The Lord Of The Rings Gollum Publisher Had Dev Apology Written By AI, Claims New Report

The Tolkein Estate was strict for many years, but in recent times they have seemed to cash in. Amazon paid around $250 million for rights to make The Rings of Power.

Then Embracer bought the Middle Earth Enterprises for a surprisingly low $395 million. This gives them them control over the IP licensing rights to films, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks etc. based on LOTR. (To be clear The Tolkien Estate still owns the IP itself.) This was what led to Embracer board member Matt Karch saying "We own Lord of the Rings, and we know we need to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very different fashion and turning that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world". Oof!

That's all fact, below is speculation. It is rumoured The Tolkien Estate may be cashing in because the books and stories around them go into the public domain 70 years after the authors death in most countries, so that would be 2043.

It's authors death not publication date. So unless JK Rowling died 20 years ago then no. But if you offed her today and live another 70 years then yes you can officially get all the Harry Potter fanfiction you can dream of

@Kaloudz No it's not a new law at all, though several countries have been aligning their laws to fit with the 70 years past death. In some it's less and in some it's more. I don't know exactly whether it's limited to books to be honest. I'll try and find out.

Does that mean that, theoretically, people could (for instance) write a book based on Middle Earth and sell it?

Yes absolutely, after the rights are public domain. Or they can take those characters and mash them up in different ways. A good example is the comic series Fables by Bill Willingham which takes many characters from different literature, folklore and mythology - like Snow White, Beauty & the Beast and The Big Bad Wolf - and puts them in a new setting with a twist. If that sounds familiar it's because it's the comic which The Wolf Among Us game is based on.

The reality is we have a much stronger connection to some older characters so things like Sherlock Holmes, or the Greek Gods are used again and again as a way to make us invested in the characters or world without having to do as much world building and character development. Hence you see these, and other similar characters crop up again and again in new media. Not least they don't have to pay an IP license fee. It's a smart strategy.

@Kaloudz On doing a bit more digging it seems the 70 years isn't always the case and will depend country to country, or when the book was published. As it may be under a different or older copyright law.

According to the Berne Convention of 1886 copyright protection lasts at least 50 years after the authors death but most countries that signed it have increased that to 70 years since. But in some markets it might be available to be used from this year, 2023. (EDIT: it also applies to musicians, painters, poets etc.)

But only a few countries initially signed the Berne Convention and different rules might apply. The USA didn't sign it until 1989 and for something like Lord of the Rings that was published before that date it would fall under the previous copyright laws which were related to publication date, typically 95 years after publication. So 2032 for the Hobbit, Fellowship & Towers in 2049, ROTK in 2050. It's super convoluted in the USA but Cornell Uni has a chart that explains it.

Anyways, this is a DEEP rabbit hole and I need to step off

@Kaloudz 100%. Would God of War have been so epic if we weren't hunting down Zeus, Hades, Odin, Thor and having moments with other known characters like Heracles, Perseus or even Sisyphus. Probably not. It gives them a free bit of lore and world building, gives everything more weight.

You see the same with things like Percy Jackson series or Historical Fiction books. Taking known events or characters, whether real or imaginary, and planting our own characters and story inside it. It's smart.

I think it's great that these are public domain eventually once they have entered almost mythical status - folklore, for want of a better word. It's just a shame to me that I won't be alive to see the professionally done Harry Potter, Merlin and Gandalf vs who-knows-who mash-up.