Lawsuits

This article lists most of the lawsuits or legal actions relating to J.R.R. Tolkien and his works.

Domain disputes

jrrtolkien.com

• Dispute: JRR Tolkien Estate Limited v. Network Operations Center, Alberta Hot Rods [1]
• Summary: No attempt of non-commercial use of the domain was made.
• Outcome: The Tolkien Estate wins control of the domain.

tolkien.net

• Dispute: JRR Tolkien Estate Limited v. tolkien.net [2]
• Summary: There was no attempt by the owner to create an actual Tolkien-related website, thus it was assumed the owner was hoping to profit by most likely selling the domain.
• Outcome:The Tolkien Estate wins control of the domain.

shiremail.com

• Dispute: JRR Tolkien Estate v. Tarrant Costelloe [3] [4]
• Summary: The email service was not free and thus attempting to profit from Tolkien's works.
• Outcome: The domain name expired and now just displays advertisements.

lotrfanclub.com

• Dispute: The Saul Zaentz Company v. Siarhei Chyzhevich [5]
• Summary: After the The Lord of the Rings Fan Club was shut down by Decipher, they forgot to renew the domain name, lotrfanclub.com, after expiration a pornographic snatched up the domain.
• Outcome: Tolkien Enterprises wins control of the domain.

hobbit.es

• Dispute: The Saul Zaentz Company doing business as Tolkien Enterprises v. Marc Rodríguez Negro [6]
• Summary: Not a non-commercial site.
• Outcome: Tolkien Enterprises wins control of the domain.

Image disputes

fan.theonering.net/rolozo

(Ryan Lovett)

• Date: June 14, 2004
• Dispute: Tolkien Estate asked webmaster to remove all maps.
• Outcome: All maps were removed.

tolkienion.com & tolkien-maps.com

(Steven White)

• Date: June 16, 2004
• Dispute: Tolkien Estate asked website to remove material that infringes their copyrights, specifically the maps.
• Outcome: Website complied and removed maps.

lotrmaps.cjb.net & lotrmaps.middle-earth.us

(Jeroen Backx)

• Dispute: Tolkien Estate asked website to remove copyright infringing maps.
• Outcome: Website complies and shuts down.

7up.org/gecko/gallery2

(Jonatan Alvarsson)

• Dispute: Tolkien Estate asked website to remove copyright infringing maps.
• Outcome: Website complies and removes Tolkien-related maps.

isildur.com

• Dispute: Tolkien Estate asked website to remove copyright infringing maps.
• Outcome: Website complies and removes maps section.

Content disputes

merp.com

• Dispute: Tolkien Enterprises asked website to remove all material relating to ICE Roleplaying material.
• Outcome: Website complied and removed material.

esnips.com

• Dispute: The Tolkien Estate asked the website to remove PDFs of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion from their website. The Estate also asked the website to hand over information on all of the users who downloaded the books.
• Outcome: The website complied, removed the PDFs, the Estate went on to "politely and firmly" ask the downloaders to stop. [7]

shirepost.com

• Dispute: Tolkien Enterprises asked the website to remove all Tolkien-related information and cease selling their Tolkien-related coins.
• Outcome: The website initially complied and ceased selling coins, and then became officially licensed.

Legal use of names

• Cirith Ungol — In 1981, when contacting Tolkien Enterprises about the legal use of their band name, the Saul Zeantz company informed the band that they have “no objection to your use of the term CIRITH UNGOL as the name of your musical group on the conditions that you not use any other names, characters or places from THE LORD OF THE RINGS or THE HOBBIT in your material”.

Illegal use of names

• The Saul Zaentz Company and Middle-Earth Enterprises, LLC v. Fro-Dough, LLC (an attempt at registering 'self-serve frozen yogurt shop services' as well as 'Doughnut shops in the nature of a restaurant' failed (April 2025)

Books

• The Tolkien Trust et al v. Polychron - Demetrious Polychron was accused of writing and selling an unauthorized sequel to The Lord of the Rings entitled, "The Fellowship of the King" on June 1, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA. Case #2:2023cv04300