Very OT: Lord of the Rings

[catorman]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "sineadsiobhan" <sinead at b...> wrote:
> I remember in the chat we were talking about how Tolkien would have 
not 
> liked the movie made. I know dead people don't have rights but do 
their 
> relatives have rights as well? 

If I recall correctly from my copyright law studies (dubious), then 
copyright expires 50 years after the writer has died.  I think that 
at some point (probably in the 70s) this number changed to 25 years 
and then shortly after, back again, meaning that for a short period 
of time the market was flooded with books/prints (such as the Arthur 
Rackham Alice prints) which were much cheaper because they were 
outside the scope of copyright.

After a writer's death, and up until the copyright expires, the 
rights can be inherited by whoever the writer nominates, so, unless 
the copyright had been sold, they would have sole control.

Did JRRT's son sell the movie rights?  He could have approved the 
film in theory, but not have negotiated such a good deal as JKR and 
therefore not had as much input into the adaptation itself.

Catherine