It’s a plot not unlike the Sméagol/Gollum arc in Lord of the Rings.

In Tolkien’s novel, the character of Sméagol steals the One Ring from his cousin Déagol after strangling him. Sméagol becomes obsessed by the ring to an unhealthy degree, eventually morphing into the haggard gremlin known as Gollum. Gollum loses the ring to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, or rather the One Ring chose Bilbo to take it. After finding it missing, Gollum begins an obsessive journey to steal back the Ring that was never his to begin with.

Someone else who stole what was never his to begin with is writer Demetrious Polychron (which may or may not be his real name) who took the characters and stories in the series of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novels Lord of the Rings and used them to write a book published in April 2023. That book was called The Fellowship of the King, a mere letter away from Tolkein’s book titled The Fellowship of the Ring.

The US-based author, who planned to make his book the first in a seven part series, then audaciously filed suit against both Amazon and the Tolkien estate, claiming the streaming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had borrowed from his sequel and infringed his copyright. Polychron sought $250 million in damages.

The suit, which also named Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as a defendant, was filed in April of this year, coinciding with the release of Polychron’s book. For reference, the Amazon Prime series based on Tolkein’s work (and made with the blessing of the author’s estate,) debuted in September of 2022.

The Tolkein Estate naturally countersued Polychron for infringing on their well-documented copyright, and this week a California judge put an end to Polychron’s claims, dismissing his suit and ordering him to pay $134,637 in attorney’s fees to both Amazon and Tolkien.

In making the order, Judge Steven V. Wilson noted the “fantasticality” of the Polychron’s claim for copyright protection given his book is entirely based on characters in The Lord of the Rings, calling it “unreasonable” and “frivolous from the beginning.”

The court also ruled that Polychron must stop distributing copies of the book and destroy all physical and electronic copies,  and he must file a declaration, under penalty of perjury, that he has complied with said order. 

(This is the part of the analogy where Gollum metaphorically throws himself into a volcano over his pursuit of the One Ring.)

Polychron is quoted in the suit as saying his book was “the pitch-perfect sequel to The Lord of the Rings.” Polychron wrote a letter to Simon Tolkein, the author’s grandson, the day the book was published, informing him of the book’s publication and outlining his reasons for using characters from the original novels. Simon Tolkein never responded to the letter.

Polychron also said in his suit that he retained counsel in November of 2019 to contact the Tolkein estate to be granted a license to use their intellectual property. That was denied, due to a long-standing policy to decline any licenses for sequels to LOTR, which were contrary to the wishes of J.R.R. Tolkein.

Polychron contacted Simon Tolkein once again, sending a copy of his book, but Tolkein mailed the book back to Polychron without reading it.

It is notable that Tolkein’s beloved characters haven’t been long out of the public eye; this isn’t an IP that is mouldering away in a dusty library somewhere. Since 2001 alone, the source material has been the subject of six movies and a television series, in addition to staged productions and videogames. The Rings of Power is currently in production for its second season, and Warner Bros. has confirmed that it has plans for more Lord of the Rings films.

Should Polychron manage to wait 20-odd years before once again plundering Tolkein’s high-profile works for ideas, he might be able to finally claim authorship of his fan-fiction without fear of reprisal. Under existing copyright laws, Tolkien’s work will enter the public domain in the US on January 1st, 2044, which is 95 years after his first work was published.

In the Lord of the Rings series, Gollum spent over 70 years searching for his precious. Twenty years is peanuts to that.