Posted: Mar 14, 2012 9:25 pm
by WiĆ°ercora
I'm With Stupid wrote:
Paul G wrote:I'm the only one who thinks it's a rip off then? This isn't like the McDonald's cases where it just happens to be the same name.

Of course it's a rip off. It's clearly basing the pub on the book. And if Tolkien was suing them for infringement of copyright, I'd definitely be on his side. I think the problem people have is that the pub is being sued by a random American company that had absolutely no creative input into any aspect of The Hobbit.


Surely suing this place over the use of the word hobbit is akin to suing a restaurant called the Hoover. It's become such a common word that it's entered the public domain, such as it were.

The fact that the word 'Hobbit' predates Tolkien notwithstanding.