Other than that, I'm a full-fledged card-carrying member of the LOTR movies Webmasters club. I am in the door. I have the right to speak. And today I'm going to speak my piece.

Someone in a position to know told me a week before the world found out that New Line Cinema was going to finance Peter Jackson's movies. I announced the news two days before the much-respected Harry Knowles. Back then most people were still getting their LOTR movie news from Harry, until he handed the torch to TheOneRing.Net.

Unlike other Tolkien movie site owners (so far as I know), I was contacted in late 1998 and asked if I would discretely answer some questions about Tolkien's world. At the time I was told I could expect nothing in return and I would be told nothing in advance. Those promises have pretty much been kept. And though I did not sign a non-disclosure agreement, I did mostly keep quiet about the questions for well over a year.

Earlier this year, when someone asked a question on the Middle-earth mailing list which was almost identical to one of those I had been asked by the movie folks, I decided to post my original answer. I didn't cite the question, nor even the responses to my responses (and the exchange went on for a week or more). I tried to judiciously remove any indications of who had received the answer previously, but I inadvertently left in one line which screamed out to anyone who noticed, "MICHAEL IS DISCUSSING SOMETHING FOR THE MOVIES".

I'm sorry, folks. I didn't mean to break my word. But I guess enough time has passed it doesn't matter. I was never consulted on anything earth-shaking anyway. Just a few questions about obscure details which had eluded the diligent researchers working for Peter Jackson (who, by all accounts, has impressed people who have been working with him with his knowledge of and reverence for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien).

Publicly I have criticized some of the decisions which have gone into the movies. I have analyzed what we've learned about them and pointed out where the movies diverge from the books. I don't do that to play Devil's Advocate (although people who are close to me do feel I take on that role often enough). Rather, I do so because, well, some things bother me.

Not that I'm against the movies, mind you. I've often enough pleaded for leniency with the fans. I think Peter Jackson should be free to tell his story however he wishes. It is his story, and I think it will be a good one. These certainly won't be my movies. Even if everything I suggested were included in the films and released as an Internet trailer, the download time would be so brief people might wonder if there was anything to download at all.

Now, my record on discretion has hardly been perfect, so it is fair to say that if I start pointing fingers I'm going to look awfully silly. So this is not about finger-pointing. It's not about placing blame or declaring who is right and who is wrong.

I want to discuss where we as a fannish community are going. Who could have foreseen the environment we have created today? There is occasional friction or rivalry. I play the game myself, pointing out that I have the "oldest dedicated source of LOTR movie news on the Web", blah blah blah. We all jockey for the top ranking slots on the search engines, and so on.

But we have also been cooperating with each other. We report news that other sites have found, usually giving full credit and links, and several Webmasters agreed to come to Dragoncon to help with the Tolkien and Middle-earth fan programming track, and whenever the news media mentions one of us, usually most if not all of the sites carry the story in some form or another.

As online fandoms go we are not unique, except in that we are the fandom for the only trilogy of movies ever to be based on the best-selling novel of the 20th century, written by arguably the most influential author of the 20th century.

Online fandom is always courting trouble, it seems. Some television studios have shut down popular Web sites, or forced them to pull certain material. Some literary estates have done much the same thing. A few movie studios have also yanked some strings on occasion.

On the other hand, the entertainment business is very much aware of online fandom, and there has been (in my estimation) an increasing trend in the industry to curry the favor of online fandom, either by tolerating the existence of Web sites which make use of trademarked names and copyrighted images or by actively promoting online fandoms. There are still some clashes in the wings, but as a fannish Webmaster who has wrangled with these issues for years, I sit more comfortably today than I did when I first heard about studio crackdowns "somewhere out there on the Web."

And as the Webamster of a fannish movie news site I have never had a special relationship with Peter Jackson's production. Maybe someone deep inside the organization owes me a few small favors, but the only return I ever asked for was confirmation of whether the Tudor-style village that a New Zealand newspaper published pictures of was indeed Bree (and I received confirmation before everyone else that it was indeed the Bree set, designed by Alan Lee -- all favors paid in full).

What else, if anything, I might ask for eludes me. It has never really seemed likely to me that I should try to develop a special relationship with this particular production. Nor has it seemed important to me to pursue such a relationship.

Remember, I only got into the game for the most selfish of reasons: to shut people up. I devote relatively little time to maintaining my LOTR movies site and the fact I'm able to update it frequently at all is a testimonial to the hard work of many other people. My spy network is the world-at-large. I don't mind repeating what others say. I'm rounding up the facts and rumors, after all. I've found my niche.

