Fans Petition to Save Ambitious Lord of the Rings Mod

[dumbseizure]

You are addressing the wrong company. Like anything Dungeon and Dragons is addressed to Hasbro, Anything Tolkien is owned by SZ. THe man bought the rights for ALL MEDIA outside books (I beleive) from tolkien directly. He made a promise to respect the spirit of the books and that's all. It cannot be public domain because someone still owns the intellictual rights, either Christopher who is "continuing" the series and the SZ who allowed WB to use the IP. THey also let Turbine use the IP, but could not really do anything before the Fellowship of the Ring. That's why in the MMO, Things from the "Hobbit" are really not mentioned, neither is the SIllimarillion (sp.)and so on.

WB has use of the property, and in order to keep that property excusive they have to defend it.

THe problem is, while the modders won't make any cash, Bethesda will. For there are people who didn't jump on the Elder scrolls bandwagon (cough cough ME!) that would purchase it for a LotR mod. And WB and SZ will not see ANY of that cash.

Which is all ironic since the Mojang and Bethesda "scroll" nonsense. Not that had anything to do with the Modders.

BUT BUT IT ISN'T FAIR!

Maybe not, however, there is alot of people who's intellectual property has stomped upon when they are still alive let alone dead, because they gave it up or lost it (fairly or unfairly).Do you have the right to defend what you own or created? I think so. If I rewrote LotR using modern language and posted, free, on the internet would I be infriging the IP? Maybe. It's a dangerous game to play IP chicken with a big company. Chances are that they have a leg to stand on and the lawyers to back it up.

IF I wrote something original, took the time to copyright it and had it printed as a book, only to find someone using it in a game as a free mod because he loved it...I'd be flattered, however, if people bought the game just to play the mod, I'd be slightly upset. My property is being used and all I have to show for it is my revenues from my books. I will never see any money from the game because I don't have a contract with that game. Worse, what if they changed how the characters act? Is that fair? I wrote the character to be moody and violent, there was a reason. Why is a bunch of modders rewriting my book?

At the end, WB is protecting its IP rights. It paid for these rights and has to pay the "Rental fees" on it and has to obey the rules that were set down by the owners of the IP. Modders don't have that, they can do anything they want. And with a game as popular as Skyrim, that's a lot of cash that the IP owners will not see. Plus, interfering with current and upcoming games that they produced because the mod is better and you already bought skyrim. Is that fair?

Whether or not you agree with them, do understand why they are doing it. They are protecting an investment, a legacy of a man, and keeping a promise. THey are not being mean to the poor, poor Modders.

I'm pretty much agreeing with this. While the modders will not benefit from it financially, Bethesda will. I mean, just for reference - http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/17/day-z-mod-drives-arma-2-sales-up-500/ .

I know, I know. "DayZ wasn't IP!" That is not my point.

DayZ, a mod for ARMAII, drove sales of ARMAII up five fold. And it was a FREE mod as well.

So I believe WB are in the right with this. Someone else is using its IP, and although the people using it wont benefit, the company that sells the base product you need to use it will.

 

[JFrog84]

Why don't they just base the mod on books instead of movies? It would be a huge fuck you to Warner Bros. and there's nothing they'd be able to do about it.

That's what I'd do. As far as I'm aware the rights to anything based on the books belongs to tolkien enterprises so WB could do nothing. Its how we got battle for middle earth and war of the ring at pretty much the same time.

 

[Li Mu]

I think we need to stop and look at the issue which is far more glaring than a whatever WB are bitching about.

The mod's devs are claiming that it will be 9 times bigger than skyrim and will contain all the major sights of Middle Earth.
Which means that either the mod is going to be a collection of poorly textured scenery with vast regions of nothing (basically, shit) or they'll take 8 years to release the damn thing and nobody will care about it when it is finally released.

Skyrim was made by a dedicated team of people who were actually paid to make the game. It WAS their day job. The Skyrim team consisted of around 100 people. This mod team is probably made up of a dozen or so individuals who work on it in their spare time.

I've seen far too many mods like this, where the mod team have grand ideas, but neither the time nor the experience to make anything worth playing.
They come out with a few fancy screenshots and 6 months later 90% of the team have given up the mod is essentially dead.

