After dueling lawsuits, fan barred from selling Lord of the Rings sequel
After dueling lawsuits, fan barred from selling Lord of the Rings sequel
The estate of J.R.R. Tolkien sued Demetrious Polychron, a Lord of the Rings fan, to bar him from selling an unauthorized sequel to the fantasy series.
I’ve purchased hardcover fanfic before (Fallout Equestria). If anything, it supports fans and fandoms and makes them more likely to purchase from source. Is the estate really dumb enough to think this hurts their “potential revenue?” IP is a thing, yes, but as a fanfiction writer myself, derivative works can take a huge amount of effort and it’s a shame they rarely see financial rewards from it.
This particular estate is particularly aggressive. (The idea would be that if you let people use your characters without a paid license, bigger companies might do the same and not pay you license fees.)
But in this specific case, the author involved was way more wrong than anyone else. After "borrowing" heavily from the IP everyone knows are aggressive douches, he sued them for similarities between his work and actual licensed work. If you're truly of the belief that taking elements from other people's work is legitimate (and I am, though not to his extent), the idea of suing someone else for "borrowing" (almost definitely without actually ever seeing) elements of your work is way past deluded.
So he dropped a nuke on himself. Bold strategy.
Non-paygated version:
"The writer of an unauthorised Lord Of The Rings sequel has been ordered to destroy all physical and electronic copies and pay more than $130,000 in legal fees."