White Wolf Sues Sony

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."

Comments

Big Companies Suck on Copyrights

[Goo.cc]

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.

Re:Big Companies Suck on Copyrights

[Sevn]

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.

I was talking about this

[Gryftir]

My friends and I are part of a LARP in Santa Cruz, (here if you are interested.) We were discussing the similarities, and this came up.

Interestingly, White Wolf is destroying the World of Darkness as part of a final wrap up of the meta plot.

You notice they aren't trying to stop the movie's release with an injunction, they just want a cut of the profits.

Re:I was talking about this

[Richard]

You notice they aren't trying to stop the movie's release with an injunction, they just want a cut of the profits.

Wrong.

126. White Wolf is therefore entitled to:
(a) A preliminary and permanent injunction preventing the distribution, marketing, release, sale, and rental of Underworld and Underworld: Bloodlines.

And then they repeat that claim, oh, 20 more times at least.

Re:I was talking about this

[thinlineofsanity]

They may be 'destroying' the WoD, but it helps if you read the press release.

For those wondering, here's the relevant snippet:

• May 2004

  Vampire: The Eternal Struggle -- Gehenna (ISBN 1-58846-626-4) -- a new booster set for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle featuring cards based on the Time of Judgment.

  An all-new World of Darkness launches in August of 2004.

In short, it's just a big event leading up to a re-invention of WoD.

blah

[truffle]

I'm really not impressed with this lawsuit. White wolf has built their products on the mythos and stories that came before them. Anyone who's played Vampire and read Anne Rice will see striking similarities there.

I'm glad Dugeons and Dragons didn't sue Lord of the Rings when that movie came out. Oh wait, sorry, Dungeons and Dragons is a huge rip off of Lord of the Rings. My mistake.

To wax geek for a moment, this seems kind of like the movie equivalent of a one-click-shopping lawsuit.

Anyway, my overall prediction is no money will be paid out, White Wolf is just doing this for publicity. Whatever. Glad I stopped playing their games.

This is the second time White Wolf has pissed me off, the first time being their desertion of Ars Magica after stealing part of its mythos and inserting it in their World of Darkness games.

Re:blah

[Ceyan]

If you consider D&D to be a huge ripoff of LOTR, then you have to consider LOTR a huge rip-off of folklore. Or consider that ever robot novel is a ripoff of Asimov's work.

Re:blah

[theghost]

Preface: WW = White Wolf, WoD = World of Darkness

Wow. Sounds like you have more than a few grudges against WW and you're allowing them to cloud your judgement on this issue.

I'll address them in no particular order:

WW didn't "steal" the mythos of Ars Magica. They had permission to adapt it into a modern game set in the WoD. Ars Magica, while it may have been great for many reasons was never a popular, money-making game. That's why it was abandoned by WW. To their credit, they did allow others to continue supporting it even though it could be considered a competitor to their Mage line. That alone should clue you in to their assessment of its economic viability.

Tolkien was an early contributor to the fantasy genre, but he was not the first, nor (imo) even the best. D&D readily acknowledges its inspirations. This includes Tolkien and a great many other fantasy authors. D&D has been smacked down by the Tolkien estate on at least one occasion where they got a little too close to the source material, just like WW is doing to Sony.

Anne Rice could very likely have won a similar lawsuit against WW when Vampire came out. She didn't try and so WW now has legitimate claim to their stuff and is entitled to defend it. They have not been frivolously attacking other vampire/werewolf movies. This one is special.

Read the similarities that are listed. They are numerous and not common to vampire/werewolf mythology. There is significant confusion among consumers. Almost everyone i know who is familiar with the WoD, hears about this movie and thinks it's either produced or endorsed by WW.

I thin there are generally too many lawsuits of this kind (one-click, Fair and Balanced, etc.) but that does not mean that all of them are frivolous. This one seems to have some merit.

I'm not sure about the outcome of this either. Let's think of this in extreme situations.

Scenario 1: WW wins and gains all rights to the movie + damages. Probable outcome: they release the film with some changes to make it more WoD compliant. They try to make nice with the actors and get them onboard for promotion, etc. and now have the start of a WoD movie franchise. If the movie does well then they try to make more movies, possibly sequels or just other WoD stories. Chances are good that they'll make a deal with some established company to do this, with the best bet being Sony itself.

Scenario 2: WW loses, the movie goes ahead as planned. The only press they get is negative, plus they probably have to pay court costs and maybe countersuit damages. They even risk losing the rights to their own trademarked properties. Ouch.

The middle ground involves WW settling for a share of the profits and/or a mandatory ad for the Vampire/Werewolf games at the beginning of the film. If the movie does well then chances are good that Sony & WW will be teaming up for more WoD-themed projects.

IMO WW has more to gain than to lose here and they have a better than 50-50 shot of winning. Most likely result: settlement.

Re:blah

[loopback_127001]

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.

How old are vampires and Shakespeare again? ;p

[pocopoco]

Well WW says they have many unique points of similarity, but I find it hard to believe. Movies have so much less depth than books (and rpg systems and their backgrounds/settings/scenarios, etc). This movie claims to be vampire/werewolf/etc + Romeo & Juliet both of which are free game and open to anyone by now. How much more can there be to this movie that's outside those concepts? So another book combined the two at some later date, that doesn't mean a movie can't do the same using the same public domain stuff.

