Why are they bothering to ask anyone to destroy it?

Because he egregiously misbehaved with his, and this is the resulting punishment.

You and I can keep whatever copies we may have.

> Because he egregiously misbehaved with his, and this is the resulting punishment

This is like some new form of justice, where, if you hit someone with a hammer we punish the hammer?

No; we take away your hammers. It's quite an old approach.

Taking away the hammer would placing the fanwork into public domain.

Here, we are specifically destroying the hammer as a punishment.

It woudl be odd for the court to resolve a copyright infringement case by more copyright infringement. It's not theirs to put in the public domain; it's the Tolkien estate's IP.

It is, for all practical purposes. The court posted the whole thing in an official document.

It seems like you're saying "IP claims" are a hammer.

So, yes, I favor destroying all hammers.

Because he self-published and had some printed; he is able to have those recalled and destroyed still.