Fans Petition to Save Ambitious Lord of the Rings Mod

[Baldry]

Spoiler: But why didn't the mod team just call the eagles and fly over Warner Brothers?

Archers.

This applies both to your joke twist on the meme, and the meme itself.

So why didn't the eagles fly them to Mordor instead of making them foot slog across the back-ass of the world?

They were trying to keep a low profile, flying on a giant eagle kings back is pretty flashy.

2 reasons why that is wrong

1. The eagles could have flown high enough to use cloud cover

2. the crew would be flying on the back of the eagles. Not the stomach where everyone can see them but the back. So unless they are flying 10 ft off the ground no one is going to pay much attention to some flying giant eagles and counting the legs. But with the hobbits stubby little legs I doubt anyone could see them anyways.

I thought the real reason was that the eagles just didn't give a shit about the problems of men and such because they're fucking eagles. GIANT FUCKING EAGLES.

OT: This is stupid, it's a mod, I don't see how this effects Warner besides the fact they might be jealous someone's gonna make a better game then them.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Too bad. There hasn't been a good Lord of the Rings game since the Return of the King game. (That and The Two Towers being exceptions to the "Movie-Based Video Game = Shit" rule)

Still, signed anyway. Maybe one day once it's all finished, the mod will get "leaked" onto the internet where Warner Brothers cant do anything about it.

You must have missed the BFME series, along with LotRO. Though I guess I can forgive you for LotRO, it's an MMO after all, but calling the BFME series bad is just... wrong

 

[Azuaron]

So... a company is protecting their IP rights from people who are actually, intentionally, and totally infringing upon those rights?

And now the internet's throwing a hissy fit?

 

[Legion]

The real problem is they know MERP will be better than any games WB can put out. Can't have that now, can we.

That was my thought on the matter too. Most LOTR games are nothing more than cheap, lazy cash-ins with no effort involved whatsoever. The only exception would possibly be Battle for Middle Earth 2, and even that was hardly original in any shape or form.

So... a company is protecting their IP rights from people who are actually, intentionally, and totally infringing upon those rights?

And now the internet's throwing a hissy fit?

Yes, because they are not making money off of it, so no harm is being done. They are fans creating a fan project.

Should people not be allowed to draw pictures from films/games they like either, even if they are not planning on selling them, just to share them amongst other fans?

Are peoples lives really so sad that this should be an issue?

 

[Entitled]

They should just cease and desist updating the project on their website, then a few years from now, a suspiciously similar project should get uploaded to some torrent sites from a random public IP adress.

That's what Visual Novel fan translation teams do all the time, when Japan really wants to stop us from reading their stories. Just pretend to cease and desist, and by the time it is out, the studio no longer has any profit in proving that the formerly charged team is still responsible.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Somewhere between the mod team, Warner Bros, Bethesda and the Saul Zaentz Company, someone needs to get this turned into a legimate project, with even possibly a standalone game produced in collaboration between these companies.

 

[aaron552]

It doesn't appear to be a copyright issue, but a trademark issue. Kinda like Bethesda and Mojang's Scrolls, except the "little guy" here doesn't have the ability to fight back.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Yeah I'm terrible at rts's so I usually just skip them, and the MMO grind always bores me. Now that I think about it, The Third Age was decent as well, even if I didn't finish it.

Eh, the gameplay's not what makes LotRO awesome, it's just the amount of detail to the small things. The game has so many little easter eggs that it's just insane.

 

[Entitled]

So... a company is protecting their IP rights from people who are actually, intentionally, and totally infringing upon those rights?

And now the internet's throwing a hissy fit?

This case only proves that IP law is wrong on many levels. The company shouldn't have these rights to begin with. They might have legal rights to the franchise, thanks to a broken system, but no moral rights.
The modders don't have legal rights, but they are in the right.


1. J. R.R. Tolkien died 39 years ago. Yet, laws that are claimed to help artists make a living, and support the creation of more art by them, are being bought off by giant corporations to stop new art from being made and increase their own profits in the name of a few white bones in a cementery in Oxford.

2. The Hobbit was released 75 years ago, The Lord of the Rings 58 years ago. The places, characters, races, and situations described in them have since became a part of common culture. The One Ring, Gandalf, the Hobbit race, or the city of Gondor, belong the the masses as much as The Excalibur, Prince Hamlet, the Lilliputians, or Atlantis are. Many works were created about these themes, yet Middle-earth is for some arbitary reason, a Forbidden Zone.

3. Copyright is claimed to be a necessary law to protect the production of more new games by the industry. Yet so far, in the past many years, the copyright industry has failed to create any large scale LotR RPG similar to the Elder Scrolls games, in spite of the obvious demand for it. They left a hole in the market.

Then here there is a team of enthusiastic artists willing to fill that hole on their own terms, and create games for free, without even asking for any "intellectual property" for themselves, without demanding their own "right" to stop others from copying their work, either with piracy, or with modified creations. And what does the copyright to? STOP THEM FROM CREATING IT!

 

[greenice]

Know what would be awesome? If Warner Brothers hired Bethesda to actually make the game, maybe even hire these guys too so everyone can be happy.But of course it won't happen, since making some actually interesting games would require their heads to see sunlight.

 

[ResonanceGames]

Wouldn't this fall under fair use laws though?

'
Fair use is more to protect things used for parody, education, and review. Like, if you wanted to do a review of the LOTR movies and use a few clips to comment on them, you'd probably be under fair use.

What they're doing is definitely infringing, but it's still pretty weak when big companies shut down their fans like this. If it's non-profit and the creators make it clear that they are not affiliated with the UP holder, I say let them go forward.

Valve has been impressive with stuff like this, asking only that modders remove certain trademarks from mod names and make it clear that they are unaffiliated with Valve. It's a much more sensible way to handle it than having your bored lawyers exercise their might on your own biggest fans.

There's always the argument to be made about consumer confusion and such, but that could be easily solved by just asking them to put big disclaimers on their media and the game menu that say "THIS IS A FAN CREATED WORK AND IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH WARNER BROS." yadda yadda yadda.

 

[MrBrightside919]

There was a LOTR mod for Oblivion and I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT?!?!?!?

 

[karloss01]

you never know the mod could be 'leaked' just like the 40k damnatus movie that a german production group poured £30K into just to have GW send a cease-and-desist order.

in my opinion better then official GW film Ultramarines.

 

[Kronopticon]

As i see it, the only possible way they could continue making this is that they get Warner Bros. full backing behind the project, and they actually help them make the mod, and then, with Bethesda's permission, Warner Bros. can keep the mod, and Sell it for profit, like an expansion pack.

Not only would it make a good game, it would be a profitable venture for Warner Bros. Especially if they have only hobbyists making the mod for free. So long as Warner Bros has final control over the LoTR property and Bethesda are happy with their engine being used, i see no issue.

 

[KeyMaster45]

To the team making it I'd advise to just give WB the finger and keep developing it anyway. Seriously, fuck 'em. They decided not to even give you the time of day, so you should return the favor by ignoring their C&D and then release the mod. Better yet, release it on TPB I'm sure they'd be happy to help promote it.

 

[thethird0611]

Hold on, I may be missing something here, but isnt this completely free? How can they cease and desist something that has no profit behind it?