Hmm.
Yeah, I thought about this a bit more.
There are definitely cases where I've seen elves ripped off so thoroughly that it was clear the author put zero thought into them as a race/species, lifting them straight out of Rivendel. That's obviously not cool.
However, I don't think most instances of elves as Tall Fair Folk hit that bar of being straight-up lifted. I don't see very many instances of "names, culture, historical features" being taken from Middle Earth, and that would OBVIOUSLY be unacceptable.
> I'm pretty sure the IP law is settled on that matter, isn't it?
Yeah, it sure is! The owners of the Tolkien empire are quite active about pursuing litigation against those who infringe upon their rights. They even win a lot of cases! However, I've yet to hear of a storm of litigation sweeping through the fantasy writing industry involving them going after theft of species in peoples' stories. I'd be super, super interested to see some cases where this has happened, if you believe it's been settled some other way.
Yeah, I thought about this a bit more.
There are definitely cases where I've seen elves ripped off so thoroughly that it was clear the author put zero thought into them as a race/species, lifting them straight out of Rivendel. That's obviously not cool.
However, I don't think most instances of elves as Tall Fair Folk hit that bar of being straight-up lifted. I don't see very many instances of "names, culture, historical features" being taken from Middle Earth, and that would OBVIOUSLY be unacceptable.
> I'm pretty sure the IP law is settled on that matter, isn't it?
Yeah, it sure is! The owners of the Tolkien empire are quite active about pursuing litigation against those who infringe upon their rights. They even win a lot of cases! However, I've yet to hear of a storm of litigation sweeping through the fantasy writing industry involving them going after theft of species in peoples' stories. I'd be super, super interested to see some cases where this has happened, if you believe it's been settled some other way.