Fantasy author sued Amazon for 250 million – and now it’s his own turn
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel Rings of Power is said to cost over $1 billion. The five-season series is likely to be the most expensive of all time. Amazon is said to have paid the Tolkien heirs $250 million for the rights alone.
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The fantasy author Demetrious Polychron, who specializes in fan fiction, wants the same amount of money from Amazon. In April, he sued the company for copyright infringement.
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The accusation: Amazon stole parts of the plot and figures for the Prime Video series “Rings of Power” from Polychron’s fan fiction.
Specifically, it is about the polychronic book “The Fellowship of the King: The War of the Rings”, which will be published in September 2022. This should be an independent work of fantasy authors. But it is probably based on the world created by JRR Tolkien around “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.
This is now becoming a problem for Polychron. The Tolkien heirs themselves have filed a lawsuit against Polychron in federal court in Los Angeles, as Bloomberglaw writes.
The author is accused of having written and marketed an unauthorized sequel to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. A fair number of copyrighted elements from the Tolkien world would be used in the book.
Among them should be 15 verbatim poems and other copied passages. Plus hundreds of original characters and the basis of the plot of the Tolkien trilogy.
In its lawsuit against Amazon, Polychron asserted that it was inspired by Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. With the book, however, a completely independent work was created.
According to the lawsuit of the Tolkien heirs, Polychron is said to have tried to license his stories from the Tolkien heirs as early as 2017. But they refused.
Incidentally, the community of heirs and their lawyers had already tracked down Polychron and his book before his lawsuit against Amazon and had tried to contact him several times in March and April 2023. However, Polychron apologized by pointing out that he was unable to hold talks due to various illnesses.
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According to their own statements, the Tolkien heirs were correspondingly surprised when they found out about the lawsuit filed against Amazon shortly afterwards. It is not known how much money is involved in the current lawsuit against Polychron.
It’s also unclear whether Polychron actually believed it could get through the lawsuit against Amazon. The book can no longer be found on Amazon Movie pilot writes. A corresponding declaration of discontinuance should be responsible for this.
Let’s see if and what the heirs and Polychron will ultimately agree on or what verdict a court will pass. The amount of a possible payment certainly also depends on how often Polychron’s book has been sold.
