Yesterday I was reading through the UT book and I want to bring up a discussion that started a while back.

Does FFG have a license to things in UT?

We have seen Khamûl the Easterling in the Saga expansion Nightmare pack. Khamul is only named in the UT book. This would lead to suggest yes. They could also just bought Khamûl, and not a whole license.

Why FFG should get a license if they don't have one yet:

The Blue Wizards are named in UT in the essay on the Istari. Also in the Silmarillion, but I doubt anyone ever getting a license for the S. Many people including me would love to see them represented in the game.

The Battles of the Fords of the Isen are in UT. As suggested in another thread: good expansion material.

A lot of information about the Palantíri is in UT. Some people have been dieing for a 'better' palantir/ not a general palantir card but unique ones.

But the best thing I will quote:

''For with the consent of Eru they sent members of their own high order [...]. Of this Order the number is UNKNOWN; but of those that came to the North of Middle-earth,[...], the chiefs were five.

This suggested that their are more Istari in our 'playregion'. (FFG invented Istari!)

To come back to my question:

Does anybody know if FFF has a license or how to find out?

As I understand it, the rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are owned by Saul Zaentz. Everything else is owned by the Tolkein estate. (Read: Christopher Tolkein) We would have never had the movies and maybe not even the games if Christopher Tolkein had his say.

Anything brought out after Tolkien's death (ie by Christopher Tolkien) has never been licensed for gaming or other purposes.

LOTR and Hobbit rights for films and associated merchandise are owned by SZ, and there is a thin line they have to be careful of crossing in producing stuff. Just a year or so ago the digital rights side was challenged and Cubicle 7 pulled all of their digital stuff for a while of the One Ring rpg. They are allowed to produce a digital version of something that has been printed but are not allowed to sell anything digital only.

I doubt we'll ever see ffg-created istari, but I hope we'll see Alatar and Pallando. After all, if Decipher managed to have cards of them, why shouldn't ffg as well?

As I understand it, the rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are owned by Saul Zaentz. Everything else is owned by the Tolkein estate. (Read: Christopher Tolkein) We would have never had the movies and maybe not even the games if Christopher Tolkein had his say.

This. I don't think FFG have the rights to Unfinished Tales as the Tolkien estate has been clear about not licensing out anything they control (everything except Hobbit/LOTR), especially once Jackson and the movies came out. However, before the movies, the Middle Earth CCG did use the Blue Wizards with special permission from the estate (this is specified in the copyright information for that game). So it is possible that such special permission for certain characters could be obtained again, but the pre-movie estate was probably more permissive than the post-movie estate, since Christopher Tolkien really started speaking out against licensing and merchandising in reaction to Jackson's films.

Anyway, the Khamul case is an aberration, I think. Games Workshop also used Khamul in their Lord of the Rings game. But I'm not sure what the deal is with either.

To clarify my point, I'm referring to the following cards, and while technically the wizards aren't depicted in the pictures (they represented them with the moth Gandalf uses to call the eagles in the movies), it's the names that count. And look at the flavor text! They obviously managed to get the rights somehow! Everything BUT the pictures is taken from UT.

From what I know, Decipher did not have the rights. They named those two moths Alatar and Pallando and tried to fudge it that way, and apparently the estate either never was aware of it or let it slide.

ICE, the makers of MECCG, by contrast, actually had special permission in their copyright information.

Here's the copyright information from MECCG:

" Middle-earth: The Wizards is a collectible card game produced by Iron Crown Enterprises, Inc. (ICE), Charlottesville, Virginia USA, the exclusive holder of the worldwide adventure games license based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Copyright © 1995 Tolkien Enterprises, a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, Berkeley, CA. Middle-earth: The Wizards , Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Return of the King, and all characters and places therein, and the Burning Eye are trademark properties of Tolkien Enterprises. The characters "Alatar" and "Pallando" appear in Unfinished Tales. They appear here with specific permission of the Estate of J. R. R. Tolkien. The copyright to Unfinished Tales is held by HarperCollins Publishers, in succession to George Allen and Unwin (Publishers) Ltd. and on behalf of Christopher Reuel Tolkien and Frank Richard Williamson, the Executors of the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien.

It really is too bad that Christopher Tolkien thinks he's the only person who can be trusted to "preserve" the materials he has exclusive rights to. His comments certainly paint him as a rather arrogant old man. I suppose he has a right to be, as the same material was only published and brought to light by him, but still, it's a shame.

Yeah, in some ways it's frustrating, as the total black-out prevents people who would be respectful of Tolkien's work and do things with it that have artistic merit, such as the designers of this game, from having access. On the other hand, I can kind of understand where he's coming from in not wanting your father's life work, and your own life work, being pimped out for cheap merchandise or being made into an adaptation that you will have little say over.

If someone else remembers how cards from Star wars CCG of old had 2 or 3 dots just before the card name to rule that you could not have more than 2 or 3 of that card in play at any given time (and obviously unique characters had only dot aside there name)?

Well, couldn't FFG create a non-unique ally named Blue Wizard, of which you can only have two in play at any given time?

