#legality of fanworks
A Sudden Outcry: The Tolkien Estate and Fanworks | Silmarillion Writers’ Guild
This article is part of our new column Cultus Dispatches, which looks at the history and culture of Tolkien fandom.
—
A Sudden Outcry: The Tolkien Estate and Fanworks
When the Tolkien Estate recently presented their newly revamped website, it did not take fans long to see past the new artwork and other features to find that the Tolkien Estate has a policy on fanworks. The past several days have seen a whirl of discussion about what it all means that can be distilled down to a single burning question:
Did the Tolkien Estate just ban fanworks?
In short, no, the Tolkien Estate did not just ban fanworks. The fanworks you have posted, are in the middle of creating, or are even thinking about creating are not affected by what the Estate says on their website.
The longer answer depends on if you’re interested in the just or the ban part of that question (or maybe both!). While the following is not legal advice, we hope it will lessen the worry that the existence of fanworks is in jeopardy. As always, bear in mind that laws vary from country to country. If you have specific concerns, the Organization for Transformative Works’ legal committee, while unable to give legal advice, can answer questions you might have.
The History of the Tolkien Estate and Fanworks
For the majority of its existence, the Tolkien Estate website has addressed fanworks in its FAQ. The Tolkien Estate opened its website in 2006, and for its first year, it was little more than a landing page with information on the (then) new book The Children of Húrin. Around April 2007, the site expanded considerably, and fanworks were addressed for the first time:
If you reblogged the original panic over the Tolkien Estate, please help by reblogging this and stopping the spread of misinformation.