 

[Entitled]

Oh, you can't blame Warner Bros. for any of that. In particular, they haven't "bought up" the rights to LotR so much as bought the film rights (and probably some videogame rights) and with them some trademarks. That's really where it looks like MERP's getting hit, too: the trademarks, which is a whole different mess of laws than copyright.

And, given the litigious nature of Tolkien's estate, if they ever found out about the mod they'd shut it down, too, but from a copyright stance.

In that case, fuck the Tolkien Estate just as hardly. That they named themselves after said couple of bones in that graveyard, doesn't give them any more moral authority to limit creative rights.

Personally, I think copyright should last no longer than death of the creator + 20 years (preferably 10 years). This gives their children/estate enough time to resolve the story if need be (e.g., Robert Jordan) while giving them the cash flow to do so. If a company "created" the media, they can have it for 50 years.

Personally, I think that it should be no longer than the first 5 years after the publishing of the work, and even these five years should be about granting exclusive commercial distribution rights, not personal copying, sharing, or modification.

But, until we can shove copyright reform through Congress, these are the laws we have, and complaining at a company for protecting the rights they've been legally granted is like complaining at pedestrians for using crosswalks (they should use jetpacks, amirite?)

It's very easy to follow the laws and still be an asshole.

Anyway, the modders aren't "right", morally or otherwise. They haven't even taken the, "It shouldn't be copyrighted anymore," stance, just the, "Oh, come on, why do you care, you should just let us do this," stance. And even if they had taken that stance, it's still morally wrong to take the legal rights of IP owners without asking just because you want to or because you disagree with the law. This is not one of those laws where civil disobedience is appropriate or useful.

What they believe, or say, has nothing to do with rights. People can be assholes, or outright evil, while repeating a complex ideological belief system, but also, many illiterate, starving pariahs have fought for things that we now call their basic human rights, without even realizing the bigger picture, just by desperately wanting a better life. The issue of IP laws is an incomparably more civilized and subtle issue than these, but the idea is the same. Someone *is* right, and simply having a conviction, or the law supporting you, are not winning stances on their own.

Civil disobedience against IP laws doesn't work, if we are talking about vocal piracy apologists, communists, and free speech activists intentionally sticking it to The Man, while rambling about sticking it to The Man.

It's exactly the people like these modders, who simply say "you should just let us do this", along with the hundreds of millions of people who violate copyright and trademark laws every day just because it feels so natural and self-evident, while the system feels so pointlessly obtrusive, it is them who are slowly destroying all legitimacy of the idea that "Intellectual Property" needs to be protected from the people.

[/quote]

 

[Wintermoot]

I don't see why he should be stopped. it's not like the owner of the IP is going to make such a mod. Also didn't a Chrono Trigger fan game got stopped for the same reason?

 

[Disthron]

Maybe they should pull a 50 shades of gray. Hire a lawyer to go over there mod and tell them how much they need to change in order to not be breaching copyright. It may in fact be an extensive endeavor but then we can all still have an awesome Skyrim mod.

 

[1337mokro]

DAMN YOU WARNER BROS!!!!

You will NOT take this away from me. This mod SHALL life! Even if we have to outsource it to China which basically gives the middle finger to any American company.

 

[Azuaron]

~~snippitty~

No, it IS bullshit. Someone making a superior product and distributing it for free is not "stealing". It's COMPETITION.

If you want to spend your valuable time designing hobbit costumes and distributing them , it should be your right to do so. Then, the onus is on the commercial rights holders to invest their time and money into MAKING SUPERIOR PRODUCTS that people are willing to pay for. You know, because THEY'RE SUPERIOR. If they can't do that, then they're INCOMPETENT.

That's the problem I have with copyright law. It's giving the rightsholders free reign to be INCOMPETENT. The fan-made Sonic game was what the fans wanted. The fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel was what the fans wanted. The freespace Battlestar Mod is what the fans want now and so is the LoTR mod. The question is "why aren't the rights-holders producing these products themselves"? If the rights-holders don't know or care what games the fans actually want to play, the fans should be able to grind them into the dirt with free stuff all day long.

I'm sorry, but if you and your millions of dollars, legions of developers and artists, and scads of marketers and researchers CAN'T FUCKING COMPETE WITH PRODUCTS BEING MADE BY UNPAID HOBBYISTS, THEN YOU ARE INCOMPETENT AND DESERVE TO HAVE YOUR PRODUCTS FAIL WHETHER YOU HOLD THE RIGHTS OR NOT.

