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I'm wondering what they would have done to me. I have not only written fanfic, I've written bad Suefic. I haven't written much fanfic compared to you, though. Would they be more harsh for it being bad, or would it be the same because they apparently hate all fanfic?

That's solidly under the New Line license, which was sold completely by Txlkxxn. The Estate doesn't make a penny of it.

It is a /weird scenario/ when Peter Jackson's crew are the good guys in a Fandom dispute.

hS

ding dong

Oh, hold on...

. . . . Huh, looks like I'm being sued.

Let me know if it's still confusing. And thank you for the review!

-kA

Here she is! The very first PPC Agent not to be written by Jay and Acacia (as Black Katana never got that far). She sent in the very first badfic recommendation to TOS, and now she's signed onto the Flowers' payroll!

Intelligence Briefs for the PPC 1 - The Beginning

Interestingly, at this point she was not scouting out the Word Worlds for future missions - she says she does that on her computer. Instead, she was handling cleanup work, checking for fic-related damage and fixing it with careful neuralyzer deployment. We don't really have a department for that any more.

(As far as I can tell, there is no actual badfic in this intelligence brief.)

hS

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I open my eyes and look around blearily. Last thing I remember, I was sitting at my computer, just having published my latest Lord of the Rings fanfic (The Tousel-Headed League, my second Hemlock Holmes and June Whitson story); now I'm in a dark room, tied to a chair, listening to the sound of water dripping from the damp ceiling.

"Hello?" I call, my voice echoing unpleasantly. "What's going on?" I think for a moment. "Is this OFUM?" I ask hesitantly. "It seemed much nicer in the fics..."

Click. A white light fills the room. I cringe away, eyes watering, trying to give them time to adjust.

"Mr... Huinesoron," says a man, in the most perfect Received Pronunciation English accent imaginable. "That name is not doing you any favours."

"I know it's not grammatically correct..." I raise my head, blinking against the light. There are three of them - two men and one woman, all dressed in what looks very much like black leather. "This is OFUM, right?"

The woman sniffs. "We already have Miss So-Called Cam in custody," she says, in exactly the same accent as the man. "I suggest you worry about yourself."

"Believe me, I am." I swallow, and try to shift my hands against my bonds. "Listen, what's this all- who are you?"

The woman folds her arms across her chest. I see that she is holding a black horse-crop in one hand. "I... am TOLKIEN," she says.

I stare. "Um. You don't look like Tolkien?"

The whip slashes across my cheek; if the chair hadn't been fastened to the floor, I would have toppled over. "Do not speak The Name!" the woman snarls. "It is trademarked!"

"Fine! Fine!" I yelp, my face burning with pain. "You're Tol- um, that. Fine! But why am I here?"

The man who spoke before steps forward. He has a scabbard on his belt, with a long and ominous looking sword poking out of it. "You are here to answer for your crimes against the Tolkien Estate," he says, looming forward.

I can't help myself. "You'd better watch yourself," I say, "she doesn't like people saying that name."

The man smiles coldly. "But of course I can say it," he says. "I am TOLKIEN."

The third man, slighter and nervous-looking, holds his hand up. "I'm TOLKIEN too," he says in the very same accent.

"And I'm Alpharius," I blurt out. The whip cracks down on my other cheek, and I cringe.

"This is no laughing matter!" the woman snaps. She glances over her shoulder, then adds, "Nor will you find our colleagues at Games Workshop as forgiving as we are."

"As lenient," the nervous man hisses. "You don't want The Mouse to hear you quoting Star Wars."

"They are American," the woman says dismissively. "I claim... 'fair use'."

I'm still trying to put this all together into something that makes the blindest bit of sense. "Is this... is this about my fanfic?"

The first man growls, a deep and vicious sound. "Fans," he rumbles. "Fiction. As if you know the meaning of either word."

"Er." I squirm against the ropes again. "I think I do, actually?"

"Fiction," the man says, leaning in, "is what TOLKIEN owns. Fans are a viru-" He hesitates, glancing back at the men at the back. "A bacterium," he amends. "Your so-called 'stories' are theft. And it will no longer be tolerated."

I really want to raise a hand, like the naughty child in class. "Which stories are we talking about?"

The whip cracks down again, and my ear blazes with pain. "All of them!" the woman declares. "You write about The Shire(c), Gondor(c), Hobbits(c), rings(c), good versus evil(c)... it is an intolerable violation of the rights of TOLKIEN!"

"I don't-" She raises the whip again, and I cower in my chair. "All right!" I squeak. "I get it!"

"You don't get it," the man at the back speaks up. "Only TOLKIEN is permitted to receive it(c). That's the point."

"Okay." I'll say anything at this point. "You want me to stop writing Tolk-" The whip comes up again. "Sorry! Um, fanfic about Middle-" The larger man leans forward threateningly. "No! I meant... you want me to stop doing... the thing that I was doing. And I get that. And I will. And I'm sorry."

The three straighten up and look at each other. "Well, TOLKIEN?" says the burly man. "What do you think?"

"I don't like it, TOLKIEN," says the woman. "He gave in too easily."

