HellHound said:
I hope that White Wolf wins this one.
A big cash injection into the RPG industry would be a good thing.
Interesting. I think we have wildly divergent ideas on this one, but I'm perhaps a bit of an intellectual anarchist.
Let us assume Underworld was "inspired by/somewhat cribbed from" White Wolf.
White Wolf was "inspired by/somewhat cribbed from" Anne Rice and others.
Anne Rice in turn was inspired by/cribbed from Hammer Films and Bram Stoker.
Bram Stoker was in turn inspired by/cribbed from "urban legends" of the Nosferatu which were concocted by unknown commonfolk.
These unknown commonfolk were in turn inspired by/cribbed from their ancestors' accounts of real events involving Vlad Tepes.
Vlad Tepes'... um... personal preferences... were probably inspired by someone else... and so it goes.
In other words, everybody is cribbing ideas from everyone all the time. Nothing is created in a vaccuum - we're all stealing each other's ideas all the time, the "trick" is just to process them enough steps away from the original that it's not immediately obvious.
"Intellectual Property" is for the most part (IMO) a fraud, a misnomer, and generally a way of labelling "that which has been changed just enough so as to not be recognizable as an outright copy of someone else's extant stuff."
I understand the purpose of setting up copyright laws to create the concept of IP - there is a tangible amount of work involved in turning "abstract idea" into "coherent written, oral, or audiovisual communication" and it is in the interests of society to incent people to that work by giving the author a means for compensation.
But lately, it seems like people are trying to copyright ideas - which is what this case looks like to me, anyway (Werewolves can be harmed by SILVER?!? Werewolves and Vampires at war {prior art - Wolfman vs. Dracula in the late '30s}? Horrible! Obviously, Underworld is illicitly swiping our game mechanics and themes and committing copyright infringement!!!). From what I've read of this case (admittedly, I don't have all the facts, but the ones I have seen posted on the net lead me to go this way), WW has no case at all. They're trying to copyright ideas.
I'll say it right now... if I were on the jury for this case, and the suit is no stronger than it seems now (i.e., unless Underworld and "Love of Monster" - or whatever it is - have common characters and locales with identical names, rather than simply "similar dark and dreary themes"), if the law said Sony is guilty, I'd definitely have to resort to jury nullification, the doctrine espoused by Justise Oliver Wendell Homes that, "The jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts" (in order to nullify an unjust law).
Then again, I'm the same person that would have put my OGL products into the public domain five years after first publication if I could (I can't, because they're derivative works that include some of WotC's IP and I haven't been given clearance to do that from WotC).
At the end of the day, all of my so-called "original ideas" are built upon the foundation of a huge mountain of ideas - some in the public domain (which I can copy verbatim) and some not (which I have to take several "steps" away from to avoid copyright infringement). But for me not to show proper gratitude for that intellectual heritage and try to deny others the right to build their ideas based upon mine is the height of hypocrisy (another reason I am all for rolling back copyright to 14+14 years - I don't expect to pay my plumber 50 years after he's dead because he fixed my toilet, why should authors expect to get royalties 50 years after they're dead just because they once wrote a book?).
But that discussion borders on political and takes things in a completely different direction - AND is likely to be EXTREMELY unpopular with most other publishers around here anyway (of course, I don't rely upon it to put food on my table, so admittedly those that do have a MUCH higher stake in it and were I in their shoes, perhaps I would not be quite so annoyed by copyright).
But for the record, that's pretty much my policy. Don't copy my work directly without my permission and try to pass it off as your own - that's "cheating." But don't worry about "deriving" from my work and not getting "far enough away" to avoid copyright infringement. It's not worth my time or anybody else's - and it's hypocritical, too.
I hope I've articulated clearly without going too far political. And I know there will be a lot of dissenting views. That's fine, and please poke holes in my argument so I can refine and/or adjust my views. Just don't attack me and we'll be good.
--The Sigil
