To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring, those litigious folks at Warners Brothers, New Line Productions and The Saul Zaentz Company have apprently decided to send off cease-and-desist warnings to domain name users of the word 'Shire', which the companies claim as the intellectual property of the Tolkein franchise. One can only wonder at the apopleptic fits at the WB when they learn about the shire counties of England, Scotland and Wales, not to mention the flagrant breaches of copyright that have been taking place since Anglo-Saxon times.
Posted by Alan Allport at July 29, 2004 08:45 AMI'm sure it will go over as well as this recent case where the UK rightsholders to Barney, the children's series, attempted to wrest the domainname "barney.co.uk" from someone who had started a website for his son (who is named Barney). In this case the final score was Father and Son: 1,000,000, Big Purple Dinosaur: nil ...
Posted by: Graeme Burk at July 29, 2004 09:08 AMI'm curious where this claim based on the movie rights leaves the actual Tolkien literary estate. Can anyone figure out that part?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 29, 2004 05:17 PMOh goodness knows. I believe you could do a dissertation on the movie rights to The Hobbit alone.
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 29, 2004 05:26 PM