An author who claimed that the Tolkien estate and Amazon stole his fan-fiction drew a countersuit in reply and has lost both cases. Demetrious Polychron was ordered to destroy all copies of “The Fellowship of the King” after claiming Amazon’s ongoing Rings TV series infringed his copyright. Something something Eye of Sauron.
Polychron attempted to sue the Tolkien estate and Amazon over the spin-off TV series The Rings of Power, which he claimed infringed the copyright in his book. A California court dismissed the case after the judge ruled that Polychron’s text was, in fact, infringing on Amazon’s prequel, released in September 2022. The Tolkien estate then filed a separate lawsuit against Polychron …Making the order, Judge Wilson referred to Polychron’s original claim for copyright protection as “unreasonable” and “frivolous” given that his work is entirely based on characters in The Lord of the Rings.
The “destroy all copies” outcome is alarming some commentators, but given how otherwise permissive the estate has been about making and even selling Lord of the Rings derivatives it’s hard to complain about the outcome of such a well-provoked counterclaim. It’s not like Terry Brooks is going to be stuffing suitcases with cash and running for the hills here. Fellowship of the King is in-world canon cuckoo fanfic and suing Tolkien for copying it was ascended FAFO fandom madness.