Sounds to me like Christopher needs to watch the Lego Movie. Lol.

I doubt we'll ever see ffg-created istari, but I hope we'll see Alatar and Pallando. After all, if Decipher managed to have cards of them, why shouldn't ffg as well?

When I read it in Unfinished Tales I got really excited. It doed not only form a means to get around license-stuff but I was struck (not the first time) by the open endings and the possibilities for further stories. Man, those moments make me sad but lets my imagination run free.

Khamul seems indeed to be the odd-one-out, SBG uses him, we use him. Maybe the Estate lets him pass, or whatever.

It's indeed sad, as said above, that one mam holds such power. Of course, it's the work of his dad, but by publishing the works it became universal work. He ain't the author, merely the translator. Not that I blaim Christopher, though he seems narrowminded/shortsighted. I don't think the movies are bad. They appeal to a much wider public and draw more fans to the world of ME.

Anyway, we need Allatar and Pallando and Radagast and Saruman heroes.

Khamul is kind of a different case to the Blue Wizards. He may only be named in Unfinished Tales, but since he is one of the Nazgul, obviously he does appear in Lord of the Rings. Obviously I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but that'd be my guess for why it's different.

As I understand it, the rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are owned by Saul Zaentz. Everything else is owned by the Tolkein estate. (Read: Christopher Tolkein) We would have never had the movies and maybe not even the games if Christopher Tolkein had his say.

In one of the community interviews with Caleb he mentioned how the company worked fairly closely with the Tolkien Estate.

It seems to me also that this Saul guy is extremely rich. How did he get the rights to LotR and Hobbit?

As I understand it, the rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are owned by Saul Zaentz. Everything else is owned by the Tolkein estate. (Read: Christopher Tolkein) We would have never had the movies and maybe not even the games if Christopher Tolkein had his say.

Although Saul Zaentz has already passed away, the property for the rights still are in his company...

See more here

And as it is said there he bought the rights in 1976, so they might not be worth much as nowadays

It seems to me also that this Saul guy is extremely rich. How did he get the rights to LotR and Hobbit?

There is a story in one of the Tolkien biographies that JRR was looking for money to fund the eventuality of his sons going to university. In the end he decided to sell film rights to both the Hobbit and LOTR, a decision the biographies made very clear he did regret and his son, Christopher, definitely felt, since he has been a very vocal opponent of the PJ films and WB's handling of certain financial aspects of them.

But it was Tolkien himself who wanted others -- I did not hear it from him however -- to continue with the legend: with art, music, etc. I think the main opposition to the medium of film was due to its limits at the time. Well, it is still improving, and I feel in a few decade time, given the universe still have us, some could create a wonderful Silmarillion. And if not that, I think the LotR will certainly get another spin. I would like to see six films next time, I even went as far as some other nuts, to sketch a script for that.

It really is too bad that Christopher Tolkien thinks he's the only person who can be trusted to "preserve" the materials he has exclusive rights to. His comments certainly paint him as a rather arrogant old man. I suppose he has a right to be, as the same material was only published and brought to light by him, but still, it's a shame.

Well, considering what they did with the movie adaptations, I can't think he is so wrong on his assumptions.

In any case, I wonder how it was possible to have 1st Age stuff in the past, from I.C.E.'s MERP Lords of Middle Earth to freeware roguelike games like Angband.

It really is too bad that Christopher Tolkien thinks he's the only person who can be trusted to "preserve" the materials he has exclusive rights to. His comments certainly paint him as a rather arrogant old man. I suppose he has a right to be, as the same material was only published and brought to light by him, but still, it's a shame.

Well, considering what they did with the movie adaptations, I can't think he is so wrong on his assumptions.

In any case, I wonder how it was possible to have 1st Age stuff in the past, from I.C.E.'s MERP Lords of Middle Earth to freeware roguelike games like Angband.

Good question. Looking at a PDF of the first MERP Lords of Middle Earth book, they use a ton of First Age-only information, but the copyright information only refers to Tolkien Enterprises and The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. They do mention that additional work from Christopher Tolkien "sheds light" on certain aspects of the world, but this isn't reflected in the permissions. I can only guess that it again comes down to the pre-movie Tolkien estate being more permissive than the post-movie Tolkien estate.

It really is too bad that Christopher Tolkien thinks he's the only person who can be trusted to "preserve" the materials he has exclusive rights to. His comments certainly paint him as a rather arrogant old man. I suppose he has a right to be, as the same material was only published and brought to light by him, but still, it's a shame.

Well, considering what they did with the movie adaptations, I can't think he is so wrong on his assumptions.

I mean really? Are you saying they are done badly?

The movies are mostly garbage, especially the Hobbit movies. They take epic fantasy and turn it into childish Hollywood action fluff.

True imo. The Hobbit movies should never have been.

I still remember nearing the end of the second part in the cinema I was just laughing away my sadness of the epic cr*p show they managed to create.

Terrible.

I didn't have too many problems with the LotR movies. The Hobbit on the other hand... I will say this, the Hobbit movies had some very good bits in them. It's just that those good bits were heavily in the minority.