The estate of the late “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien has prevailed in a lawsuit against a fan who claimed to have authored “the obvious pitch-perfect sequel” to the beloved fantasy trilogy, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, of the Central District of California, ruled last week in a summary judgment that the author — Demetrious Polychron — had violated copyright protections on works owned by the Tolkien Estate, ordering all physical and digital copies of the work to be destroyed.
The battle between Polychron and the Tolkien Estate actually began six years earlier — when the aspiring author had sent both a digital and physical copy of his book, “The Fellowship of the King” — to Simon Tolkien, the original author’s grandson. Polychron included a letter with the book, in which he explained he “didn’t have a choice” but to write the would-be sequel and that he had time to “stick as close to canon” as possible.
But Judge Wilson’s ruling suggested that Polychron may have stuck a little too close to canon in his writing, noting that he had found “direct evidence of copying.” As the NYT reported:
The book included major characters from “Lord of the Rings,” including Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn and Sauron, according to court documents, as well as verbatim copying of at least 15 poems or passages from the trilogy; the use of Middle-earth and dozens of other settings from the original books, described in detail; and the duplication of a central plot and structure, among other copied elements.
The estate denied Polychron license to “create sequels or extensions” to the late author’s work, but Polychron later self-published the book. When the Tolkien Estate learned of that development — in March of 2023 — it attempted to put a stop to that by sending Polychron a “cease and desist” letter.
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One month later, Polychron sued the Tolkien Estate and Amazon for $250 million, claiming that the Amazon Prime series “The Rings of Power” had stolen material from his book. Judge Wilson dismissed Polychron’s lawsuit, ordering him to pay attorneys’ fees for both Amazon and the Tolkien Estate, in the amount of $134,000 — and further ruled that his book violated copyright protections owned by the estate.
'Lord of the Rings' fanfic writer loses lawsuit as judge dismisses it as 'frivolous'. The writer self-published an unauthorized Tolkien sequel and then attempted to sue Amazon and the Tolkien estate for copyright infringement. https://t.co/ZvQef44DxN
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) December 20, 2023
“This case involved a serious infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on a commercial basis,” Tolkien Estate attorney Steven Maier said. “The estate hopes that the award of a permanent injunction and attorneys’ fees will be sufficient to dissuade others who may have similar intentions.”