Non-commercial use should be UNIVERSALLY protected. I DARE you to convince me otherwise, if only so I have a reason to accept the current system and not be so FUCKING PISSED about this anymore.

Firstly, copyright exists to protect all creators, not just giant corporations with "millions of dollars, legions of developers and artists, and scads of marketers and researchers", and it has to give everyone equal protection.

Secondly, "unpaid hobbyists" and "non-commercial" are not the same thing, and what you're proposing would result in corporations making "non-commercial" copies of their competitors products (including indie competitors) to undercut their competitors' market. Everyone hates Zynga for blatantly remaking successful indie games, and what you're proposing would make that legal as long as they don't sell anything in it.

Finally, and most importantly, creators need to have exclusive rights to their ideas or, in many cases, they won't create them. Sure, Tolkien probably would have created Lord of the Rings regardless of whether it got dumped immediately into the public domain or not because that's just the kind of guy he was, but most authors, directors, developers, programmers, and artists need to get paid. Without exclusive control over their ideas, nothing's stopping another person from making a "sequel" to their book or game or movie and distributing it to the public before the actual sequel comes out. Then, when the real sequel does come out, people are going to be confused. "The Wise Man's Fear, sequel to The Name of the Wind? I already read that sequel, but it was called The Name of the Forest."

And you know who will profit the most from this state of affairs? Corporations. Corporations that can see something that's becoming the next big thing, like Harry Potter, then hire thirty hack writers to pump out thirty "sequels" and drop them in the market for free and kill the series. Or EA could make an Amnesia "sequel" and give it away to flood the market just before the actual Amnesia sequel comes out.

You say it's giving creators free reign to be incompetent? Well, it is, but it's also giving them free reign to be excellent; that's the thing about free reign, it has to be free. Your stranglehold "competition" scenario would choke the creativity out of every discipline and result in all the worst things we hate about movies (endless remakes, writing by the marketing department), videogames (no new IPs, but copy our competitor's IPs...), and books (most fantasy series are already way too close to Lord of the Rings) becoming not just mainstream, but the only way to do things.

Creative professionals cannot be creative professionals without copyright protection. And, morally, taking someone else's idea without permission is wrong, it's theft, and it is not okay.

 

[karamazovnew]

I signed the petition. I've never actually heard about this mod, and probably will not even play it, but as a former modder, I'll be damned if I'll stand by and watch other's people work gone to waste because some F-ing lawyer wants to get a raise. While I agree total conversion mods are tricky, especially when they involve other franchises, I'm an angry red communist when it comes to non-profit works.

I think that in the long run, the media will cease to be an industry and media corporations will simply die, replaced by talented people who selflessly create and share their works.

 

[Azuaron]

Personally, I think copyright should last no longer than death of the creator + 20 years (preferably 10 years). This gives their children/estate enough time to resolve the story if need be (e.g., Robert Jordan) while giving them the cash flow to do so. If a company "created" the media, they can have it for 50 years.

Personally, I think that it should be no longer than the first 5 years after the publishing of the work, and even these five years should be about granting exclusive commercial distribution rights, not personal copying, sharing, or modification.

Wait... seriously? Five years from publication?

So, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss came out on March 27, 2007. The Wise Man's Fear, its sequel, came out March 1, 2011. The Doors of Stone, the conclusion of the trilogy, has not come out yet.

And you're saying The Name of the Wind should be public domain?

OR, wait a minute, even better, A Game of Thrones came out August 6, 1996. If it was public domain as of 2002, HBO could have just made their series and not paid or consulted George R. R. Martin.

Seriously? Five years from publication?

Way to screw creators.

 

[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?

I wasn't aware that some kid drawing a picture of Johnny Bravo and putting it on a wall on Main Street was an insidious attack on IP rights.

That's what this is. A fan project, available for free.

If it IS an insidious attack on IP rights, then quite frankly, we should amend the rules to better suit the internet and what it does. Because frankly, that's just alarming and stupid.

Your analogy isn't even similar to what's happening.

The modders have created a competing product to the official Lord of the Rings products and they are widely distributing it across the entire world (whether or not they are charging for it is irrelevant). IP rights holders should be able to shut that down, and shut it down hard, or corporations would do the same thing to every indie creator ever.

