So, I read that White Wolf is suing Sony over similarities between it's games and their movie, Underworld.
Crazy world.
If anyone watched movies right after Star Wars came out, we always thought it was a Star Wars riptake off. I don't remember any lawsuits.
You used to see movies come out based on similar concepts in the same year, with whatever theme was popular; boxing, pirates, hacking, running, space, blah blah blah. Where were the lawsuits? Maybe there were some...
Fantasy movies, books tend to take a lot that can be said to come from Tolkien. But Tolkien borrowed from other sources as well. Some of the books follow the same formula, we read them anyways.
Oh no, your book has a hero with a sword who falls in love with a female character who has magical powers and for some reason can't be with the hero. Just like mine, only your sword name has two hyphens and mine has an apostrophe.
Although the little thing with the Harry Potter imitation was perhaps too sincere in its imitation/flattery; I have no problem with similar concepts. Stories are old and many are told. Some stories are retold and are popular. A kind of, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. But involving what everyone likes to read.
Sometimes there are twists, and little nuances which make the book better. Sometimes a setting can make all the difference.
And sometimes we get a whole new groundbreaking change; rarely though.
Tolkien was good for that. As were the older science fiction writers of the time. Innovation in concepts and circumstances.
Star Wars was good, but not original. A Space Opera, it was a twist on a few things that worked. And it spawned more things and grew in popularity.
And that's a good thing.
Can't say I find the lawsuit very compellingly persuasive.
How many things have to be the same, or different, before something is no longer similar enough to be considered a rip-off?
To paraphrase/rip-off (depending upon your viewpoint) a line from Amadeus:
How many notes are too many?
Oh, here's the comic that led to this.
Posted by hugin at Septiembre 9, 2003 03:44 PM