HP Lexicon vs. Encyclopedia of Arda

[Lee Kaiwen]

Alla:

> Actually, you are right, his instinct may have told him that and
> there was that e-mail from fan asking whether they could publish
> encyclopedia ...

> And Steve's answer was to the effect that it was illegal, 
 > wasn't it?

I'm not going to get into this discussion because I don't know Steve, I 
didn't here the interview, I haven't seen the LC discussions, and I 
don't know the history between RDR and Steve.

Rather, I'm mindful of another site in nearly the same position as 
Steve's -- the Encyclopedia of Arda, an encyclopedia of all things 
Tolkien. It's very similar to Steve's site in that it's an encyclopedia 
of entries with summaries, descriptions and citations from Tolkien's 
published works. It's been around for years, and its disclaimer 
specifically states it is not authorized by or affiliated with the 
Tolkien estate.

While the EA has never attempted to publish a hard copy, it does sell a 
CD of itself which includes all site content in an offline interactive 
format. That is, it is actually *selling* Tolkien content. And yet I'm 
not aware that it has ever been bothered by the Tolkien estate. 
(Conversely, I've not seen anything that explicitly indicates the 
Tolkien estate is aware of the site, but that would seem rather unlikely 
that it weren't.)

Does the Encyclopedia of Arda stand or fall with Steve, or is it a 
qualitively different case? If so, why?

--CJ