 

[Entitled]

what you're proposing would result in corporations making "non-commercial" copies of their competitors products (including indie competitors) to undercut their competitors' market. Everyone hates Zynga for blatantly remaking successful indie games, and what you're proposing would make that legal as long as they don't sell anything in it...

...And you know who will profit the most from this state of affairs? Corporations. Corporations that can see something that's becoming the next big thing, like Harry Potter, then hire thirty hack writers to pump out thirty "sequels" and drop them in the market for free and kill the series. Or EA could make an Amnesia "sequel" and give it away to flood the market just before the actual Amnesia sequel comes out...

In other words, yay, more content?

You are intentionally picking the most alarmist examples to give the impression that this flood of content would be shitty, without any logic behind why that would be the case. You are bring up "Zynga" copying "indies", "EA" copying "Amnesia", and book publishers hiring "hack writers" to copy "Harry Potter", but indie artists, talented companies, and skilled writers could also join in.

Well, of course, Sturgeon's law. Hack writers will always be hack, and hack developers will make hack products. On the other hand, writers don't need publishers ordering them to start writing Harry Potter novels, they could write them themselves. Many of them would be hacks, others would be pretty good, and some would be great. Hell, even in this universe, I have read Harry Potter fanfiction novels that I consider better than Rowling's. I have played a Game of Thrones mod (on Crusader Kings 2) that was way better, and faithful to the source, than any licensed Game of Thrones game.

You say it's giving creators free reign to be incompetent? Well, it is, but it's also giving them free reign to be excellent; that's the thing about free reign, it has to be free.

Your stranglehold "competition" scenario would choke the creativity out of every discipline and result in all the worst things we hate about movies (endless remakes, writing by the marketing department), videogames (no new IPs, but copy our competitor's IPs...), and books (most fantasy series are already way too close to Lord of the Rings) becoming not just mainstream, but the only way to do things.

So, you say that to inspire creative freedom, we need to legally forbid all writers to use any existing IPs that they aren't licensed to write about.

The thing about free reign, it has to be free. Free to let artists write about whatever they want. Alan Moore wanted to write Watchmen about existing DC heroes, but he wasn't allowed to. How is that "free reign?"

Endless remakes, and sequels, only exist to begin with because the companies treat them as their golden goose. The only reason Marvel and DC still exist, is because they had exclusive rights to a large number of our cultural icons for the better part of a century. EA continues to make Need For Speed and Sims games, because they are known as the company that has a monopoly on NFS and Sims, and because that monopoly means something.

If every indie, every corporation, and every writer, and every studio would be equally allowed to use each other's IP (after a time reasonably long enough to turn a profit), then IP itself would lose it's value, there would only be culture.
[/quote]

Wait... seriously? Five years from publication?

So, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss came out on March 27, 2007. The Wise Man's Fear, its sequel, came out March 1, 2011. The Doors of Stone, the conclusion of the trilogy, has not come out yet.

And you're saying The Name of the Wind should be public domain?

OR, wait a minute, even better, A Game of Thrones came out August 6, 1996. If it was public domain as of 2002, HBO could have just made their series and not paid or consulted George R. R. Martin.

Seriously? Five years from publication?

Yep. Five years. Way more than enough to make a profit for something that can ever be hoped to do so, in fact, nowadays things sell mostly in the first month after release. The kind of works that still move significant sales 5 years after their first pubishing, are the biggest names that already made their creator rich anyways.

Beyond that, the rights of the people, including the artist community wanting to use it, should outweigh the rights of the original artist.

HBO could make whatever series it would want. Probably it wouldn't be the first studio to do so, and there wouldn't be a single "Song of Ice And fire" series to begin with, but one series started by Martin, and several variations by several writers. HBO could adapt any of those, as well, at least the ones written before 2007.

 

[Valanthe]

While this sucks, it illustrates the broken system that copyright laws are. Unfortunately Warner is actually forced to take this kind of action, because in the law, if it came out that they knew of an infringement and did nothing, that is grounds to have their licence to use the Lord of the Rings name revoked, so they are right in saying that it could harm their profits.