"But we have a long list to work through," the slight man - TOLKIEN, I guess - says, stepping between them. "I say we hand him over; if he dares defame TOLKIEN by mentioning our property ever again, we can bring him back in."

"Agreed," the other man says, and after a moment, "agreed," the woman concurs. The three turn without a word and walk out of the room. The last one out reached sideways and clicks the switch, leaving me in darkness again.

"Um." I clear my throat, hearing the echoes again. "Hello? I'm still in here?"

There is a rustling sound, like something very large slithering across the concrete floor. Then, very close to my ear, I hear a hissing, rattling breath.

"Hello, Huinessssoron," whispers a sillibant, serpentine voice. "Let'ssss talk about a little sssstory called 'Harry Potter and the Sssssswisss Army Broom'..."

---

Games Workshop don't appreciate that sort of thing. Serpent!Rowling comes by way of The Midnight Society; I've no idea what her current views on fanfic are, but I figure she'd see this scenario and just NEED to stick her scaly head in.

hS

...

Hey, hS, got a fic idea for ya.

Cygames, Inc. (in)famously ban sexually explicit fanworks of the game Uma Musume Pretty Derby in order to avoid defaming the real-life owners of the race horses portrayed in the game. What's the comm's opinion on this?

As of 2014, UK law (under which the Estate has written this FAQ) provides the following as Fair Dealing defences against a charge of copyright violation:

• Research and study (so Tolkien scholarship and Elvish dictionaries should be okay).
• Criticism or review (which might cover the PPC).
• Reporting of current events (so you can call Putin Sauron if you like).
• Parody, caricature, and pastiche (see below).
• Quotation, for criticism, review, "or otherwise".

I contend that all fanfic falls under one or more of the fourth category.

• Parody - imitation for humourous effect. There's a lot of this about, including published stuff (Bored of the Rings et al). There is no requirement that the names be changed in a parody, so anything which pokes fun at Middle-earth would fit.
• Caricature - simplifying or exaggerating the subject matter, including for entertainment purposes. This covers a lot of badfic! If Legolas is sparkly and perfect, and Boromir is an evil monster, you have a caricature defence.
• Pastiche - combining text from various sources, or imitating the style of another author. This is your serious fanfic, which tries to sound like Tolkien. It's also how you defend using names and events from the books, if you're not using the Quotation For Otherwise defence.

Whether these defences will be accepted depends on the usual US fair use concepts - how much you've used, and if you're impacting the copyright owner's profits. But I reckon, if it ever came to a court case, fanfic would make an excellent showing of itself.

hS

That means part of my job is trying to work out exactly what this sort of document allows us to do, and: hoooooo boy this is badly done.

Here's what I think they're trying to say:

• The name 'TOLKIEN', and the JRRT logogram, are trademarks of the Estate. If you call your company "Tolkien Embroidery", or use the logogram in your logo, you're implying that you are officially approved by the Estate, and could draw trade away from the Estate, thus violating their trademark.
• Things made by JRR and Christopher Tolkien, including the text of the books and the Professor's art, are copyright. The Estate upholds that copyright, and thus has the exclusive right to copy and distribute these works. If you reproduce or attempt to sell chunks of the work without authorisation, you would be violating copyright.
• Therefore, don't try to sell things with the name on it or using big chunks of the Professor's works.

This is entirely reasonable! A bit heavy-handed, but within their rights. I think it's dumb to ban fanzines and festivals from calling themselves "Tolkien Such-and-such", but if they've registered the trademark they can do it.

But here's what they've managed to write instead:

• Any map of Middle-earth is by definition a copy of Tolkien's, and thus copyright.
• Using any characters, places, or events from Tolkien, in any written context, is copyright.
• Any use of the Elvish languages or scripts is copyright.
• Use of Tolkien quotes or Tolkien's pictures, or the trademarks, in pictoral artwork is copyright/trademark.
• Using any Tolkien quote for any reason requires permission.
• Setting any of Tolkien's words to music is copyright.
• Streaming yourself reading Tolkien violates copyright.

This falls across a spectrum from the usual fanfic grey area, to an insanely strict interpretation of copyright that I'm positive wouldn't hold up in court. They clearly know this - the only time they talk about taking action is in a commercial context, elsewhere they just don't give permission.

But that's not all.

Even if they were within their rights to do what they've written (which I don't think they are), they've written it so badly, because... what do they mean by "publish"? Are they using the common-use term ("print and sell for profit"), or the specific legal term ("make available to the public")? The context strongly suggests the former: they use the phrase "publish fan fiction or other books", and talk about "any form of publication", implying a concrete object. But the structure of their answers assumes the latter.

• They jump straight from "publish fanfiction or other books" - which implies commercial publication - to "you can't create materials referring to the characters". Is there an implicit "and publish it" in there? I would argue yes; Eru knows what they'd say.
• For the languages and scripts, the cases they consider are "private interest and amusement", "publication", and "in connection with any group activity".
• Given their draconian phrasing on fanfic, they're bizarrely lenient on merchandising. By the text of the FAQ, I would be absolutely fine to sell a text-free fan-comic covering the entirety of LotR in minute detail - but as soon as I wrote the words "The Lord of the Rings" on the cover, I would be in violation of copyright. That... can't be what they want to be doing, right?

