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[Sensei]

Presumably, they either worry about setting a precedent for allowing people to make LOTR material, or are planning to make a LOTR game that is an Elder Scrolls ripoff some time in the future. And, at that, they're worried the actual Elder Scrolls mod will be better.

[fenrif]

Is a LotR mod for Skyrim really the pinnacle of innovation, though? It seems like a fairly obvious choice to me.

I'm all for attacking copyright abuse, but I feel as though Warner Bros is completely within their rights. It's a shitty thing for them to do, but there's no way to protect people's individual property without allowing room for stuff like this. Remember that this goes both ways- if WB was funding a movie or game based off some small author's book without their permission, that author could kick their ass in court.

There's a difference between them being withing their legal rights and them being morally right. The intent of copyright law has been so completely perverted that the morality and legality of the thing have become divorced.

And there are definatly ways to protect peoples individual property while allowing for mods and such. Which isn't even what this is about. This is about a coorperation protecting it's licensing rights to a deceased mans works which should be public domain by now anyway.

[Sergius]

I remember once when a project was shut down by a Cease and Desist order

But it was later found out that it was fake.

But the creators were too far gone to care about reviving it.

I'm not sure if what they are doing is even legal. I don't think you can sue someone over copyright as long as they are not making money off of it. At least, that's as far as I know, and I don't go to law school

No you can, it makes sense why you would be able to as well. Afterall if you give away something using Copyrighted material you are taking away a sale the owner could have otherwise done.

Now you cannot sue someone for copyright of copyrighted material used within their own home. Or rather you cannot sue people for private use of copyrighted material, or basically anything not sold or distributed.

Along with this there are a few exceptions for the use of copyrighted material (that is constantly being attacked... so expect this law to be taken away again) such as for critique, comedy, or educational purposes and stuff like that... but this isn't the case and even those have rules on exactly how it works.

Just to clarify, copyright covers actual copying of content. Like, taking the pages of Tolkien and photocopying them. Or taking the movie and making copies to disc and distributing them, or whatever. That characters, events in stories, etc can be "copyrighted" or enforce their "copyright" is an actual gray area and a controversial use of the copyright law (read: bullshit perversion of said law during the years). Not that it stops Big Media Companies to try, or for corrupt government to pretend it is the right use. It wouldn't be the first time a law meant for something is extrapolated to ridiculous extents just to cover something else in order to make someone richer.

I'm all for attacking copyright abuse, but I feel as though Warner Bros is completely within their rights.

Of course they are. They have lobbied and paid very generously for those rights.

[Sensei]

Keep in mind, just because people lobby and pay very generously for rights doesn't mean they necessarily deserve them. 

[Knight of Fools]

I think that was the point.

The problem here being that the mod, instead of simply being inspired by the book copies just about everything rather faithfully. When you have a character, that's alright. When your character looks exactly like the guy from the movie, you'll still probably be alright. When you simply lift the entire setting, character and everything that goes with it, then you've got an issue. They would have been better off making a mod that was essentially "Not-LotR", which copies a lot of the core ideas and even some of the visuals but leaves a lot of the other, more volatile stuff off of the table, most importantly the name itself.

The fact that Skyrim is also a relatively new game that looks a lot like LotR Online to the suits probably has a lot to do with it, too. Notice that there are LotR mods for games such as Total War; WB doesn't bug those because none of their current, cash generating games are Strategy Games. They stand a very real chance to lose some of their current and potential player base to the likes of a free Skyrim mod.

[hemmingjay]

Let me also interject and say that Copyrights also apply to the creation of content that in any way interferes or modifies the original copyright. For example, fanfiction is a legal grey area until it is published, at which point it becomes a violation of the copyrighted material. The same holds true for mods without specific license to use materials.

[casserol]

up with a link to the petition they put up : http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-merp-from-corporate-greed.html

[chewie]

So Tolkien's descendants sold the IP to Warner Brothers? Shame on them.

But if they didn't, WB can only insist their copyright on visual designs/characters from the movie? But the modders don't actually use these (at least, they claim):

Our goal as a team is to realize the world of J.R.R. Tolkien as closely as possible to his vision. We hold the lore to a very high standard and will try not compromise to it. We use the films for inspiration, but base our visual design mainly on the descriptions in the books and the works of Ted Nasmith and John Howe.

So unless it is not a blatant ripoff from the films (which they don't look like), WB actually don't have a case on this, unless they own the original IP (which I don't think they do). Or not?

[Jelle]

I'm pretty sure they do.

Aaand one more sign for the petition, thanks for the link.

[tootboot]

So Tolkien's descendants sold the IP to Warner Brothers? Shame on them.

They licensed the rights to the games to WB.

[fenrif]

So Tolkien's descendants sold the IP to Warner Brothers? Shame on them.

But if they didn't, WB can only insist their copyright on visual designs/characters from the movie? But the modders don't actually use these (at least, they claim):

Our goal as a team is to realize the world of J.R.R. Tolkien as closely as possible to his vision. We hold the lore to a very high standard and will try not compromise to it. We use the films for inspiration, but base our visual design mainly on the descriptions in the books and the works of Ted Nasmith and John Howe.

So unless it is not a blatant ripoff from the films (which they don't look like), WB actually don't have a case on this, unless they own the original IP (which I don't think they do). Or not?

As tootboot said, the current owners of the LoTR property licensed certain rights to WB, notably movie and video game rights. We've gone over this previously in the thread, which I assume you didn't read?

[MrWiggles]

So when is it okay to enforce your copy rights and patents?

If the Mod Group is violating someone Copy Right, then how can WB, or Bethesda, or Tolkien Estate know in good faith that there isn't more content within the mod violating other persons intelectual works.

How do they know that the mod wont harm the brand of LOTR?

What if WB had LOTR video games in the work, and this cannibalizes sales?

Why cant the mod group gain a legal licenses to use the LOTR IP?

Why do they deserve a special exception to use someone else story world without permission?

Why can't they make their original content for their mod?

[Trollheiming]

I propose a petition to change this petition's name from "Save MERP from Corporate Greed" to "Save MERP from Christopher Tolkien's Greed" That should sharpen the focus on who really has milked this shit with no value-added for half a century.

I mean, honestly, has that guy ever contributed to society in his 82 years? Finding used tissue papers discarded in the attic with explosive new Simarrillon plot twists scrawled on them notwithstanding?

[MrWiggles]

Why does that matter exactly?

[Trollheiming]

Why does that matter exactly?

I wasn't under the impression that any of this had to meet exacting standards of "mattering"