Warner and Tolkien Estate settled a lawsuit for 80 million dollars!

Tolkien Estate (a legal entity that manages the property of the English writer, the legendary author of the popular novel John Ronald Ruel Tolkien) grounded a lawsuit against the Warner Bros. film studio by the fact that the company did not have the right to give the license for using this intellectual property in the gambling industry.

In 2012, Tolkien Estate together with the publisher Harper Collins sued the film studio Warner Bros, accusing them of unauthorised use of personages, images and other intellectual property related to Tolkien’s famous works The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit. Warner gave a license to Microgaming software developer for casinos to create video slots on the basis of the Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

While Warner refers to a contract with Tolkien Estate, the Tolkien estate claimed that the deal covered only the sale of “tangible” goods without the “morally questionable (and decidedly non-literary) world of online casinos and gambling in the casino.”

It’s funny that Tolkien Estate did not react to the thing that gamblers played on Gollum until some years after the company Microgaming gave a license to Warner. It is reported that the lawyer of Tolkien Estate “felt the sight of Sauron” only after receiving an advertising promo message in the e-mail about the slot The Lord of the Rings.

Microgaming quickly withdrew a controversial UK slot from the industry, but the lawsuit required the restoration of property rights and the preservation of Tolkien’s good name, as well as a refund of damages in $ 80 million for allegedly “outraged Tolkien’s devoted fan base.”

Warner Bros. together with the producer of the New Line Cinema film production and the owner of the rights to The Hobbit Saul Zaentz Co was pleased to state that Tolkien estate violated the terms of the contract and cost the studio incalculable millions for not allowing to license the casino name in order to capitalize the release of the first film The Hobbit in 2012.

The trial was settled this week through an out-of-court settlement without disclosing the terms, except that the parties “amicably” reached an agreement on the termination of all claims and counterclaims. Further, the settlement indicates that neither party of the dispute has the right to collect fees or costs and that the parties are eager to work together in future, believing that this time all lawyers will pay more attention to the small print of the treaty.