02 November 2012

Middle Earth Company - wankers

I will make it clear rom the outset that I have no time for Tolkein's books. Hugely overrated in my view and The Hobbit is the worst of the lot.

 Homo Floresiensis, the three-foot-tall species of primitive human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores has  would come to be widely known as the "hobbit". However a New Zealand scientist planning an event about the species has been banned from using the name by the company which owns the film rights to The Hobbit.

According to the  Guardian Dr Brent Alloway, associate professor at Victoria University, is planning a free lecture next month at which two of the archaeologists involved in the discovery of Homo floresiensis in 2003 will speak about the species. The talk is planned to coincide with the premiere of the Hobit film and he had planned to call the lecture "The Other Hobbit",


But when he approached the Saul Zaentz Company/Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns certain rights in The Hobbit, he was told by their lawyer that "it is not possible for our client to allow generic use of the trade mark HOBBIT."

"I am very disappointed that we're forbidden … to use the word 'Hobbit' in the title of our proposed free public event … especially since the word 'Hobbit' is apparently listed in the Oxford English Dictionary (and hence apparently part of our English-speaking vocabulary), the word 'Hobbit'  is frequently used with apparent impunity in the written press and reference to 'Hobbit' in the fossil context is frequently referred to in the scientific literature . I realise I'm in unfamiliar word proprietry territory … so I've gone for the easiest option and simply changed our event title." said Alloway.
The event is now called "A newly discovered species of Little People – unravelling the legend behind Homo floresiensis".

To be honest the Middle Earth Company are acting like dicks. There is no reason why anyone would confuse the film of the shitty little children's story with a fascinating scientific discovery. Besides, Tolkein didn't invent the word hobbit. It was used in relation to fairy folk before he wrote the book.



4 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Oh, what a relief to find someone else who is not a Tolkien fan, jams!

jams o donnell said...

Most certainly not Welshcakes!

CherryPie said...

I do like the Tolkien fantasy world. But I am totally against the copyright stupidity.

Tolkien what not have wanted any of that nonsense.

I like the overall premise of the stories. I don't like all of the scenes/scenarios in the books.

When I talk with other people they don't like all the scenes/scenarios in the book either but they find different points of the book (than I do) interesting. Parts of the book I have glossed over.

I suspect that means there is something in there for everyone...

jams o donnell said...

If you like Tolkein that's fine by me too.Personally I found it grating