Tolkien Estate and Amazon Win Court Case for Lord of the Rings Rights

It’s baffling that someone really tried to legitimize fan fiction when the estate of of The Lord of the Rings author is still actively pushing out adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal work.

Amazon and the Tolkien estate were sued by author Demetrious Polychron, who after releasing his book titled The Fellowship of the King (his LOTR sequel), decided to go after the team that’s officially able to continue The Lord of the Rings franchise. Variety reports that the case was dismissed with prejudice by a California judge in August.

What’s hilarious is that the writer decided to write a whole new series inspired by Tolkien’s work, which was a planned seven-part series, without the authorization of the Tolkien estate. With the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Polychron sued both Amazon and the Tolkien estate. In this original filing he claimed that the Prime Video show had lifted from his sequel and infringed on the copyright of his work. Yeah, really.

The judge on the case called Polychron’s claim “unreasonable” for attempting to get copyright protection for his works that he based on Lord of the Rings characters, as well as “frivolous from the beginning.” Polychron now has to pay $134,637 in attorney’s fees to the Tolkien estate and Amazon.

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