In 2012, the Tolkien estate, along with publisher Harper Collins, sued Warner Bros. for the unauthorized use of characters, imagery and other intellectual property associated with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit novels. Warner had licensed the products to casino software developer Microgaming, which created a slots title based on The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the LOTR trilogy.
While Warner had worked out a deal with the Tolkien estate, the Tolkien camp argued that the deal covered only the sale of "tangible” merchandise, and not the "
The Tolkien estate didn’t know that people were gambling on LOTR characters until a couple years after Microgaming signed its digital licensing deal with Warner. As legend has it, a Tolkien estate attorney felt the eye of Sauron upon him after receiving an email promo pitching the LOTR slot.
Microgaming quickly pulled the slot from the market but the estate’s lawsuit
Warner, along with its film production subsidiary New Line Cinema and Hobbit
The suit was resolved this week via an out of court settlement, terms of which weren’t disclosed, except to say that the parties had "amicably” come to an arrangement to drop all claims and counterclaims.
Source: GMB / Calvinayre.com
