When Hollywood takes your ideas and calls them their own...

[Cergorach]

Short version:
White Wolf is sueing Sony Entertainment (and others) for using a lot of elements unique to the WoD campaignsetting in the new movie Underworld.

Long version (read the press releases):

Press release #1 (5 sep 2003)
http://www.white-wolf.com/News/underworldrelease.html

Press release #2 (10 sep 2003)
http://www.white-wolf.com/News/underworldrelease2.html

So what has this to do with D20&OGL publishers? Well, if it can happen to White Wolf it can happen to anyone...

How well do you protect your IP?

 

[jaerdaph]

Hmmm. Maybe Anne Rice should sue White Wolf...

 

[Cergorach]

Hmmm. Maybe Anne Rice should sue White Wolf...

Vamps and Weres are a bit older than anne ;-)

Just saw the movie, and i must say, it's got a lot of things that make the movie feel like a story that's right out of WoD. That in itself shouldn't really be a problem, because WoD is just a modern setting with all myths applied, the problem is that the script seems to be ripped off from an novel someone wrote for WoD for WW.

i did enjoy the movie.

The point isn't that WW is right or wrong, the point is how would you feel when you saw a movie that has so many 'unique' elements from your setting and also follows a story that is very close to one you 'published'?

 

[Grinning Loony]

This comic seems appropriate:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-09-08&res=l

-Luke

 

[Cergorach]

hehehe...

That's funny!

Oh... And btw, do something about your sig!

 

[jaerdaph]

This comic seems appropriate:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-09-08&res=l

Now that was funny

 

[jaerdaph]

Vamps and Weres are a bit older than anne ;-)

Yeah - I was only joking, at least partly.

But I think it would be fair to say that when I first read VtM way back when, all I could think of was Lestat and Anne Rice.

She didn't invent vampires, but she added something unique to the myth and "culture" of vampires which has found its way into VtM and WoD.

Edit: I just wanted to add that I DO think Nancy Collins and WW have a case against Sony, especially if the plot of Underworld has been taken from Love of Monsters.

 

[HellHound]

I hope that White Wolf wins this one.

A big cash injection into the RPG industry would be a good thing.

 

[jaerdaph]

I hope that White Wolf wins this one.

A big cash injection into the RPG industry would be a good thing.

Amen.

 

[jaldaen]

I hope that White Wolf wins this one.

A big cash injection into the RPG industry would be a good thing.

I only hope they win if the makers of Underworld actually plagarized the Collin's short story (has anyone both read this and watched the movie? I've seen the film and I don't see a definative connection to the WoD, but I've not read the short story which I think is the linch pin of WW's suit)... I hate plagarism.

If the makers of Underworld did not plagarize I hope WW gets countersued by Sony and the makers of the film and it brings in a big cash injection for the next Underworld movie (only cost 22 million or so)... I hate frivolous lawsuits just as much.

My 2 Cents,
Joseph Miller