Amazon and JRR Tolkien’s Estate have won a legal battle against a fan fiction author who used material from The Lord of the Rings to produce a sequel.
In 2022, Demetrious Polychron published a “pitch-perfect sequel” to The Lord of the Rings titled The Fellowship of the King. The book was intended to be the first in a seven-part series.
He then filed a suit against Amazon and the Tolkien Estate in April 2023, claiming the streaming platform’s The Rings of Power spinoff series took from his book and thus infringed his copyright.
Polychron’s lawsuit backfired when Amazon and the Tolkien Estate countersued him for copyright infringement in June, with his lawsuit being dismissed in August.
California judge ruled in the estate’s favor and ordered Polychron to destroy all copies of his works, as well as granting a permanent injunction that prevents him from further distributing The Fellowship of the King or his second work, The Two Trees.
Additionally, Polychron was ordered to pay $134,000 in attorney’s fees to Amazon and the Tolkien estate.
UK solicitor Steven Maier of Maier Blackburn later spoke about the decision on behalf of the estate.
“This is an important success for the Tolkien Estate, which will not permit unauthorized authors and publishers to monetize J.R.R. Tolkien’s much-loved works in this way,” he said.
“This case involved a series infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on a commercial basis, and the estate hopes that the award of a permanent injunction and attorneys’ fees will be sufficient to dissuade others who may have similar intentions.
