White Wolf sues Sony over the movie "Underworld"

[Black Omega]

To add to the list:


Another Marvel suit (I'm detecting a trend here ), occurred against wrestler Hulk Hogan. Yes, Marvel claims that the word "hulk" is their property. Hogan settled and has to pay royalties everytime he uses his name. In fact, if you look at any wrestling video game he appears in, you can see that "Hulk Hogan" is the "property of Marvel Comics".

I doubt that Hogan is thrilled with this and has used other names on and off over the years ("Hollywood" Hogan and Mr. America).

Actually, Hogan got sued for being announced as "The Incredible Hulk Hogan", and quite rightfully so. He did try to change to Hollywood Hogan but that failed since even announcers called him Hollywood Hulk Hogan.

 

[Jhamin]

Actually, Hogan got sued for being announced as "The Incredible Hulk Hogan", and quite rightfully so. He did try to change to Hollywood Hogan but that failed since even announcers called him Hollywood Hulk Hogan.

I remember seeing an interview with him where they asked him where he got the name "Hulk Hogan".

He answered that he used to train at the same Gym as Lou Ferrigno (sp?) who at the time was playing The Incredible Hulk on TV. He said people used to say he was even bigger than the Hulk. Somewhere Even Bigger than the Hulk Hogan got shortended to Hulk Hogan.

Given that the name actually originated with the green skinned one, I don't think infringement is too much of a reach.

 

[billd91]

My opinion:

I really don't buy the "if you take all the points together it looks like they have something" arguement. Can people really claim rights over a collection of motifs they collect together from different places? White Wolf's just trying to assert property rights over a loose genre they didn't invent.

Sure, there are some 'frivolous' elements of the lawsuit that haven't exactly originated with WW. But there are some pretty close parallels that could nail Sony.

Paragraph 84. In the World of Darkness, the vampires created Silver Nitrate bullets specifically for fighting werewolves. In Underworld, the vampires created Silver Nitrate bullets specifically for fighting werewolves.

Now, silver bullets have been a staple of werewolf films since their beginning. But silver nitrate?

I think the addition of the somewhat weaker elements of the complaint are partly the lawyers trying the shotgun approach. Something will hit the target eventually. But I also think that all of these other similarities can help them perhaps claim a higher level of IP infringement and perhaps call for more damages than if they just stuck to the more specific and important similarities. It's one thing to steal one or two elements from someone elses IP, but if you whole work parallels the other in so MANY ways, then it's harder to say that you were ignorant of it or didn't swipe it or came up with it independently.

 

[Pielorinho]

Paragraph 84. In the World of Darkness, the vampires created Silver Nitrate bullets specifically for fighting werewolves. In Underworld, the vampires created Silver Nitrate bullets specifically for fighting werewolves.

Again, a passing familiarity with the setting makes the claim look very suspect. While I do remember a sourcebook for the Werewolf igame in which evil scientists experimented with silver-nitrate-solution weapons for fighting werewolves, I don't ever remember reading of vampires using silver-nitrate bullets. Chances are that somewhere, in one of teh two-dozen plus sourcebooks WW pulbished on the vampire game alone, there's a mention of some scientific vampire who uses these weapons. It is *far* from a central point of their game, far from a normal weapon for vampires to use.

If the movie involved vampries stealing silver salad forks form a department store to fight werewolves, they could probably cite some Malkavian in some product somewhere who fought werewolves with a silver salad fork.

It may look good at first, but I challenge anyone here to show us WHERE in the WOD vampires use silver nitrate bullets. Once we see the reference, we can evaluate it.

Daniel

 

[Black Omega]

Considering how much WW 'borrowed' from Anne Rice..

We'll see how it works out though. I never heard of silver nitrate bullets in the WoD books, but I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere in literature, probably Laurell K. Hamilton since her work combines vampires, werewolves, and bullets with some type of liquid silver solution. (since they work on both vampires and lycantropes, to a degree.)

 

[jdavis]

I've already given up on the conversation at hand (I guess we will just have to wait and see what the court says), but I have noticed that this story has not appeared on many of the big movie news sites yet (Dark Horizons had a paragraph on it yesterday, that's about it). It's really not stirring up that much interest in the media at all.

The movie got a very bad review on Harry Knowles site too: http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=16037

And for those who actually care about Hulk Hogan here is a link to his early history: http://www.cooldudesandhotbabes.com/hoganbio.html
He started using the name Hulk Hogan in 1980 (although he had used the term hulk before), he didn't use Hollywood Hogan till the mid 90's and that had to do with the NWO wrestling gimmick.

 

[ElMorte]

It may look good at first, but I challenge anyone here to show us WHERE in the WOD vampires use silver nitrate bullets. Once we see the reference, we can evaluate it.

Daniel

I accept the challenge. *g*

In the "Freak Legion: A Players Guide to Fomori" Book.

Page 25. Silver Nitrate Hollow Point.

Edit:

Ok, that are not Vampires, but it's still White Wolf property.

 

[buzzard]

Too true. Lawsuits like this rely on the ignorance of the jury. The Superman/Capt. Marvel points make them seem virtually identical. It's only a comic fan that would recognize the above points describe half the superhero population. Drop the part about flying and wearing a cape, and you've just described Spider-Man.

How about we approach this from a stat based point of view. Let's look just at the super powers used by Supes and Captain Marvel.

Super Strength
Super Speed
Invulnerability
Flight
Super Intelligence

Superman adds heat and x-ray vision, but if I made each up using a point buy game system, the two would look damned similar. Spiderman is not even remotely similar. Sure we have super speed and strength, but that's it. He does the web thing both swinging and shooting. He climbs walls and has a
'spider sense'.All of which are quite different. Captain Marvel has a majority subset of Supes powers, and nothing else.
Much of what you list as commonality between Supes and Spiderman are core to the genre (secret identities, costumes).

Now of course the origins, dispositions, and motivations are all quite different. I guess it just depends on what is the more important stuff. The court decided that there was too much in common. Tough luck for Fawcett.


buzzard

 

[Mark Chance]

I accept the challenge. *g*

In the "Freak Legion: A Players Guide to Fomori" Book.

Page 25. Silver Nitrate Hollow Point.

Edit:

Ok, that are not Vampires, but it's still White Wolf property.

No, not really. I know that silver nitrate, or something similar to it, was used to kill vampires in Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly, for example. Just about everything silver except the kitchen sink was used in both Blade movies. The idea is hardly original.

 

[buzzard]

No, not really. I know that silver nitrate, or something similar to it, was used to kill vampires in Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly, for example. Just about everything silver except the kitchen sink was used in both Blade movies. The idea is hardly original.

Yeah I think Iremember them using silver nitrate as a poison in Blade. I may be wrong though.

buzzard