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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Film rights to LOTR
Message-ID: <398@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-May-84 05:56:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.398
Posted: Tue May 22 05:56:01 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 23-May-84 08:53:30 EDT
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 26

> As best I know, here is what happened with _The Lord of The Rings_
>
> First of all, there is a matter of film rights.  Ralph Bakshi was
> given the rights to _The Fellowship of the Ring_ and _The Two Towers_,
> whereas Rankin/Bass got the rights to _The Hobbit_ and _The Return of
> the King_.  Bakshi had planned to get the rights to RotK, but failed.
> -- 
>				-The Parker Hobbit
>				 a.k.a. Thomas R. Pellitieri

No, I'm afraid that that isn't the case. Bakshi *did* have rights to the entire
LOTR, though you're right that he did not have rights to THE HOBBIT. The reason
Rankin/Bass were able to do THE RETURN OF THE KING was the same reason that Ace
Books was able to publish an edition of the 3 books of LOTR in the middle 60's
(ever wonder why the Ballantine editions say "Authorized Edition"?). It seems
that the first edition of LOTR, published in the 1950's did not have a proper
copyright (rather than Houghton-Mifflin printing their own edition, they import-
ed copies of the Unwin edition from England and bound them here). At the time,
this did not qualify the book for an American copyright, so that edition fell
into public domain. It is from *that* edition that Rankin/Bass did their version
of RETURN OF THE KING (and Ace Books did their unauthorized paperbacks).

				  --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard, MA)

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