That would call for a big fat Whisky Tango Foxtrot. I don’t even see quite how it qualifies as infringement, as Tolkien is a public figure. Does this mean he’s become the fantasist whose name we dare not utter? Pish and tosh, as my grandmother used to say, or suck my flabby white ass, Chris Tolkien, as I am wont to.

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Adam Rakunas and Ardaniel S. Collier, CherylTrooskinZoller. CherylTrooskinZoller said: RT @rakdaddy: A: : The JRR Tolkien Estate Can Go Fuck Itself http://www.giro.org/2011/02/23/the-jrr-tolkien-estate-can-go-fuck-itself/ [...]

Normally I tend to give the JRRT estate the benefit of the doubt, since their vigorous protection of intellectual rights has prevented us from being flooded by awful “authorized sequels” like with Frank Herbert, but this… this is preposterous.

I’ll make your buttons. I have a machine.

“Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know … and they guard the plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed, they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of current market value; and they can’t make a thing for themselves …” ["The Hobbit", J.R.R. Tolkien]

Fired off an email to the EFF to see if they’d be interested in taking this up. It’s not about the buttons, it’s about the principle!

Go get ‘em Rak.

Brilliant quote by AngusM, BTW. :)

Reading this made me very angry. Here’s what I can tell you (I am not a lawyer). The Tolkien estate has indeed registered “Tolkien” as a trademark. I assume that’s the intellectual property right they’re asserting to Zazzle. The relevant link is this: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4003:q4dg44.6.3

That registration, however, does not give the estate an absolute right to control any use of the word “Tolkien.” In fact, there’s a big fat exception for parodic use as long as there is no “likelihood of confusion.” In this case, there is pretty much no chance that any consumer would think that J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate produced these buttons.

Here’s an example: you know that song “Barbe Girl” by Aqua? Well, the word “Barbie” is obviously a trademark. But the song was equally obviously a parody, and there was no chance consumers would think the song was created by Mattel.

You should not give in to bullies. The estate has no right to prevent you from making these buttons.

with the hobbit movies; i’ve lost what little respect i had for tolkien’s people. they vigorously guard the cash cow. i was saddened to see them not only “sell it” for “slaughter”; but sit @ the table w/peter jackson & help devour it

[...] work far greater publicity than it would ever have received otherwise. Alongside the inevitable blog coverage, there is now a new store on Zazzle offering a range of censored Tolkien merchandise [...]

Of course, just for funzies, you could get in touch with the Tolkien Estate and tell them you were referencing Simon Tolkien (son of Christopher and a legitimate author in his own right) and intend to return the badge to production forthwith.
If nothing else it’ll put the wind up them and cost them a stack working out how robust their trademark actually is.

Zazzle SUCKS for buttons. I make 1.25″ full color, custom buttons for .30 each NOT $1.45 like them. If you want good buttons email me! and if you order 300 or more they’re just .25 each! buttonjunkies@gmail.com

It is really a major problem with Zazzle.
I am a team leader on a project at (Name of Major University Removed) and we created merchandise with our logo, which includes our project name: “Project at the University of Somewhere”.
Zazzle emailed me to ask if we have permission to use the graphics and I replied that my team created them.
Zazzle replied that we would need written permission from the University of Somewhere to use their name and they don’t understand that it is MY TEAM NAME and I am not pretending to represent the university.

Oh well, no more business for Zazzle. There are plenty of other print-on-demand places who would love my high-volume orders.

[...] censor a work of historical fiction containing Tolkien as a character, the estate have now issued a takedown notice to someone making buttons with the words ‘While you were reading Tolkien, I was watching [...]

I too want the “estate” of JRR (who shot JRR?) to fuck right off, quiet right down and grow the hell up.

I urge the boycott of all things idiotically “middle” until further notice.

[...] censor a work of historical fiction containing Tolkien as a character, the estate have now issued a takedown notice to someone making buttons with the words ‘While you were reading Tolkien, I was watching [...]

Nomanitive use is fully allowed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

The estate must pursue real violations or risk losing the trademark, but this is not a real violation. Their lawyer could be sued.

