I'm glad you brought up White Wolf v. Sony. I think Penny Arcade's response at the time summed it up pretty well: Comic: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/09/

I'm glad you brought up White Wolf v. Sony. I think Penny Arcade's response at the time summed it up pretty well: Comic: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/09/08 http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/09/08 Post: http://penny-arcade.com/2003/09/08/ http://penny-arcade.com/2003/09/08/ However, despite following the case closely at the time, I've never heard about any negotiations between White Wolf and Sony at any stage of the film's development. On the contrary, emails from within White Wolf indicate they were completely unaware of the film until the first trailer was released. Do you have a source for your claim that there were negotiations? To answer your question: nothing stops a studio from piggybacking on someone else's concept, and nothing should. The Asylum's entire business model is based on it (though they also engage in the somewhat unethical practice of copying names, when they can). White Wolf has no claim to the basic ideas underpinning the World of Darkness. There's nothing unique or innovative there. The same thing applies to The Vampire Diaries (books and TV show), Twilight (books and film), True Blood (books and TV show), and so on, of course.