Tolkien Estate Strikes Again: Forces Summer Camp To Change Name
from the because-of-all-that-confusion dept
Christopher Tolkien and the estate of JRR Tolkien has a long history of overly aggressive attempts to stop anyone from using any sort of Tolkien-related content. The latest target: evil summer camps. Apparently the Tolkien estate has forced a Calgary summer camp to change its name, because it was called Rivendell, after the elven outpost in The Lord of the Rings. The camp received a cease-and-desist:"While our clients do not believe that you intended to infringe their intellectual property rights, you will understand that they have an obligation to protect these valuable rights and carefully to preserve the integrity of the Tolkien works."Unfortunately, the article does not show the full letter, nor does it explain if the letter highlighted exactly which intellectual property rights the estate is complaining about. Does the estate have a trademark on "rivendell" in Canada? Does the estate use the term in commerce anywhere in order to get a trademark? Does that trademark cover summer camps? All of that seems doubtful.
Either way, the camp just backed down and changed its name, noting that the whole LotR thing was getting pretty tired, anyway. Nicely done, Christopher, you've just made sure that a whole bunch of kids will no longer have a positive summer camping experience associated with the name Rivendell...
