Some sad news comes from the mod developers of the “Middle-Earth Roleplaying Project” (MERP). Apparently, Warner Bros. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the mod team, instructing them to halt all development of the mod.
MERP was going to be a Lord of the Rings themed mod for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. It was going to feature weapons, characters, locations and quests all based in the Lord of the Rings lore. While the mod definitely seemed promising, it seems like Warner Bros. will not budge on this issue.
More details about the mod, as well as a petition can be found here. Additionally, one of the mod’s developers has been posting on the official Skyrim forums and can be read here.
Posted 07-09-2012, 01:03
@Extermination - they'd also need to change the character models and everything. Nothing could resemble closely to something from LOTR, which was the whole point of the mod so then they have no point to make the mod as it would just be a generic RPG mod then - this is a far step from what they were in the process of making. I took the time to look up copyright and IP law before writing up this news piece and indeed WB is fully able to do this, quite sad really and even more sad that WB won't budge on it. Their reasons will for always be a mystery though.
Posted 06-09-2012, 17:52
Had no idea this mod existed and this grieves me greatly, more so considering I'm in the middle of reading The Two Towers just now (it's that time of the year where I read all the titles from The Hobbit to The Children of Hurin). Huge fan of the series. But, yes, a petition doesn't seem so straightforward a solution as is simply re-naming everything. Have no idea what else could be done but it seems to me that it simply isn't going to happen at all.
Posted 06-09-2012, 15:46
It might not be that easy
Posted 06-09-2012, 13:07
I'd simply just change the names of the characters, locations, and the mod and continue work like normal.