this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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I'd normally never support such pettiness from trademark holders and whatnot. But I'd seriously like the Tolkien estate to do something really funny.
Really? I feel like that comes up all the time for like comic book characters and such.
I think the distinction is between the name of the work itself (like there are actual comic books called Batman or whatever), versus the name of a character in the book. I ain't a lawyer though so I'm not sure
I guess that's probably a major factor in why so many comic book series are mainly or just the name of the protagonist.
Yeah there’s a reason only DC has a superhero with the obvious name “Super-Man”
If anyone has the infinite money pool to explore such things it would be the Tolkien estate and the studios who either own or licensed the IP for The Hobbit, LotR, etc.
I'd say if he had stopped at Palantir maybe be could have a good counter argument. He's very clearly just ripping every single "evil" object, creature, whatever else he can from the books though.
I don't think there's confusion for most people over the original source of the names. He's definitely using the names to get more attention though. I feel at the very least he should be paying them some sort of licensing fee. I'm surprised they haven't already tried something. Nintendo would certainly not let someone name their evil company Bowser's Warship (I dunno, just trying to think of something close to similar). They'd at least send a C&D and review their options if the company ignored them. Maybe I'm crazy.
I could also make a game company named after my distant cousin "Mario" and name it "Hyper Mario Land"
How would Nintendo respond in that scenario?
But either way my hypotheticals are irrelevant and not anywhere near the reality of Theil just straightforwardly lifting names from Tolkien and doing so repeatedly. They're not like common names either. Did the word Palantir exist before he published LotR? Obviously Tolkien "borrowed" (ripped off in some cases) from like Finnish mythology and others. I wouldn't expect words like "Wizard" or "Elf" to be protected in anyway. "Hobbit" though? Well, I dunno. "Palantir"? "Nazgûl" (why the fuck does Apple auto correct that spelling)?
Look, I'm feeling gross typing all this pro-corpo sounding stuff. I just want Theil to lose lots of money. However that can happen is fine with me. It's also personally annoying to me that he keeps using LotR stuff. It's cringe as fuck, and I'm pretty sure he couldn't even explain why he thinks the names fit. Although Palantir sigh does sort of fit. In a round about way anyway.
You're forcing me to arrive at the conclusion the other commenter made. Involving a hit of the man sort.
I think it’s genuinely baffling they’ve allowed him to keep doing this
Sue this fucking ghoul for defamation (or whatever the company equivalent would be)
Like put a hit out on peter thiel would be vvv fummy