J.R.R Tolkien's estate and HarperCollins filed an $80 million lawsuit against Warner Bros., charging the studio, its New Line subsidiary and the Saul Zaentz Company's Middle-earth Enterprises division with copyright infringement and breach of contract regarding "merchandising that the estate says was never anticipated as part of its original deal back in 1969," Deadline.com reported.
According to the complaint, "The original contracting parties thus contemplated a limited grant of the right to sell consumer products of the type regularly merchandised at the time (such as figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing and the like). They did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services."
The lawsuit does not involve Peter Jackson's Hobbit film trilogy, which Warner Bros. distributes, since the Tolkien Estate, HarperCollins and New Line came to an out-of-court settlement in 2009 over studio profits from the Lord of the Rings movies.
