words by JRRT
Jan. 6th, 2011 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacAbout a month ago, I met a fellow who claimed to be knowledgeable about Tolkien-inspired music. Since that is a field I know something about myself, I was interested in what he had to say, but one thing he said startled me. He stated that the Tolkien Ensemble (a Danish folk/classical group that's issued four CDs which, between them, set every poem in The Lord of the Rings) are the only musicians authorized to use Tolkien's own lyrics in their music. We're not talking about instrumental music, or lyrics of one's own that reference Tolkien's work, but musical settings of Tolkien's own poems.
Well, that's certainly not true, I said. Besides the estimable Broceliande and their lovely album of Tolkien settings, The Starlit Jewel, I have another half-dozen CDs with song settings of Tolkien's poetry, going all the way back to Donald Swann's The Road Goes Ever On recorded in the 1960s. And they all received permission to use Tolkien's words; certainly Broceliande did, because they had to re-negotiate to re-release their album, which was out of print for a while; and Swann received his permission from Tolkien personally, way back when.
I have, however, just come across something which might explain where this fellow got the idea that the Tolkien Ensemble was the only one. In the December issue of the Tolkien fanzine Beyond Bree (I'm behind on my reading) is a statement from the Tolkien Estate to the effect that "Some years ago, and with some regret, the decision was taken by the Tolkien Estate that it would not grant any further permissions for the setting of Professor Tolkien's words to music." It goes on to say that they simply lacked time to listen to samples of the enormous number of requests to decide what was suitable for licensing.
So perhaps what he'd heard was that, in the later stages of their recording project, the Ensemble was the only group still authorized to make new settings. I don't know, but that might make sense.
As for the policy itself: the suitability part I don't have any trouble with. Anybody licensing a copyrighted or trademarked product to outside entrepreneurs will have some standards below which they will say no. They may not always make the right decision (Apple and the Pulitzer-prize-winning cartoonist's iphone app), but they have the right to make it.
But aside from that ... I find this more than unfortunate, it's tragic. And I say this as someone with no beef with the Tolkien Estate; my dealings with them have been cordial, and I've even done some writing for their nascent website and been paid for it. It may be, as the statement says, evenhanded, but evenhanded unfairness is not superior to favoritism. And there are ways around the problem of high volume. There's triage: some submissions look serious, others are just casual goofballs. Or a first sorting of work could be subcontracted to a slushpile reader. Science fiction magazines do that. It'd be pretty silly for one to cease publication because they didn't have time to read the submissions, and not merely because they're in the business of publishing the stories themselves and not just authorizing someone else to publish them. I'd be willing to be a slushpile listener myself in the classical and folk realms: I'm qualified to do it on both Tolkienist and musical grounds.
It's a further shame that the dead hand of the author can extend this far. Tolkien has been dead for over 37 years now, and The Lord of the Rings was published 55 years ago. One would have to be pretty venerable now to have read it when it was new. It's become part of our lasting culture, and it's time for it to be let out into the commons. I'm all in favor of strict enforcement of copyright, but that has to be coupled with some kind of limitation of its scope. Copyright has gotten out of hand in two mutually contradictory directions at once - it's violated with impunity, and it's extended with impunity - and this really has to stop. If The Starlit Jewel were being made today, it couldn't be released. What a loss that would be. To squash legitimate creativity this way is gruesome. Imagine if they treated visual artwork that way.
(One point needs to be set aside now, though. When Tolkien wrote that he'd intended to offer his mythology to "other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama," he was referring to filling in deliberate holes in a sketchy preliminary version of the Silmarillion, not to adapting a finished novel like The Lord of the Rings; he had not yet seen what ridiculous versions dramatizers of his novel would write, which changed his mind about a lot of things real fast, though also harking back to comments he'd made about dramatization in "On Fairy-Stories"; and he finally decided that his original offer to put his work out for the folk process had been overweening and, to use his own word, "absurd.")
Well, that's certainly not true, I said. Besides the estimable Broceliande and their lovely album of Tolkien settings, The Starlit Jewel, I have another half-dozen CDs with song settings of Tolkien's poetry, going all the way back to Donald Swann's The Road Goes Ever On recorded in the 1960s. And they all received permission to use Tolkien's words; certainly Broceliande did, because they had to re-negotiate to re-release their album, which was out of print for a while; and Swann received his permission from Tolkien personally, way back when.
I have, however, just come across something which might explain where this fellow got the idea that the Tolkien Ensemble was the only one. In the December issue of the Tolkien fanzine Beyond Bree (I'm behind on my reading) is a statement from the Tolkien Estate to the effect that "Some years ago, and with some regret, the decision was taken by the Tolkien Estate that it would not grant any further permissions for the setting of Professor Tolkien's words to music." It goes on to say that they simply lacked time to listen to samples of the enormous number of requests to decide what was suitable for licensing.
So perhaps what he'd heard was that, in the later stages of their recording project, the Ensemble was the only group still authorized to make new settings. I don't know, but that might make sense.
As for the policy itself: the suitability part I don't have any trouble with. Anybody licensing a copyrighted or trademarked product to outside entrepreneurs will have some standards below which they will say no. They may not always make the right decision (Apple and the Pulitzer-prize-winning cartoonist's iphone app), but they have the right to make it.
But aside from that ... I find this more than unfortunate, it's tragic. And I say this as someone with no beef with the Tolkien Estate; my dealings with them have been cordial, and I've even done some writing for their nascent website and been paid for it. It may be, as the statement says, evenhanded, but evenhanded unfairness is not superior to favoritism. And there are ways around the problem of high volume. There's triage: some submissions look serious, others are just casual goofballs. Or a first sorting of work could be subcontracted to a slushpile reader. Science fiction magazines do that. It'd be pretty silly for one to cease publication because they didn't have time to read the submissions, and not merely because they're in the business of publishing the stories themselves and not just authorizing someone else to publish them. I'd be willing to be a slushpile listener myself in the classical and folk realms: I'm qualified to do it on both Tolkienist and musical grounds.
It's a further shame that the dead hand of the author can extend this far. Tolkien has been dead for over 37 years now, and The Lord of the Rings was published 55 years ago. One would have to be pretty venerable now to have read it when it was new. It's become part of our lasting culture, and it's time for it to be let out into the commons. I'm all in favor of strict enforcement of copyright, but that has to be coupled with some kind of limitation of its scope. Copyright has gotten out of hand in two mutually contradictory directions at once - it's violated with impunity, and it's extended with impunity - and this really has to stop. If The Starlit Jewel were being made today, it couldn't be released. What a loss that would be. To squash legitimate creativity this way is gruesome. Imagine if they treated visual artwork that way.
(One point needs to be set aside now, though. When Tolkien wrote that he'd intended to offer his mythology to "other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama," he was referring to filling in deliberate holes in a sketchy preliminary version of the Silmarillion, not to adapting a finished novel like The Lord of the Rings; he had not yet seen what ridiculous versions dramatizers of his novel would write, which changed his mind about a lot of things real fast, though also harking back to comments he'd made about dramatization in "On Fairy-Stories"; and he finally decided that his original offer to put his work out for the folk process had been overweening and, to use his own word, "absurd.")
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I'm so glad you wrote this!
Date: 2011-01-07 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 02:50 am (UTC)