Ryuu96 said:
Damnit. You're right, The Silmarillion is mostly first age stories. I didn't know that Zaentz had access to first age stuff too though, I thought they only had stuff from the 3rd age but they could mention past events if those events were mentioned in the books they acquired the rights too, isn't The Silmarillion/Unfinished Tale still owned by Tolkien Estate? Variety first reported that the rights were up for sale for $2bn! How did Embracer get them this cheaply? How did the others let them? Lol. The only thing I can think of in Amazon's case is they were reluctant due to the MGM acquisition needing to pass regulation. |
Apparently Zaentz Co. has matching rights to all material published past the 1976 deal. I suppose it'll boil down to the specific clauses if that still makes it viable for third parties to directly petition the Tolkien Estate for Silmarillion/UT stuff.
Looks like Amazon felt that wasn't the case, and combined with TE's past lawsuits, I'd guess the terms aren't favorable to them, but who knows. It's a mess, really.
