Country Squire's Middle Earth Series to be Renamed.

[DesertDan]

Well, it looks like Country Squire has run afoul of the licensing Nazgul and will have to reissue their Middle Earth blends under different names.
I can't help but think that the good professor would be disappointed, I certainly am.

But at least the blends will be reissued after a short absence.

It seems the world gets more petty and ridiculous by the day.
I sure hope The Ring goes into the fire soon.

 

[DeaconPiper]

Shame. Old Toby is my favorite aromatic, hands down. However, I don't care what they call it, it'll always be Old Toby to me.

 

[Servant King]

It seems the world gets more petty and ridiculous by the day.

Ain't that the truth!

 

[DesertDan]

Shame. Old Toby is my favorite aromatic, hand's down. However, I don't care what they call it, he'll always be Old Toby to me.

Indeed. My tobacco jars will continue to be labeled with their Middle Earth names.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel

 

[Peter Turbo]

It seems the world gets more petty and ridiculous by the day.
I sure hope The Ring goes into the fire soon.

The Tolkien Estate is particularly ravenous when it comes to protecting the IP and I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. This is nothing new.

Its just too bad they couldn’t protect it from Amazon making The Rings of Power….what garbage.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Well, it looks like Country Squire has run afoul of the licensing Nazgul and will have to reissue their Middle Earth blends under different names.
I can't help but think that the good professor would be disappointed, I certainly am.

But at least the blends will be reissued after a short absence.

It seems the world gets more petty and ridiculous by the day.
I sure hope The Ring goes into the fire soon.

Not petty to enforce copyright, marks and so forth - take action or lose the protection. Hopefully they come up with something humorous that still identifies with the books.

 

[Chasing Embers]

It seems the world gets more petty and ridiculous by the day.

Not at all. Marketing off of someone else's intellectual property is a violation of trademark laws. Vauen had to do the same with their pipes.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Its just too bad they couldn’t protect it from Amazon making The Rings of Power….what garbage.

Just a quote as I've never read the books or watched any of the movies.

"THE TOLKIEN ESTATE APPROVES THE RINGS OF POWER

Christopher Tolkien passed away in 2020. Simon Tolkien is now the head of the Tolkien Estate. The Estate’s approval of Amazon’s production could be that it is (in their opinion) “truer” to Tolkien or because a different family member is now at the helm. Perhaps they decided being involved would put them in a position to help shape the end product. Either way, they have given their blessing to this production — and they are actively involved. They can veto anything they don’t like; which presumably means if the team at Prime Video stray into Silmarillion territory, they’ll get their wrists slapped!"

 

[jguss]

Its just too bad they couldn’t protect it from Amazon making The Rings of Power….what garbage.

The estate negotiated a deal paying it up to a quarter of a billion dollars. I think it can take care of itself. I’d say Amazon’s the one who came away with its ass handed to it. The Forbes review of their “adaptation” says it all:

It fails as an adaptation, neither enriching Tolkien's work nor remaining true to it.

 

[jguss]

By the way, anyone who thinks Tolkien wasn’t willing to sacrifice faithfulness to his source material for a big enough payday hasn’t read his letters. Was he insanely possessive and compulsive about the details of his legendarium? Yes. Would he have turned a blind eye for a huge pile of cash? Yes.

Stanley U. [Unwin, his publisher] & I have agreed on our policy : Art or Cash. Either very profitable terms indeed; or absolute author’s veto on objectionable features or alterations.

Letter #202, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

 

[scloyd]

I've never read the books or watched any of the movies.

Same here. I thought I was the only one

 

[bluegrassbrian]

I never understood the obsession with fantasy. It must have really resonated with a lot of people.

 

[Indygrap]

Not petty to enforce copyright, marks and so forth - take action or lose the protection. Hopefully they come up with something humorous that still identifies with the books.

I see this in my industry (brewing) all the time. Especially since everyone is making sour “beer” with candy added. They can use whatever candy they like, but you’re not allowed to use the brand name on the label or descriptions. It usually isn’t malicious. It’s more a case of “if we let one group get away with it, we have to let everyone get away with it.”

