this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Yeah, this guy didn’t have a leg to stand on. There’s an independently owned cafe opposite sarhole mill (inspiration for “the shire”) on the street JRR Tolkien grew up on called “the hungry hobbit”. It’s been called that since 2005 - before the release of the hobbit film. A production company sued this tiny sandwich shop, sitting on a roundabout 3 miles south of Birmingham for the unauthorised use of the word “hobbit”. That was completely egregious imo. It’s now called “the hungry hobb” - they just took down the last two letters on the sign. I really should grab a sandwich from them one day.
Hobbit was a word way before J.R.R. wrote his books, stupid that they were able to sue them
When it happened I thought the typeface was the issue rather than the word hobbit. But no.Here’s before and this is after. I can’t get my head around the fact that the production company sued this tiny sandwich shop. It’s so ridiculous!
Funny how the secondary title on the left still says hungry hobbit haha
Unfortunately, you can sue anyone for any bogus reason you want. And if you have more money than whoever you're suing, it doesn't matter how frivolous it is, because you can just bankrupt them by forcing them to pay lawyer fees.
That’s precisely what happened here. The place had been called the hungry hobbit for years under multiple owners. The current owner bought it, updated some official paperwork and within the first 6 months of her ownership got hit with the “unauthorised usage” bs. She couldn’t afford to fight it. Thankfully the “hungry hobb” is still doing enough business to stay open 12 years later.
Really where was it used?
Found it but no it was not. One line in one book from 1895 “The whole earth was overrun with ghosts, boggles ... hobbits, hobgoblins."
So still think it’s very unlikely it was a word that anyone knew before the Hobbit.
I get your point but in this case it’s not JRR Tolkiens estate who’s claiming copyright infringement, it’s a random production company in Sweden or something. A production company in an entirely different country with no real ties to JRRT has decided an independent cafe built on the same street as Tolkien grew up on, opposite the mill he used as inspiration, is harming their asset somehow by calling themselves the hungry hobbit.
A word isn't a thought. Thoughts are unique, but a word can be arrived at independently in several different ways by the sea spelled with a C, you see.