Do you like Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings? Do you like Edler Scrolls V: Skyrim? Do you think you would have drooled over the possibility of playing a total conversion mod of The Lord of the Rings in Skyrim? Well, if you answered yes to all of those then you have some petitioning to do, my friend.
Warner Bros. Entertainment sent out cease and desist letters to a small group of modders working on a Skyrim: Lord of the Rings mod. According to Segment Next, the C&D was to prevent the Middle Earth Roleplaying Project from moving forward, which aimed to recreate many iconic battles, creatures, events and quests from the famous movies and books.
As stated on the official petition page...
As of 2012 the team ported the mod to the newest Elder Scrolls game from its predecessor, Oblivion. Since the move the team has built up a huge following due to its quality and ambition. This rise in popularity has also drawn the eyes of Warner Bros. who currently hold the rights to The Lord of the Rings in gaming, who then issued the MERPteam a cease and desist letter.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros sent out a cease and desist on August 31st, since then the team at MERP has tried rallying the community to get some help and bring some awareness to the project. They've even managed to get a lawyer on their side in hopes of enabling them to get the project back on track.
The team has also started a Facebook page to help raise awareness of the project and potentially get some petitions going at Go Petition.
I doubt Warner Bros. will retract the cease and desist letter or give their blessings for the project, especially if they have milk-worthy Lord of the Rings titles waiting in the wings, just ready and willing to be milked like no other Lord of the Rings title before it, such as Guardians of Middle Earth. Alternatively, Warner Bros. Could be flexing their corporate power and just ensuring that big or small mods alike won't be tolerated in our corporate-owned society...and really, our society is owned by corporations.
If you want to give a hand and help the little guy out, feel free to gather up your hipster midi-chlorians and lay some righteous protest power down on the side of free-will and creativity, by visiting the official Save Middle Earth Roleplaying Page or signing the Save MERP petition which has more than 10,000 signatures as of the publishing of this article.
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