Oh boy. The Tolkein Estate, aka the people who deal with all the billions of dollars in revenue from various Lord of the Rings merchandise, are suing Warner Bros for $80 million. It seems the original rights for the franchise, “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 service,” but only, “tangible property” rights. So like, Gandolf dolls and Frodo mouse pad rights. Nowhere did it say Warner Bros. could go and make some Gollum-bedecked slot machine, or even worse, appearing on various online gambling websites (how dare they subject Frodo and Bilbo to such entities!).
Tolkein would be pissed.
