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White Wolf Sues Sony

Posted by Hemos on from the going-after-the-big-game dept.

etherlad writes "White Wolf, makers of pen-and-paper RPGs such as Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and author Nancy A. Collins, are suing Sony Pictures, Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment for copyright infringement in the upcoming Underworld movie, which they claim not only is blatantly the World of Darkness with the serial numbers (partially) filed off, but that the movie is obviously ripped off Nancy Collins' novel Love of Monsters, also set in the World of Darkness. There's a PDF of the legal brief floating around, and to me (IANAL) it really looks like WW has a case."

6 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Big Companies Suck on Copyrights by Goo.cc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope that WW wins this case, as it is not the first time that a large company has ripped someone off.

    What's ironic to me is that Sony, like Disney, really wants to prevent works from entering the public domain and will vigorously defend their copyrights but seem to have no problem with stealing copyright material or using material in the public domain. It is just sad.

    1. Re:Big Companies Suck on Copyrights by Sevn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, I'd say that Lion King is the best example of this kind of action. Facts:

      TV Guide stated that Disney was remaking Kimba The White Lion.

      Matthew Broderick stated that he understood he was being hired as a voice actor for a remake of Kimba The White Lion.

      In early production stages, Simba was white.

      Right Stuf International was prepared to release Kimba to home video in 1993, but this was delayed by litigation. (Since this release was based on their purchase of the home video rights from Mushi Productions, who would sue to stop it?) And around the same time Disney announced they were delaying the release of Lion King.

      You can love The Lion King all you want. It's a really great film. That doesn't change the fact that Disney are crooked thieves. So sorry. Thank you for playing. It's definitely NOT better than even half of Miyazaki's films. I wouldn't say they are "non-universal" in any way. I'd just say they were "un-interpretable" to you because of your obviously limited world view.

      --
      For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
  2. Anecdotally speaking by Jahf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I didn't know a thing about the lawsuit, who made the movie, or anything else about it when I saw the trailer.

    Both times I saw the trailer this weekend I thought to myself "interesting, maybe someone finally made a Storyteller movie".

    It most definitely has a strong resemblance in the trailer. Enough that WW fans will immediately associate the two. If the trailer is an accurate portrayal of the movie, then I can see a lawsuit having teeth.

    While the Storyteller stuff is "just" an interpretation of myths and legends that have been around for centuries (or more), it is a very specific interpretation of them.

    --
    It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
  3. Re:The brief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was going to seperate those into stupid and good arguments, but after doing all that work, and because it was so long, I'm not gonna post it.

    Instead, I'll just say that starting from around 38 on, the similartiies are very convincing that this was ripped off.

    But they did include a lot of crap early on which wasn't very convincing at all. But when you look at the convincing stuff at the end, the stuff at the beginning only adds to it. It looks like they have a very strong case.

    And I really wanted to rule against them. If they could convince me, I think they will convince the judge.

  4. Re: Oh... by slaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I got this promotional newspaper for "Underworld" when I went to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that basically had a lot of backstory in it. Reading it, and being somewhat familiar with White Wolf games, I thought it was based on their product, too. "Oh, they're making up for that awful TV show."

    If I and the parent poster can make that mistake, White Wolf's suit probably does have some merit.

    OTOH, perhaps the best WW can do is use their current position to cross-promote their games, rather than tie up in litigation what is probably a movie that most WW fans would want to see.

    --
    -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
  5. Re:blah by loopback_127001 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    You're kidding, right?

    The only 'striking similarities' between an Anne Rice novel and the World of Darkness/Vampire worlds are the fact that they have, er, vampires in them.

    The idea of 'werewolves vs. vampires', and the concept of a vampire society that has a clear social order and houses/clans/whatnot is to be found nowhere in the homoerotic misunderstood-poetry-writing-loner vampires of Anne Rice's novels. Hell, the Dark Island where all the vampires end up agreeing to come to meet and remain in touch is more of a friendly stopover. There is no community, no politics, nothing. An argument could be made for the existence of ancient progenitor vampires that want to destroy all their young, I suppose. But the Akasha/Enkil reality shares very little with the Ghennom mythos that WW's WoD talks about.

    Now in the movie that's coming out (i have only seen the television trailer for it, so i am making some very base assumptions), there appears to be a war going on under the unseeing eyes of mortal men. That is pure white wolf, and not something that I think many other Vampire-based games/books have addressed. If someone wants to correct me, please do. I'm far from a fanboy or expert in this stuff.