www.giro.org/2011/02/23/the-jrr-tolkien-estate-can-go-fuck-itself/
======
pjscott
In general, the $FAMOUS_DEAD_AUTHOR estate can go fuck itself; such things
usually exist for rent-seeking and nothing else. This is especially egregious,
though, and there's probably a law against making baseless trademark threats
in bad faith. Which the Tolkien estate can ignore with impunity because the
legal system is scary for most people, and always inconvenient.

In happier news, though, copies of the banned buttons are now on sale from
someone else. The Streisand effect works.

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ryan-allen
The best comment on that post is this by AngusM:

\---

“Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know … and they guard the plunder as long
as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never
enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed, they hardly know a good bit of work from a
bad, though they usually have a good notion of current market value; and they
can’t make a thing for themselves …” ["The Hobbit", J.R.R. Tolkien]

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iisbum
After registering thehobbitmovies.com I received a not too friendly letter
from the Tolkien estate instructing me to hand over the domain.

I declined their request and may put a site up at some point. For now it is a
reminder that it is easy for people to tell you do something they do not have
a right to tell you.

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nir
I guess we're still not Reddit as long as "fuck" is not all caps.

~~~
chc
It's the title of the original post, not editorializing for HN.

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jarin
What he should do is file a DMCA counter-notification, which would require
Zazzle to restore the product unless the Tolkien estate files suit within 10
days:

<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html>

~~~
pjscott
The DMCA doesn't apply to trademark infringement claims.

~~~
Jeema3000
Yes, but this does:

US Code Title 15 Section 1125:

(3) Exclusions

The following shall not be actionable as dilution by blurring or dilution by
tarnishment under this subsection:

(A) Any fair use, including a nominative or descriptive fair use, or
facilitation of such fair use, of a famous mark by another person other than
as a designation of source for the person’s own goods or services, including
use in connection with—

(i) advertising or promotion that permits consumers to compare goods or
services; or

(ii) identifying and parodying, criticizing, or commenting upon the famous
mark owner or the goods or services of the famous mark owner.

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ars
You can (if Zazzle will let you) just ignore them.

They have no case.

~~~
toni
That merely outlines the problem with Zazzle. They not only respond to DMCA
notices by taking down the offended materials (just like an ISP), but they
also preemptively police the environment by themselves and take down anything
they suspect is copyright infringement.

I once made a t-shirt with an old Albert Einstein picture and they immediately
took it down, asking me if I had the permission to reproduce this image. I had
to send them a link to The Library of Congress page where I downloaded the
image, pointing out that this picture belongs to the public domain. They can
ignore a lot of stuff but they won't.

~~~
khafra
That's interesting; because I think I recall something in the language of the
safe harbor law where if a content hoster starts actively policing their own
content, they _can_ be held liable for anything that slips through their net.

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rs
Honest question: does the Tolkien Estate have any legal grounding here ?

The way I look at it, if there was legal grounding, it might be a little
quirky, as technically we won't be able to even mention any
copyrighted/trademarked brand in casual texts. Imagine reviewing products and
getting a take down notice at the end of that ? Doesn't make sense to me.

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stcredzero
My reaction is: So?

As a fan of both Tolkien and Evangelion, I find this sentiment to be pointless
and tinged with misplaced agression.

You wonder why you should care about Tolkien? Why should we care that you
care?

~~~
chc
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The fact that you're a fan of JRR's
work and Evangellion means Chris Tolkien should be able to bully whomever he
feels like? That doesn't make any sense, but I don't know how else to read
your comment.

~~~
stcredzero
No, this is entirely wrong, and it shows some small-minded thinking on the
part of readers. (1) (And I dont' care how much Karma that burns.)

I object to the _content_ and _tone_ of the button. Whether or not I support
Chris Tolkien's actions is immaterial to that. I do not support it, and I
support the button maker's freedom of speech. But I also feel compelled to
speak out, that the message itself is snide and stupid. Really, do we need to
encourage the fragmentation of fandom?

(1) - Whether you support someone's freedom of speech, and whether you think
much of what they're saying are entirely separate. Please use your brains and
comprehend _principles_ and get beyond simple tribal loyalty.