But that brings me to where online fandom is starting to generate sparks with the productions. Let's talk about TheOneRing.Net in particular. They're nice folks. They, like Tolkien Online, are coming to Dragoncon. They've done me a few favors in the past (stuff about which you folks know nothing). These two sites (and several others) have actively pursued spy reports. Everyone likes spy reports, and many of the movie news sites have developed networks of contacts in New Zealand (two of the movie news sites are based in New Zealand).

I think it's safe to say that TheOneRing.Net is probably the most well-known of the movie news Web sites. The rest of us get our share of scoops (or try to), but if I had to pick the most well-known site, TORN would be it. Tolkien Online (formerly known as TheOneRing.Com, a domain name they claimed three weeks prior to the other guys) is probably the second most well-known site. And, if you really have to know, I would say Joram Manka's Ringbearer is probably the third most well-known. But only one of the LOTR movie news sites actually becomes part of the news on occasion.

By now nearly everyone who has ever read a Tolkien movie news Web site knows that TORN's most famous (or infamous) spy is Erica Challis, who posts as Tehanu. She's an outsider, as far as I know. TORN actually has insiders reporting for them (I'll leave it to you to figure out who they are -- and, no, I have no idea of whether these insiders are reporting on Peter's orders or not -- nor have I ever asked about that).

Yet Tehanu is the one online Tolkien fan who made headlines around the world when she was served a legal notice forbidding her from trespassing on Peter Jackson's film sets. Although I am sure she must have been embarrassed and perhaps angered by the situation, it was an easy order to comply with because (she says) she had never trespassed in the first place.

Well, they've since made up and Peter in fact invited Erica to visit the set. Only E! Online's John Forde seems to have a standing invitation to visit the set. We read his monthly articles with great interest. And, to be honest, I don't think he knows that much about Tolkien. He seems to have read the books, but I think he wouldn't last long in a serious Tolkien debate (which may be more to his credit than against it).

Still, Tehanu's reconciliation with an enemy she didn't know she had made represents the only publicized crack in the walls surrounding the Minas Tirith which is Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" production.

Other people have reported on the sets. Most seem to show up after filming has completed and the production company has moved on. A few people actually boldly trespass and nearly get away with it all (I recall reading one spy report on a site where the spy had a camera and film confiscated, but he returned the next day and took some pictures of where things had been the day before).

And there are the insiders, some of whom have been fired (extras, so far as we know). I don't believe any Webmaster has asked any insider to risk their job. Nor do I believe any of the Webmasters would do so. But publishing comments by some of the insiders has indeed resulted in a few firings.

Who is responsible? Do we as Webmasters owe anything to people who cannot contain themselves? Should we be sharing every tidbit that comes our way with a media-saturated world which demands to know everything that happens as if it's watching a monolithic soap opera we call "real life"?

This is a reasonable question. Fannish Webmasters are quick to cry "foul!" and "free speech!" when someone tells them what they cannot do, but do we ourselves try to act responsible and say, "This far we will go and no further?"

How far is too far? How far is far enough? I want millions of people to visit my Web sites. I think the other "competitive" Webmasters do, too. But how far would any of us go to generate that kind of traffic? For all I know, I might have gotten someone fired if I had announced a week in advance that New Line Cinema was picking up "The Lord of the Rings".

For one person's sake (a stranger who knowing virtually nothing about me shared information I had no right to know) I kept my mouth shut until an agreed-upon time. By then, we reasoned, enough people would know about the deal anyway that it wouldn't make much difference if I said anything. And I still got the scoop.

I could have posted the questions I was asked on my Web site, and my answers. What would that get me, though? A few extra visitors each week? The questions are not really news-worthy. A couple of details which have been revealed about the movies indicate to me that either I was thinking along the same lines as someone who is working on the movies, or my little voice in the wilderness was heard.

But not one spy report, not one news article has been devoted to these details. They have merely been mentioned in passing. As exciting as it is to me to see things I discussed get mentioned, I still don't know whether there is any connection to me, and I can't really justify making a big fuss.

And yet the scrutiny which has been directed at these movies places an unprecedented amount of pressure on the fannish Web sites to produce relevant content. We can only mention so many auctions on eBay, so many chapters read by a new Tolkien fan, so many neat gizmos our domains are launching, so many additions to the fan art sections, etc.

People want to know what the heck is going on. Some are reading the sites, I think, out of a morbid addiction to outrage. They have to know, despite their not wishing to, what further depredations are being propagated against the sacred world of Tolkien (who himself raped half a dozen mythologies to produce his own, and who retold in somewhat dry fashion hundreds of minor accounts from history and folklore ranging from battles in Europe and Asia to little jokes in obscure myths).

