Nancy Collins sues Sony over Underworld, is 2000ad next?

[ChubbyP]

There is a film coming out called Underworld that bares quite a similarity to the 2000ad story "A love like blood".  Its about vampires fighting werewolves and one from each race falling in love with the other.  The creators of White Wolf games are suing Sony for copyright infringement.  Since the works White Wolf site go back to the mid nineties could 2000ad be at risk from such a suit as well?

Full details are as follows:

Games publisher White Wolf, Inc. and author Nancy A. Collins filed suit in US District court in Atlanta, Georgia yesterday against defendants Sony Pictures, Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment, alleging 17 counts of copyright infringement for the film Underworld, set for release on September 19. White Wolf alleges that Underworld characters, theme and setting are based on White Wolf's award winning games Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, both set in White Wolf's fictional World of Darkness. Further, Collins alleges that Underworld's script is based on her 1994 story Love of Monsters, published by White Wolf and also set in the World of Darkness.

The plaintiffs claim over 60 points of unique similarity between Underworld and their work. "Ours is a huge fictional world, supported by over 200 volumes of fictional material," asserted Mike Tinney, White Wolf's President. "It's infuriating to see Underworld's script riddled with our property."

White Wolf and Collins also claim that Underworld's entire plot is based on Collins' short story, Love of Monsters.

"Apparently they are marketing this as a remake of Romeo and Juliet," commented Collins. "What I think they really mean is that it's an on-screen adaptation of my story."

White Wolf and Collins are seeking immediate injunctive relief and damages.

"The volume of confusion in our marketplace is amazing," observed 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."

Set in a world where vampires and werewolves have been feuding for centuries, Underworld stars Kate Beckinsale as a vampire who is known for her prowess in killing werewolves and Scott Speedman, who plays a human trying to extinguish the long-running feud.

Source: http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21684

[Pyroxian]

Drat, you got there 10 minutes before I did. I read it on the Gaming Report website though

Link: http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=10015&mode=thread&order=0" target="_blank">Gaming Report's Report

[The Amstor Computer]

To be honest, I really don't think 2000AD is at risk from this, but I'd like to see what the "60 points of unique similarity" are - if these are legit, then I'd guess that White Wolf have a fairly solid case against Sony/Underworld.

BTW - anyone remember Shok? :-)

[malkymac]

Got made into a film called 'hardware' which was actually quite entertaining. I think 2000ad got a small result in the courts with this one.

[Mudcrab]

Yeah, there's a wee credit way at the end saying "Based on a 2000ad story" etc.

Excellent film!

[Oddboy]

Again, I reckon Will Shakespeare should get his quill out & sue everybody.


Including the author of the children's book series 'Spot the Dog' in which one episode included a scene where Spot's owner, infuriated by Spot's inability to become housetrained, was kicked out of the home - ?Out damned spot?*


*nb - I made that last bit up.

[The Amstor Computer]

Yup - and to be honest, Hardware is probably the best 2000AD film adaptation we're likely to see...

[Proudhuff]

Any film that starts of with Grangemouth and Iggy Pop can't be all bad ;)

Huffy B-)

[Richmond Clements]

And a cool robot.

[Pyroxian]

A PDF of the full details of the court case is here...

Link: http://www.penny-arcade.com/dl/whitewolfcomplaint.pdf" target="_blank">Full details

[paulvonscott]

Interesting, but if you take all of that stuff out which has previously appeared in other literature and movies then there isn't much left really.

E.g. in both werewolves are harmed by silver (oooh).  Okay so there are more obvious parralels, but a lot of them seemed pretty weak.

Clans, new world/old world vampires, elders, bloodlnes, werewolves being bigger than humans... Well, I'm sorry but all this stuff was done before white wolf.  I think they've started to believe they actually created vampires and werwolves.

Why didn't they sue Blade for instance with it's Vampire Clans and Elders?  Or Bloodline, Blood Ties(?) with it's old world vampires versus new, or Interview with a Vampire, or any number of vampire movies and books.  

I think World of Darkness, the movie and even LLB, all come about because someone says, okay these things are real, how do they intereact?, well the obvious answer they'd hate each other.  And to be honest the romeo and juliet plot follows on as a 'but what if a vampire and werewolf fell in love'  Hmmmm... indeed.

Still, interesting to see how it goes.

[GordonR]

I thought exactly the same thing, paul.  Some of these 'resemblences' are so generic, and have been seen so often in other vampire stories, that they're basically meaningless.

For example, are White Wolf actually claiming that the idea of vampires being superstrong and imhumanly fast was exclusive to their role-playing game?

I imagine the film-makers' lawyers will point out the multitude of sources where many of these ideas appeared long before White Wolf or Nancy Collins ever thought them up.

[Matt]

Its just another case of law suit madness. You can't even fart in the U.S without someone saying it sounded like a guff they passed in 1986 and sue you for copyright infringement.

Mind you it would be funny to see the court hearing. Do you reckon White Wolf will make a luck roll just before the verdict is delivered?

[Art]

Good job Kate Beckinsale doesn't have the same hairstyle as Durham Red, then they'd really be screwed.

[Wake]

The suit would feel a lot more reasonable if it only dealt with stuff that doesn't automatically follow from the tag line - Romeo and Juliet with Vampires and Werewolves. As it is, it's hard to find their real point of grievance inamongst all the generic stuff.

Wake