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Amazon and Tolkein Estate force author to destroy all copies of his work. Only pirated copies will survive. (variety.com)

submitted 10 months ago by JoMiran@lemmy.ml to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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[-] seaturtle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 394 points 10 months ago

Heh, more of this shit.

Remember, the only reason we can still watch the highly influential 1922 vampire movie Nosferatu today is because some people didn't destroy all their copies despite a court saying they had to.

DISOBEY DESTRUCTION ORDERS.

COPY ALL THE THINGS.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 72 points 10 months ago

The author in question here was pretty shitty. He wrote his own sequel to called "Fellowship of the King", and then sued Amazon and the Tolkien estate saying they stole elements from his book. He lost, and the Tolkien estate countersued.

The guy played stupid games and won stupid prizes.

[-] seaturtle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I read. I don't have much sympathy for him. He sounds like a jerk.

IMO preserving the content is more important than honoring him (or, for that matter, humiliating him).

[-] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I can't help being curious, who are these "Tolkien Estate" people? I want NAMES!

[-] Squizzy@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

His son's I think

[-] frezik@midwest.social 5 points 10 months ago

That's Christopher, and he died in 2020. Now it's a few different members of the family plus their attorney.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_Estate

[-] aubertlone@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

Hey this is a pretty interesting story, got a link?

[-] vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works 20 points 10 months ago

Here a pretty good version of it

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086605684/try-as-she-might-bram-stokers-widow-couldnt-kill-nosferatu

[-] aubertlone@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

What an interesting read!

Thank you so much. Interesting to hear about Stoker's widow, and her going to the courts to pursue a copyright claim.

[-] vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

It's a fascinating story. I often wonder how it would of been perceived at a time when copyright wasn't in a post Disney world.

[-] eluvatar@programming.dev -2 points 10 months ago

I didn't see anything on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu?wprov=sfla1

[-] waldyrious@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

What do you mean? It's right in the lead section:

Even with several details altered, Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre.

[-] NaoPb@eviltoast.org 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Some older dutch movies were released as rentals to the theaters that had to be returned after they stopped playing the movie. These copies were all destroyed and re-releases on DVD now look worse than what it looked like in movie theatres.

The good news is that some theatres hung on to some movies.

[-] seaturtle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago

Thank goodness. Have those copies resurfaced and gone into the possession of proper archivists and/or research collections?

[-] NaoPb@eviltoast.org 2 points 10 months ago

I don't know how many might be still be around, but I know for a couple of movies where they are. I don't think they have been properly archived and/or converted to digital media yet. I would like to see if there are people in The Netherlands that can do these things and if the current owners of the rolls of film are willing to.