this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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The guy who sued Amazon for infringing on his Lord of the Rings fanfic takes a massive L, now owes $134,000 to the Tolkien Estate (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Author Demetrious Polychron wanted $250 million for infringement of his book The Fellowship of the King.

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[โ€“] query 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Lord of the Rings should be public domain by now. Which should mean it's fine to write and publish fan fiction, but also fine for everyone to do that, you writing a story with those characters and histories doesn't mean you can stop anyone else from doing the same.

[โ€“] fatalicus 5 points 1 year ago

UK law says books don't become public domain until 70 years after the author dies.

So Lord of the Rings, and other Tolkien works, will be public domain in 2043.