Re:How old are vampires and Shakespeare again? ;p

[Bazzargh]

I was under the impression that Werewolves (or at least, a couple of important werewolf 'facts') are much more recent than vampires or Shakespeare - Curt Siodmak, who wrote the novel and then the screenplay of the 1941 film "The Wolf Man", invented the connection between werewolves and the moon, and their achilles heel of silver bullets. This would probably make for significant parts of werewolf anything being the property of Universal Studios, if anyone. (Werewolf legends date back hundreds of years, but the werewolf we know today is Siodmak's creation.)

As for Vampires vs Werewolves being original - has noone seen "Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein" (1948)?

White Wolf have a point

[TobascoKid]

From the WW press release:
"The volume of confusion in our marketplace is amazing," observes Tinney, "our fans think they're going to be seeing our film. Of course, if the movie gets released, in a way they will be."

When I first heard about the plot of the film, my first thought was that it was based on the White Wolf world, after all there was that short lived adaptation of VTM, maybe they decided to try the movies instead. I was a bit disappointed when I found out it was a 'clone'.

Tk

Penny Arcade Weighs In

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

Today's Penny Arcade offers a great perspective on this story.

The brief

[etherlad]

Here's the PDF. I urge people to read it befor emaking snap judgments. WW doesn't claim they invented vampires, for example.

As it was explained to me by someone who knows, it's not the individual similarities, it's the total. If there are 10 similarities, it doesn't matter that 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 can all be found elsewhere, it's the fact that they're all found together which contributes (in this case) to the unique product identity which is the World of Darkness. So vampires have super-strength in both the WoD and Underworld: who cares? What matters is that, in addition to all the other similarites, makes it much much more likely that Underworld is ripping off WW. And if they don't mention everything in the brief, they pretty much can't even talk about it later.

So White Wolf is suing because there are a total of 61 points they've identified. That's a lot, no matter how you look at it.

For the hell of it, here they are:

1. In the World of Darkness, vampires have the ability to disappear from view. In

Underworld, vampires repeatedly vanish from view.

2. In the World of Darkness, some vampires are capable of amazing speed. In Underworld, some vampires move with amazing speed.

3. In the World of Darkness, vampires "have the strength of ten men." In Underworld, vampries "have the strength of ten men."

4. In the World of Darkness, vampires are divided by age distinctions, and older vampires are more powerful and able to rule over younger vampires. In Underworld, vampires are divided by age distinctions, and older vampires are more powerful and are able to rule over younger vampires.

5. In the World of Darkness, the more ancient and powerful vampires are referred to as Elders. In Underworld, the more ancient and powerful vampires are referred to as Elders.

6. In the World of Darkness, vampires, especially Elders, are able to go into a state where they do not rise as normal, but stay alive i nan extended sleep or hibernation. In Underworld, The Elders are in a hibernation state where they do not rise as normal, but stay alive in an extended sleep.

7. In the World of Darkness, vampires in extended sleep lose blood and become more withered and mummified, and return to normal as they feed. In Underworld, Victor (a vampire Elder) awakens from an extended sleep appearing withered and mummified, and returns to normal the more he feeds on blood.

8. In the World of Darkness, a vampire in hibernation remains that way until a vampire provides them with blood. In Underworld, Selene (the main character) rouses Viktor from hibernation using her own blood, just as another Elder (Amelia) was supposed to do.

9. In the World of Darkness, even when in hibernation or when recently roused, elder vampires command a great deal of power and control. In Underworld, Victor, the Elder vampire, "radiates absolute power and control" even when recently roused.

10. In the World of Darkness, vampires are described as "alien." In Underworld, vampires are described as "alien."

11. In the World of Darkness, some vampire groups ("Sabbat") refer to themselves as Covens, and divide into Old World and New World Covens. In Underworld, the vampries divide into Old World and New World Covens.

12. In the World of Darkness, many North African or Middle Eastern vampires belong to a clan of assassins and warriors (called "Assamites"). In the Underworld movie trailer, Kahn, the leader of the Death Dealers, a group of assassins and warriors, appears to be of Northern African or Middle Eastern descent.

13. In the World of Darkness, vampires sometimes call each other "Vee," short for vampire. In Underworld, there is a vampire character named Vee.

14. In the World of Darkness, vampires are organized into Bloodlines. In Underw

Re:The brief

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The brief

[PainKilleR-CE]

I would say that #35 was the first one that really caught me off guard.

Still, it also reminded me that I have to go back and re-read my Necroscope books, because I don't remember if Lumley's vampires/werewolves cast reflections or not (and if they didn't, whether it was a physical property or simply something they manifested in the minds of humans).

Oh well, just a good reason to get off my ass and find the last couple of books I don't have in the series and read the one or two I haven't read yet that are on my shelf.

Re:The brief

[loopback_127001]

You misspelled "Bram Stoker", genius.

Anecdotally speaking

[Jahf]

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.

Re: Oh...

[slaker]

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.

And in other news...

[iainl]

New Line point out that they own the rights to Blade, and White Wolf ought to get to the back of the damn queue.