Just pulled this response to the lawsuit hub-bub from MArk Tinney himself from the WW newsgroup. The statement was originally posted on the WW Developer Journal Forum, apparently.
__________________________________________
"There's been a tremendous amount of discussion on our boards (and many others)
about the merits of our suit against Sony Pictures, Screen Gems and Lakeshore
Entertainment. We're very flattered by the many words of support from well
wishers. We're also a little surprised by the knee jerk reaction some folks are
having to this legal action that we're taking to protect what we believe to be
infringements of our copyrights. While I won't be engaging in a lengthy forum
debate, I do want to address some of the key concerns than many people have
expressed. Please understand that while we're in pre trial, it's difficult for
me to be entirely candid. Certain phrases and words must be used, or I'll
compromise our greater legal efforts. I take a mild risk by posting a letter
like this, but I want to shed a little light on the events and information that
lead us to the decision to prosecute.
"First of all, White Wolf is not an overly litigious company. We enter lawsuits
only rarely, and then, only when we feel we have no other choice and a
likelihood of prevailing. There have been a few instances where we've sued, and
a few instances where we've been sued. Our track record is pretty good, and we
generally don't start something we don't feel capable of finishing. In the case
of Underworld I did contact Sony in the Spring of this year and advised them
that based on the initial Underworld trailer we believed that Underworld may
contain some of our intellectual property (IP from here on out). I requested a
copy of the script so we could review it in more detail and get a clearer
picture of the situation. Sony moved me around to a couple of different people
and a few emails and voice mails later I found myself ignored. Now we had to be
careful, because when a big company like Sony thinks they're going to get sued,
there's a bunch of legal precautions they can take to make a lawsuit
ridiculously expensive for a small company like White Wolf. So rather than start
shaking spears we waited patiently for the requested screenplay but it never
came. Two months later we got the screen play from the Copyright Office and
began reading. What we saw in that screen play was a overwhelming similarity to
both our *expression* of the World of Darkness and to Nancy Collins' short story
The Love of Monsters.
"Now before those well meaning JR lawyers out there begin screaming again that
White Wolf doesn't own Vampires and Werewolves... we're not claiming to. No one
can copyright an idea - only the *expression* of an idea. We do feel that the
World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse contain
unique expressions of these subjects. When we read the Underworld screenplay we
found what we believed to be a nearly identical expression of our unique kinds
of Vampires and a nearly identical expression of our kind of social dynamics
between these two opposed societies. People have pointed to Wolfman VS Dracula
recently. That's fine, but it misses our point. We're claiming that we created a
complex world that supports advanced social structures of both Vampire and
Werewolf societies. That each of these creature types have a unique blend of
common myths and new ideas and that Underworld hues too closely to these same
unique blends. Some of our elements were inspired by folklore, some by more
modern offerings and still others of these elements are wholly original
contributions by our creative staff. It is our combination of these elements
that is unique, and that expression is protectable, we believe, under copyright
law. We also found a few special game terms, like Abomination, showing up in
both our books and their screenplay, and we feel very strongly that the screen
writers were exposed to, inspired by and actively incorporating elements of our
IP into their movie. We feel our case is further strengthened by what we
perceive to be overwhelming similarities between the Underworld script and
Nancy's short story, The Love of Monsters, which is also set in the World of
Darkness. The movie switches the genders of the characters, but otherwise we
found the sequence of events to be almost identical between her story and their
screenplay.
"The merits of our case are (in our opinion) fair and reasonable, and we
wouldn't be in litigation if we didn't sincerely believe that this film borrows
heavily... too heavily... from our unique expression of these popular ideas. We
have a responsibility to ourselves, our freelance community and, yes, this
fanbase to protect our intellectual property from third parties who would
attempt to usurp those unique qualities and represent them as independently
created works. Our livelihood as a publisher and rights owner depends on it. I
sat in court yesterday and listened to their attorney assert that the writers
had never heard of the World of Darkness, and then we showed the judge an
article from the San Diego comicon where the creators admitted that they were
aware of White Wolf's games from their internet research. Well... which is it? I
suppose time and legal discovery will tell the truer tale.
"Fortunately the Judge felt that our case had enough merit that he's expediting
the discovery process and shortening it to 30 days. This is very good for us.
That will allow us to get a hearing, and hopefully an injunction before the
larger portions of Underworld's merchandising roll out, and help to protect many
of the areas we've already taken, or plan to take, the World of Darkness brands
into.
Many forums were ablaze with similarities between the trailer and our
properties. Well, now the little guy has stepped up to defend his rights. I do
thank those of you who have shown us so much support these last few days. For
those of you who asked the tough questions, I hope this discourse sheds some
helpful light on where we're coming from and why.
"Thanks and be well,
Mike Tinney
President
White Wolf, Inc"
__________________________
Personally, I think this is a very impressive statement, and kudos to WW for protecting their IP from Sony's arrogant actions and deeds ("They'd never heard of WoD"?!? They're gonna have to do better than that...).
Principles don't fix the roof. Seriously, like most publishers White Wolf probably has much less working capital than you seem to think. Sony on the other hand...
