JRR Tolkien Estate Wins Two Lawsuits Against Author Infringing on Its IP
By Allison Watkinson
TLL Reporter
The Estate of JRR Tolkien has successfully won two US court rulings concerning copyright infringement on The Lord of the Rings book series.
The subject of the copyright infringement court cases concerned an unauthorized sequel novel called The Fellowship of the King by US-based writer Demetrious Polychron.
Using officially licensed characters, settings and content created by renowned author J.R.R. Tolkien, Polychron published and promoted his unauthorized book to make a commercial profit.
“This is an important success for the Tolkien Estate, which will not permit unauthorized authors and publishers to monetize JRR Tolkien’s much-loved works in this way,” said the Tolkien Estate’s UK solicitor, Steven Maier. “This case involved a serious infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on commercial basis, and the Estate hopes that the award of a permanent injunction and attorneys’ fees will be sufficient to dissuade others who may have similar intentions.”
After publishing and profiting off of characters and content that he did not own the rights to, Polychron attempted to commence a lawsuit against both the Tolkien Estate and Amazon claiming that Amazon’s TV series, The Rings of Power, infringed on the copyright in his book and his planned sequels.
The US District Court quickly dismissed that case on the grounds that Polychron’s own novel was the infringing property and so it could not be used as the basis for a legitimate copyright claim.
The Tolkien Estate then filed a separate lawsuit against Demetrious for an injunction to prevent The Fellowship of the King from being distributed further.
In official U.S. Court rulings issued by Judge Steven V. Wilson on Dec. 14 of this year, the Court has awarded the Tolkien Estate summary judgment on its infringement claim.
This grants The Estate of JRR Tolkien a permanent injunction which prevents Polychron from distributing any further work based on the writings of JRR Tolkien. This includes any current or future copies of The Fellowship of the King, any of Polychron’s intended sequels to the infringing novel and any other potential books derived from the illegally sourced content.
The writer is also required to destroy every existing copy of his book and to file a declaration, under penalty of perjury, that he has complied with its destruction.
In addition, the Court has awarded attorney’s fees totalling $134,000 to the Tolkien Estate and Amazon for Polychron’s previous lawsuit, which the Court has ruled to have been an unreasonable and frivilous case.
Lance Koonce and Gili Karev from Klaris Law in New York were responsible for representing the Tolkien Estate in these legal cases.
JRR Tolkien is a late British author who is best-known for literary works such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate comprises a company which manages publishing interests and licensing rights related to J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary works.
The Tolkien Estate also operates a charitable trust which makes financial grants to a wide range of humanitarian relief initiatives.