"AGE OF THE HOBBITS": Asylum finally sued for making ripoff movies

[Dream]

LOS ANGELES (CN) - The studios behind "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "The Hobbit" sued a production company that specializes in knockoffs to try to stop release of its straight-to-DVD movie, "Age of the Hobbits."
Warner Bros. Entertainment, New Line Cinema, New Line Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and The Saul Zaentz Co. sued Global Asylum aka The Asylum of Burbank, in Federal Court.
The major studios say Asylum intends to release its low-budget movie just three days before filmmaker Peter Jackson's first "Hobbit" movie opens in the United States, on Dec. 14.
The Asylum hopes to profit from "consumer confusion," get a "free ride on the worldwide advertising campaign" and "divert customers and potential customers away" from the major studios' film, according to the complaint.
"The Asylum's advertising for its low-budget knockoff also has been and is confusingly similar to advertising for and images from the plaintiffs' copyrighted films and trademarked products, including the font and style in which the titles appear and the overall look and feel of the images depicted in the artwork and packaging," the 35-page complaint states.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/11/09/52146.htm

YES! It has finally happened. I hope this means Asylum will finally stop making those crap ripoff movies.

[Aragorn]

This isn't the first time. Fox tried to sue them for The Day the Earth Stopped but nothing came of it. Universal did sue them and get them to change the title of their movie that had Battleship in it though.

[Hound of UIster]

Hobbits however are not in the public domain.

It's why DnD resorted to renaming them Halflings.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

thought hobbits were an actual word and there is actually records fo a species that were basically hobbits?
In any case I hope Asylum wins this one.

[Orac]

Surely there must be some kind of precedent for this case, or did no-one ever sue Roger Corman?

[Alidar Jarok]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

---

thought hobbits were an actual word and there is actually records fo a species that were basically hobbits?
In any case I hope Asylum wins this one.

I don't think the test for copyright infringement/dilution begins or ends with whether or not the title uses a real word.

[Venardhi]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

---

thought hobbits were an actual word and there is actually records fo a species that were basically hobbits?
In any case I hope Asylum wins this one.

There was a recent hominid species (Homo florensiensis) that might have resembled Hobbits, but the articles that compared them were mostly using it for "REAL LIFE HOBBIT" catchy headlines, they wouldn't have actually been hobbits any more than Gigantophithecus makes Sasquatch real.

[Mr. Adventure]

I thought it'd be trademark infringement. They should've went all the way and called it "Lord of the Hobbits".

It'll be interesting to see where this leads, Asylum makes a lot of crap but I'm curious from a legal standpoint where they stand. Of course, I don't think the legal fees can stretch too far for Asylum before it simply isn't profitable to fight, right or not.

[Candlelight]

Considering Warner Brothers took over parts of the New Zealand government to make The Hobbit trilogy I'm not surprised about this.

Seriously, they did:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...-on-Government

[Admiral Buzzkill]

A lot of Asylum's stuff is more entertaining than the big budget crapfests they springboard off of.

[Mr. Adventure]

^ Any examples?

[JD]

I've honestly been amazed that they've been able to get away with such blatant ripoffs for so long.

[throwback]

A New Zealand professor has been banned by Saul Zaentz Company/Middle-earth Enterprises from using the word 'hobbit' in his lecture on Homo florensiensis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...istoric-hobbit

[LaxScrutiny]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

---

thought hobbits were an actual word and there is actually records fo a species that were basically hobbits?
In any case I hope Asylum wins this one.

Tolkien came up with word as a derivitive of "Hobgoblin." I believe there was also a word "Hobb" in some dialects. "Hobbit" is definately a creation of Tolkien.

[Candlelight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit_%28word%29