That doesn't mean I like it, it sucks to see people who do something for a genuine love of the franchise get trampled on by a corporation only interested in protecting its admittedly extremely profitable brand name, but not every story can have a happy ending like the Hobbit Pub. I hope this one will though, this mod has actually gotten me eyeing up my copy of Skyrim again.

 

[immortalfrieza]

~~snippitty~

No, it IS bullshit. Someone making a superior product and distributing it for free is not "stealing". It's COMPETITION.

If you want to spend your valuable time designing hobbit costumes and distributing them , it should be your right to do so. Then, the onus is on the commercial rights holders to invest their time and money into MAKING SUPERIOR PRODUCTS that people are willing to pay for. You know, because THEY'RE SUPERIOR. If they can't do that, then they're INCOMPETENT.

That's the problem I have with copyright law. It's giving the rightsholders free reign to be INCOMPETENT. The fan-made Sonic game was what the fans wanted. The fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel was what the fans wanted. The freespace Battlestar Mod is what the fans want now and so is the LoTR mod. The question is "why aren't the rights-holders producing these products themselves"? If the rights-holders don't know or care what games the fans actually want to play, the fans should be able to grind them into the dirt with free stuff all day long.

I'm sorry, but if you and your millions of dollars, legions of developers and artists, and scads of marketers and researchers CAN'T FUCKING COMPETE WITH PRODUCTS BEING MADE BY UNPAID HOBBYISTS, THEN YOU ARE INCOMPETENT AND DESERVE TO HAVE YOUR PRODUCTS FAIL WHETHER YOU HOLD THE RIGHTS OR NOT.

Non-commercial use should be UNIVERSALLY protected. I DARE you to convince me otherwise, if only so I have a reason to accept the current system and not be so FUCKING PISSED about this anymore.

Firstly, copyright exists to protect all creators, not just giant corporations with "millions of dollars, legions of developers and artists, and scads of marketers and researchers", and it has to give everyone equal protection.

Secondly, "unpaid hobbyists" and "non-commercial" are not the same thing, and what you're proposing would result in corporations making "non-commercial" copies of their competitors products (including indie competitors) to undercut their competitors' market. Everyone hates Zynga for blatantly remaking successful indie games, and what you're proposing would make that legal as long as they don't sell anything in it.

Finally, and most importantly, creators need to have exclusive rights to their ideas or, in many cases, they won't create them. Sure, Tolkien probably would have created Lord of the Rings regardless of whether it got dumped immediately into the public domain or not because that's just the kind of guy he was, but most authors, directors, developers, programmers, and artists need to get paid. Without exclusive control over their ideas, nothing's stopping another person from making a "sequel" to their book or game or movie and distributing it to the public before the actual sequel comes out. Then, when the real sequel does come out, people are going to be confused. "The Wise Man's Fear, sequel to The Name of the Wind? I already read that sequel, but it was called The Name of the Forest."

And you know who will profit the most from this state of affairs? Corporations. Corporations that can see something that's becoming the next big thing, like Harry Potter, then hire thirty hack writers to pump out thirty "sequels" and drop them in the market for free and kill the series. Or EA could make an Amnesia "sequel" and give it away to flood the market just before the actual Amnesia sequel comes out.

You say it's giving creators free reign to be incompetent? Well, it is, but it's also giving them free reign to be excellent; that's the thing about free reign, it has to be free. Your stranglehold "competition" scenario would choke the creativity out of every discipline and result in all the worst things we hate about movies (endless remakes, writing by the marketing department), videogames (no new IPs, but copy our competitor's IPs...), and books (most fantasy series are already way too close to Lord of the Rings) becoming not just mainstream, but the only way to do things.

Creative professionals cannot be creative professionals without copyright protection. And, morally, taking someone else's idea without permission is wrong, it's theft, and it is not okay.

Sorry, but that's BS. IP law only prevents people from creating anything by making everybody jump through ridiculous hoops and shell out ludicrous amounts of money to make sure they aren't already infringing on another IP before they make it, makes sure they have to pay out the nose to protect their IPs if they are truly original, and ensures that everybody only has to make their product "good enough" instead of as good as it possibly could be. Besides, these days almost everything original already made it's becoming harder and harder to really create anything truly original and that doesn't already infringe on IP laws.

most authors, directors, developers, programmers, and artists need to get paid. Without exclusive control over their ideas, nothing's stopping another person from making a "sequel" to their book or game or movie and distributing it to the public before the actual sequel comes out. Then, when the real sequel does come out, people are going to be confused. "The Wise Man's Fear, sequel to The Name of the Wind? I already read that sequel, but it was called The Name of the Forest."