AngusM, that’s a brilliant quote!

You should have no problem getting a trademark lawyer to represent you pro bono. (I’m a lawyer, but I can’t do it.)

Try emailing Eugene Volokh at volokh@ucla.edu and asking him to post about this on his blog, http://www.volokh.com. Some law professor or lawyer will then surely come out of the woodwork to help you.

You should probably start by filing a DMCA counter-notification:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html

First, before posting this blog entry, send a button to Chris Tolkein and ask him why said infringes whatever it is they think it does. Include a copy of the notice sent to Zazzle. (But not you?) They should be specific regarding what you infringe.

Tell him what the phrase means, in the letter. He may not know what Evangelion is.

Get the address from the agent or legal counsel via Zazzle.

You should also look into responding to the notice.

This one is easy. Forget about your buttons. Next time coin a phrase that does not infringe on names such as Tolkien or Evangelion.

Entry’s already posted, dude, or else you wouldn’t have read it.

It’s Madeline’s phrase to coin, and she didn’t infringe on anything. Cultural critique is fair use.

… says Legend of Angband.

[...] The JRR Tolkien Estate Can Go Fuck Itself (via Futurismic) via boingboing.net [...]

Why don’t you go fuck yourself up the ass you big hairy shitface.

JRT

ps. there is an afterlife

Please post a copy / scan / text of the correspondence, and try to get a copy of the communication that the Trollkien Estate sent to Zazzle. A plain text transcription will guarantee maximum coverage of this issue, and hopefully a massive new market in Trollkien merchandise that provides zero revenue to the Trollkien Estate.

Someone needs to make a cartoon with Christopher Tolkien as Gollum talking about his Precious.

This is seriously ridiculous; it seems impossible that this would be a valid trademark claim (or at least, it shouldn’t be!). I’m hesitant to blame Christopher too much for it: he’s clearly instructed the Estate’s legal representatives to aggressively defend its assets, but I doubt that he’d approve of this sort of overreaching.

As far as I can tell, Christopher’s purpose in that is less about money and more about trying to protect his father’s legacy as long as the legal system will allow it. He tried to use the issue of money and legal rights to block the Hobbit movie(s), after all, and my impression at the time was that blocking the new films was a more central goal than a big payout was. (A friend of mine who knows him tells me that Christopher was not at all happy with Peter Jackson’s LotR trilogy.)

So yeah. I wonder if somehow getting word of this to him would solve the problem? Probably not: I assume he leaves legal decisions and details to the Estate’s legal staff. But maybe he’d be able to ask them to try harder to avoid this level of pointless nastiness, at least.

Writers are all about professional jealousy. If you all want to make money for yourselves by dissing Tolkien, why not find someone to pay you to write a full-on critique, instead of wanking?

[...] история: Back in the late 2009, I got into a Twitter conversation with Madeline Ashby about geek culture, [...]

Looks like even the trolls are afraid of using The Name That Must Not Be Named.

[...] Tolkien [...]

A Texas author is at odds with the J.R.R. Tolkien estate over plans to publish a fictional book that features Tolkien as a character and includes a critical analysis of Tolkien’s books.

Stephen Hilliard is going to court in an attempt to release “Mirkwood, A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien,” to be published by Cruel Rune….

(from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/thr-esq/jrr-tolkien-estate-threatens-lawsuit-101528?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed)

Black market Tolkien buttons ftw. Someone needs to sell these puppies again!

I think that’s a far better case to defend than this silly button.

This button is awesome, and I will defend it until I don’t care any more.

Someone needs to remind C.T. that he cannot trademark a public figure, nor can he claim trademark on any word that is listed in the OED. In fact, maybe someone should give him an OED so he can learn what words his father used that were already in use, and therefore cannot be trademarked.

I am now closing this post for comments, as it’s attracting less human attention and more content farm attention. If you’d like to continue discussing this, please go to the follow-up post, The Zazzle Emails.

Except you, Mary, until you admit that this button is far from silly and is, in fact, awesome.