In a recent development, a California federal judge granted Amazon and J.R.R. Tolkien’s heirs lawyer fees to the tune of $134,000. This conclusion followed a lawsuit that had been previously dismissed by the same judge who labelled the litigation as “frivolous”. The litigation in question was initiated by a fan-fiction writer who had endeavored to write a sequel to “The Lord of the Rings”.
The claimant-plaintiff had accused both Amazon and Tolkien estate of committing copyright infringement. This occurred suspending the fan’s literary endeavor. However, the judge presiding over the case found the claims’ “fantasticality” stark and dismissed the copyright infringement claim.
The judge’s decision to award the claimed attorney fees to the Tolkien estate and Amazon is a representation of the level of merit they found in the lawsuit. This will likely serve as a notable precedent for future fan-fiction writers and their approach to expanding upon copyrighted works.
Details of this legal decision and its potential implications can be found in the article by Law360.