It's just... really badly written.

Also, they seem to have provided the personal (company) email address for Amazon's head of global publicity, rather than a group email like a sensible person would. I'd hate to be Courtney Brown right now.

hS

"Legal"* opinion coming later, but I deny the Estate's moral right to do this. I will keep using my screenname and writing fanfic, whether I have to self-host or sharding samizdat it. Middle-earth is too important to me.

hS

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I *am a regulatory chemist, so I at least move in the same documents as them.

He’s just an old dude in grey with a gun.

With such brilliant characters as Soddo Laggins and the mysterious philosopher Sandalf.

• I wonder what problem O'Ryan's talking about
• .. acknowledging the rot13 in-universe is very PPC
• Now i want to know what "that fic" is
• The bit about the mermaids probably not being a Sue species is setup for dramatic irony, isn't it?
• Poor notebook...
• Neat point re the glass
• 'Tan her sales' - *snrk*
• Typo: you have a l'owy' in that bit
• I think I'm missing some context: who'd be giving the agents crap for making fun of a typo?
• Ah, punctuation attacks, an old classic
• At Kitty whispering to O'Ryan that "she wasn't one", I think there's a dangling referrent - I can't tell what 'one' is (or, necessarily, who 'she' is - probably Medic). You might want to take a look at that paragraph for coherency
• Adding the interruption charges was a nice touch

Overall, solid mission that showed off the issues with the fic.

One thing I'd keep an eye on in the future is scenes getting incoherent - there were enough people running around and saying things and such that at times it was rather hard to tell what was going on.

That aside, thanks for writing!

(bearing in mind that I'm jumping in the middle of the spin-off)

The nested RCs bit was a neat piece of worldbuilding.

My main comment is that I'd've expected Kaguya's strangely-formatted speech to be a badfic effect, and I'm rather surprised it wasn't.

I can grudgingly respect the wishes of an individual, living author who's afraid that freely permitting fanworks could result in them losing the rights to their IP, even if I don't actually agree with them.

NEVER will I EVER support shutting down all fan expression in favor of protecting a corporate entity that's been profiting big-time thanks to the very same fan-love they're trying to quash. My feelings about this are unprintable on a PG-13 forum.

~Neshomeh

I'm sorta looking forward to seeing what Stephen Colbert has to say about it. Also OTW's lawyers, if it turns out the Not-Actually-Tolkien-Anymore Estate really think they can up and outlaw not-for-profit fanworks after literal decades of fans doing as we've pleased.

I also don't think that's the case, either. It seems to me they're more concerned about people using the "Tolkien brand" (and I want you to know even thinking those words makes me want to vomit a little) for commercial gain. But even there, they have a hell of an uphill battle ahead of them to chase away all the Tolkien-inspired websites and clubs and such. It feels like trying to shut the barn door after the horse has escaped, run cross-country, and settled into its new life as a circus performer.

Also. Lemme just. Here:

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story... The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

— J. R. R. Tolkien, qtd. in Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (London: Allen and Unwin, 1977), 89-90.

The dream wasn't absurd, Professor. It came true. And seeing as it's the legacy you wanted, I say it's the legacy you should have, Gimli/Legolas smut and all.

But if—IF—the Not-Actually-Tolkien Estate are coming after all fanworks, that's outrageous and disgusting, and I will express my displeasure by refusing to spend money on anything they're trying to sell. That's right, you heard me. No Rings of Power, no War of the Rohirrim, none of it. I don't need it. I have the actual works of the actual J.R.R. Tolkien and about fifty years' worth of tacitly or expressly authorized fanworks created out of love, not greed. Screw 'em.

~Neshomeh

In this case, I think it's safe to assume that the people who created the work in question (J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien) were fine with fan stuff. J.R.R. Tolkien got tons of LotR-inspired gifts from fans and enjoyed them. Christopher Tolkien absolutely knew about fan works and never asked for them to stop.

The only reason for things to change now is because the legal construct that happens to hold the copyright Said So.

it's about respecting the feelings of the original creator. Even if it's legal to write twice-removed fics in a quarantined continuum, we still don't allow them for this reason.

I think UK law would apply here, since that's where the Tolkien Estate is based. I know way less of the law there than I know US law (and, again, I'm far from a lawyer or legal scholar in either country). The arguments therefore become a bit different; fan works would still fall under what's called Fair Dealing, because a fan work is for "private study" (that is, fanworks are generally not done as a commercial endeavor and the final product is not likely to be sold in the future).

Failing that, the best defense is that your fan work is criticism, review, or parody. The rules governing those defenses seem to line up pretty closely with US ones.

For our purposes here, I think that the PPC is small enough that we don't really need to worry about this one way or another. For bigger websites, I'll let OTW handle the legal side of things since they actually know what they're doing and I do not. I just don't like handing out incomplete information online and thought that this was kind of an interesting tangent. :-)

The OTW keeps lawyers on retainer for this exact reason.