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.

[–] mudpuppy@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

game company called hyper mario land would be same industry, more similar name to an existing trademark than just the name mario, both sides definitely trademarked rather than copyrighted, they would probably have a case. everything im reading says fictional names cant be copyrighted but they can be trademarked, it would only be an issue if they trademarked the fictional character's name and then they met the conditions for a legal test including consumers not understanding that the bank was not affiliated with lotr. istg trademark law is actually chill

[–] Justice@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 days ago

You're forcing me to arrive at the conclusion the other commenter made. Involving a hit of the man sort.