If I were to create and distribute anything and anybody from Mcmoneybags inc. to some hobo I could have passed on the street one day could create a similar product under the same IP and do it BETTER than I, it's very creator could do, then I don't deserve to profit from what I've created, regardless of where I stand between Hobo and Mcmoneybags in terms of resources. If what I created and it's successors aren't already good enough that whatever knockoffs everybody else is able to make don't die off because mine isn't already the preferable option to consumers, even if I'm competing with free, then I deserve to go out of business.

Nobody that creates ANYTHING should have to hide behind a law just to make sure that their product actually sells because they don't put enough time and effort into creating it to make sure that it's the best of that product that could ever be made, at least be the best for a long time if not forever.

Besides, maybe whatever the others would make would be good enough compared to what the creators made to be able to share the market instead of the "take what we offer at the quality we offer at the price we want you to pay or you just sit down, shut up, and get nothing!" that we've got now thanks to IP laws.

 

[charge52]

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.

The Eye would see the Eagles, and plus, the eagles would have to be higher than the clouds if they don't want to be seen. If they are seen, than yeah, Sauron is not just going to let them fly in his lands, so if the archers couldn't reach, he'd send up a fucking Nazgul, and the book would be over.
Also, the king of the Eagles rarely does anything that could potentially bring harm to him, or any of his eagles. Bit of a coward in all honesty, only flew to Gandalf's aid at the tower because Gandalf saved his life, so he is honor bound to save Gandalfs.

 

[immortalfrieza]

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.

The Eye would see the Eagles, and plus, the eagles would have to be higher than the clouds if they don't want to be seen. If they are seen, than yeah, Sauron is not just going to let them fly in his lands, so if the archers couldn't reach, he'd send up a fucking Nazgul, and the book would be over.
Also, the king of the Eagles rarely does anything that could potentially bring harm to him, or any of his eagles. Bit of a coward in all honesty, only flew to Gandalf's aid at the tower because Gandalf saved his life, so he is honor bound to save Gandalfs.

Maybe so, but that argument falls apart when you realize it would have been easy enough to distract Sauron somehow (which is what what they had to do when they finally snuck the ring into Mt. Doom and destroyed it in the end anyway). Regardless, the very least the eagles could have done is take the Fellowship most of the way to Mt. Doom and skipped much of the unnecessary crap that they otherwise had to go through.

 

[Paladin2905]

~~snippitty~

~also snip~

~snip thrice~

~tired of snipping~

~snip~

~...snip~

Nobody that creates ANYTHING should have to hide behind a law just to make sure that their product actually sells because they don't put enough time and effort into creating it to make sure that it's the best of that product that could ever be made, at least be the best for a long time if not forever.

As much as I'd like to agree with you, I think that you may be missing the point. The laws themselves exist to prevent people from copying your idea for a time, giving you the opportunity to profit from the work that you already have put in to the media. In the case you make every creator would need to constantly update their property after release (since anybody could immediately copy and improve it for far less than the original creation cost).

Believe me, I'd love to see a LOTR mod for Skyrim; however I think that the team probably bit off more than they can chew in choosing a very well known and strongly defended IP. Ethical right or wrong in this will not matter; the law just isn't on their side and I'm not sure it should be.

Modding is one of the greatest things that we as a community can do with games, but I'm sure there are people in our community who are way the hell better writers than Tolkien that could assist in creating an even better fantasy universe to mod into the game. If your knee-jerk reaction is "but I wanted to play in Middle Earth", you now know why the laws exist to protect it- they would be subverting an existent audience for a specific media to use their mod.

 

[theblindedhunter]

It's called MERP. That is the best name ever. I want them to succeed in everything.

Though, I don't see how they have a tough argument on their hands. How is it going to cause brand confusion when it is a mod working off of Skyrim/Oblivion? It's not a stand-alone game, so I really don't understand how someone could confuse it with stand-alone games, or other products entirely.

Either companies think their customers are way too dense, or I have a faith in humanity that needs some serious fixing.