 

[jguss]

I think the concept of intellectual property is hazy to some people. Because it’s intangible there’s a feeling that unlike, say a car, it’s ok to use it without permission. Which in my view is like saying because something is easier to swipe and tougher to get caught it’s ok. I think if the skeptics had ever actually created something they’d feel differently about infringement. Hell, I suspect even the Country Squire would feel aggrieved if another firm started issuing identical blends with identical names.

 

[The Amish Tyrant]

I think the concept of intellectual property is hazy to some people. Because it’s intangible there’s a feeling that unlike, say a car, it’s ok to use it without permission. Which in my view is like saying because something is easier to swipe and tougher to get caught it’s ok. I think if the skeptics had ever actually created something they’d feel differently about infringement. Hell, I suspect even the Country Squire would feel aggrieved if another firm started issuing identical blends with identical names.

Well, there goes my idea for the Country Esquire tobacco shop, One Store to Rule Them All. What a buzz kill on a Monday morning.

People will try to monetize anything. Doing so on names or products that already exist is low hanging fruit with dire financial consequences.

Surprised Country Squire was able to fly under the radar for so long.

 

[pappymac]

I think the concept of intellectual property is hazy to some people. Because it’s intangible there’s a feeling that unlike, say a car, it’s ok to use it without permission. Which in my view is like saying because something is easier to swipe and tougher to get caught it’s ok. I think if the skeptics had ever actually created something they’d feel differently about infringement. Hell, I suspect even the Country Squire would feel aggrieved if another firm started issuing identical blends with identical names.

Good points.

One of the problems I have is that some of the names used are names for things in mythology and legends pre-dating LOTR books.
For example, Mirkwood and Green Dragon were used before Tolkien was born.

"The term Mirkwood derives from the forest Myrkviðr of Norse mythology; that forest has been identified by scholars as representing a wooded region of Ukraine at the time of the wars between the Goths and the Huns in the fourth century. A Mirkwood was used by the novelist Sir Walter Scott in his 1814 novel Waverley, and then by William Morris in his 1889 fantasy novel The House of the Wolfings."

The Green Dragon Tavern was in Boston and was a meeting place for Freemasons and the Sons of Liberty.
There were also a couple of Green Dragon Taverns in England before Tolkien was born.
The Green Serpent (or dragon) was a fairytale published in France in the 1698.

There are other TCS blends that they probably could have kept if they wanted to fight it. I guess they figured it was easier and cheaper to just change the names.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

People will try to monetize anything. Doing so on names or products that already exist is low hanging fruit with dire financial consequences.

Remember "Hobbit's Weed"? It was a goopy cherry vanilla blend a few years back. Guys that compulsively hated on aromatics would buy Hobbit's Weed to feel more connected to LOTR, as if Hobbits would smoke an aromatic, ha ha.

Sort of like these company keeping blends like Balkan Sobranie, Erinmore, and Escudo alive by just putting anything they want into the tin and slapping the vintage label on them to make a buck off of the unsuspecting suckers. Then guys would smoke these and feel some sort of connection to smokers of antiquity. Meanwhile, they aren't even close to the same blends.

It's not really fair marketing.

 

[jguss]

It's not really fair marketing.

Perhaps, but perfectly legal. In the cases I’m familiar with the manufacturers had taken over abandoned trademarks and had become their legal owners. Trademark rights are contingent on continued usage (and required registration and renewals) or they lapse.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Perhaps, but perfectly legal. In the cases I’m familiar with the manufacturers had taken over abandoned trademarks and had become their legal owners. Trademark rights are contingent on continued usage (and required registration and renewals) or they lapse.

Right, and that's why I said "fair" and didn't use "legal".
I can legally buy the rights to use the name "RedCake 5200" (hypothetically). But, if I then released a Vanilla aromatic under that name, it would be legal, but not fair.

 

[jguss]

Right, and that's why I said "fair" and didn't use "legal".
I can legally buy the rights to use the name "RedCake 5200" (hypothetically). But, if I then released a Vanilla aromatic under that name, it would be legal, but not fair.

The problem of course is that while we have a system, grievously flawed though it may be, to determine what’s legal we have no such mechanism to determine what’s fair. It’s hard enough to get any three people to agree on where to have lunch; it’d be impossible to get a consensus on what constitutes fair.