~~~
Confusion
The discussion concerns the behavior of the Tolkien estate. Your 'so?' will
only be interpreted as concerning that behavior. We aren't psychically
empowered to understand you are expressing a sentiment about the sentiment
expressed by the button that triggered the behavior of the Tolkien estate.

~~~
stcredzero
_We aren't psychically empowered to understand you are expressing a sentiment
about the sentiment expressed by the button that triggered the behavior of the
Tolkien estate._

Yes, I've been long aware that the esoteric power of _reading comprehension_
is beyond the reach of many net denizens' psyches. (That's a drink in the
stcredzero drinking game.)

How about this for a clue -- I referred directly to the button's content.

~~~
Confusion
Unfortunately, the button's content is not what this article and the
subsequent discussion is about: the article is about the behavior of the
Tolkien estate and your response _will_ be interpreted as relating to that. In
that light, your argument makes little sense, as chc pointed out, but that is
not generally a reason to consider a different interpretation. You should
realize that most people don't know you're a guy that usually tends to post
arguments that makes sense. You may as well be one of the many silly people
that does post this kind of nonsensical argument, trying to argue the Tolkien
estate is allowed to behave this way because you feel what they targeted was
wrong anyway.

Subsequently insulting the intelligence of readers is uncalled for and fails
to acknowledge a possible failure on your side. I would argue this is not
about our reading comprehension: you failed to make clear that you were
deviating from the subject under discussion to make some remarks about a
related issue, because you were assuming people would understand that you were
not arguing in favor of Tolkien's behavior. That assumption has been proven
unwarranted: people don't understand that you won't argue nonsensical things.
Which is entirely understandable, considering the amount of people that do
argue nonsensical things.

~~~
stcredzero
tl;dr - We didn't think about your comment. We assumed you were taking a side.
You didn't spell it out for us. We didn't bother to find an interpretation
that would make sense.

tl;dr^2 - We are lazy and have poor reading comprehension.

I'm very sorry, if it taxes your imagination that someone would want to talk
about what was written on the button. It's not like _that_ would be at all
relevant to the article, I guess. (My apologies to the sarcasm impaired.)

~~~
chc
When communicating, it is our responsibility to express our thoughts as
clearly as possible. Dashing off vaguely worded comments and then insulting
the reader when he seeks clarification is not a generally accepted practice in
the field of writing.

To explain the confusion better: You say you "referred directly to the
button's content," but you didn't. You referred to it obliquely. The
grammatical subject of your comment was "this sentiment." That is as specific
as you got. The most obvious antecedent is "the sentiment expressed in this
article" — which is what people assumed. In order to get your true meaning,
the reader has to actually ignore the grammatical structure of your comment
and read in a subject which you didn't explicitly mention anywhere _and_ which
is actually off-topic for the current discussion (people will generally use
the overall topic as context when trying to determine the meaning of ambiguous
phrases).

At any rate, insulting people who are confused by imprecise wording is kind of
rude.

As for the button's actual content: I think you're taking the jokey posturing
too seriously. As he explained in the OP, the reason he liked the phrase is
because it reflects an actual divide between the two cultures — almost any
fantasy fan will have read Tolkien, whereas many (probably most) sci-fi fans
are focused on present series and haven't read, say, Heinlein. Depending on
your school of thought, it could be making fun of fantasy fans for being stuck
in the past or it could be making fun of sci-fi fans for being ignorant of
their own.

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p90x
I will make 3 statements:

1) hacker news has become www.reddit.com/r/nerdstuff

2) “Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little
difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their
advantage.” Niccolo Machiavelli

A lot of energy is being put into user driven content, which seems to start of
useful but end up becoming crap. There must be an opportunity in there
somewhere.

3) someone reply to my post with "this." so i can move on from this site, and
find something useful to do.

~~~
mkr-hn
"Appropriate for HN" seems to mean "HN is whatever I think it should be."

Maybe you could start up a thread or write something that addresses your
perceptions so it can be discussed. Or you can keep acting like a melodramatic
clown with a dog-eared dollar looking mournfully at the last functioning drink
machine in a post-apocalyptic world.

A world of possibilities awaits.

~~~
p90x
"Maybe you could start up a thread or write something that addresses your
perceptions so it can be discussed"

i thought about it, but i decided that there isn't any point. the site is what
the users want it to be and i'm not here to "educate" them.

great analogy, btw.

