There’s an old Southampton pub called The Hobbit under threat from the company that controls Lord of the Rings licensing. The company eventually agreed to sell the pub a license to keep using the name it has had for decades. Stephen Fry and Ian McKellan decided this was stupid, so they paid the fee themselves.

Because one does not simply copyright “The Hobbit.”

The Saul Zaentz Company (SZC), which owns the worldwide rights for several brands attached to Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien – and was going to force the decades-old pub to change its name, until public outcry led it to try and sell the pub a license.

Stephen Fry and Sir Ian McKellen, both of whom are in The Hobbit, didn’t much care for that sort of thing, and made arrangements with the bar’s landlady to pay for the license fee themselves.

She said: “I had a telephone call on Saturday evening, while we were trading, from Stephen Fry’s business partner and manager. That’s when he told me.

“I was very shocked.

“They’ve said as soon as they finish filming they would like to come down and visit the pub.”

…Sir Ian, who plays Gandalf in the Lord Of The Rings films, described the film company’s actions as “unnecessary pettiness” and Fry said it was “self-defeating bullying”.

I couldn’t think of a way to work “You shall not pass” into this article.

[Source: BBC]