No Fair Use to Reference Hobbits in Mockbuster

The maker of a mockbuster film about hobbits didn't have any luck in arguing that they weren't infringing on the trademarked fictional creatures from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Global Asylum tried to argue that it was fair use to make a film referencing hobbits because it's a "reference to a real-life human subspecies, Homo Floresiensis, discovered in 2003 in Indonesia." The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling this week.