Slot Game Lord of the Rings Causes Lawsuit

Some ten years ago, a copyright agreement was made for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings but it is only now that a dispute has surfaced between the two parties. On one side is movie giant Warner Bros, its subsidiary New Line and the Saul Zaentz Company which is the rights holder for Lord of the Rings. This group is being sued by the Tolkien estate and the publishing firm HarperCollins which filed a lawsuit in an LA District Court.

The $80 million lawsuit claims that in accordance with the rights agreement, Warner Bros was only authorized to create tangible merchandise and not the online slot machine or other digital exploitations based on the cult favorite book. Ironically, the Tolkien estate only found out about the plans for the themed slot game because the estate’s lawyer received a spam email about it. After carefully reviewing the rights agreement, the Tolkien estate found that it “did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services.”

Beyond the infringement rights the Tolkien estate feels that Lord of the Rings themed gambling games have caused “irreparable harm to Tolkien’s legacy and reputation and the valuable goodwill generated by his works.” From Warner Bros perspective it must be hard to imagine that they have caused any damage to the reputation of the author or the book. In fact, it was the movie company that made the Oscar-winning film and brought Tolkien to a whole new generation of fans.