Some people are just like totally hyped and want to groove on the good vibes coming from New Zealand. And I have no idea of why the majority of readers visit our Web sites, except maybe to see what's happening, or perhaps to see what Tolkien and Peter Jackson have to do with Britney Spears (you'd be surprised at how some people find our Web sites -- or maybe not).

The bottom line for the fannish Webmasters, however, is that we have to produce. We aren't just gossip columnists, however. We are court reporters, recording for posterity the prosecution of the innocent by both sides in a bizarre proceeding that leaves all the wacky commercial courtroom shows gasping for breath in a cloud of dust. And the weird thing is that we are also one of the sides in the dispute. Isn't it about time we questioned ourselves over what we are doing? Everyone else seems to be. What about us?

Tehanu brought the issue into focus for me in a convention report at TheOneRing.Net where she wrote:

"Other than that, it was an interesting experience. There were about 80 people in the audience; some of them weren't up on the Net's reportage of LOTR because they didn't have computers; others of course knew more than me because they were involved in MAKING the movie. Well, you'd expect to see them at a Con anyway. Somebody later described the whole excercise as a rather interesting cat-and-mouse game between them and me at times. The folk from WETA sort of stiffened when some of our exclusive images came up on the screen."

She goes on to sum up the delicate balance between the various parties by saying:

"...The way business, the commercial media, fans and the Internet interact is volatile and not well-predicted. The way a group of amateurs governs itself in something like TOR.net is experimental, as is the way it relates to the more well-understood hierarchies of business and power. Which in turn are balanced against the desires of fans worldwide. It's fascinating and not particularly easy, and there really wasn't time to do it justice as a topic."

This interaction was noted by Tolkien Online, where they reprint an article from "The Evening Post", which discusses the recent hullaballoo over Gollum. Once again TORN found itself at the heart of controversy when Xoanon posted some screen captures of the CGI Gollum on TheOneRing.Net. He quickly took them down when 3FootSix and New Line Cinema protested.

How Xoanon got the images apparently wasn't questioned by New Line Cinema. That he posted them on TheOneRing.Net was the problem. Such leaks, possibly made with the knowledge of some people in a position to decide whether such things can be done, have occurred before. Moriarty, one of the contributors at Ain't-it-cool-news, was shown the original script Peter Jackson had written for the two-movie deal with Miramax which fell through. The same script (or a variation of it) was eventually given to TheOneRing.Net as well. It's one thing for an extra who is retired from working life to risk losing his job, but is it really all that common for other anonymous people to be divulging secret after secret and earning no repercussions for it?

Leakage has been a staple of film industry gossip for years. It used to be only the entertainment news media competed for all the insider hints and tips. Now they have us to compete with, and one gets the impression (however right or wrong) that perhaps every now and then a shadowy hand moves in Sauron-like fashion to manipulate the ironically naive fans.

It's not always so shadowy, of course. New Line Cinema compiled a list of 25 Webmasters and recruited us into helping promote the release of their Internet trailer. They have hinted other joint operations may lie down the road (there I go again!). Sometimes they even answer our email and provide useful information.

And sometimes all we hear is silence. Many fans asked why E! Online was given the nod to produce the monthly "Insider" reports. They obviously aren't dedicated fans. No, but they are a media operation with a commercial budget and a professional organization. They won't cross the line, whatever that line is, which stands between New Line and the media. There is no line between the fans and Peter Jackson. He used to answer questions on a fan-run message board. Michael DeLuca has answered fan email (he's even responded to one of my questions).

These guys don't have time for us, but they've made time for us anyway. That's not the hand of Sauron stretching out to rule the world, it's the friendly grasp of Gandalf moving to inspire the masses and kindle hearts.

It's tough to know the difference between right and wrong, or perhaps too close and too far, when you can practically send email to someone somewhere and get some sort of authoritative answer. It's impossible to know what the ramifications of any statement or revelation will be before you post it on the Web and see if the fickle masses are turned on to it or pass it by with their noses in the air.

And these blurred disctinctions are going to get worse as the months roll by. What will happen when the first post-production images hit the Internet? Ordained or not, it is almost guaranteed they will be leaked. And if the older, more well-established Web sites rub their burned fingers and withhold the images, will the eager new Webmasters come late to the fray be so discreet? It depends in large part on who gets the next leak, and what they do with it.

Soul-searching is not something online fandoms seem to do well. We are the ProduceIt! generation, the self-appointed martyrs of mangled speech. We drive ourselves into frenzy over issues most people cannot comprehend. We don't just have to know, we have to tell. We're a tough bunch of people to get along with.

And I just felt that it needed saying. That's all.

Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth, which may be purchased directly from Xlibris Corp. or through any online bookstore. You may also special order it from your local bookstore. The ISBN is 0-7388-3408-4.

And be sure to download your free copy of Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd edition at Free-eBooks.Net!