D&D Movie Lawsuit Proceeding

According to The Escapist, there will be no further attempts to reach an out of court settlement and the lawsuit over who has the rights to make a movie based on Dungeons & Dragons will proceed to trial September 16. Hasbro has sued Sweetpea Entertainment, the company that made the original D&D movie, stating that the rights to the D&D property reverted to Hasbro when Sweetpea failed to make additional movies within the time stipulated by the contract.

Of course, Sweetpea disagrees with this and countersued Hasbro, meaning we likely won't see an official Dungeons & Dragons movie before 2016, at the very earliest.

WOTC Sues Cryptozoic

WOTC announced a lawsuit this week against Cryptozoic and a related company, Hex Entertainment, alleging that Hex's new digital TCG violates several of WOTC's copyrights on Magic, especially those related to the digital version of Magic. In its complaint, WOTC cites similarities between the two games as laid out in this post on the Threshold:  The Hex Podcast website.

The Quiet Speculation website has a very good analysis of the lawsuit, pointing out that, among other things, WOTC is suing under copyright rather than patent law and is claiming violation of trade dress, something that can be hard to prove when both items are digital properties.

This is the second lawsuit WOTC has launched over a game property. The suit and countersuit against Sweetpea Entertainment is still winding its way through the legal system and has remained fairly quiet since last September.

D&D Movie Going to Trial

Looks as if the trial date to determine who controls the rights to make the next D&D movie will go to trial March 25.  The presiding judge dismissed Hasbro's claims for direct infringement of its rights to D&D last Friday but allows the suit for contributory infringement and the countersuits to continue. 

Here's betting that negotiations continued and something gets worked out between the parties just prior to March 25. It the suit goes to trial, one side loses and neither side wants to be that one.  By setting a trial date, the judge has effectively said "This is the deadline for the two of you to work out your problems.  After that, I decide and it becomes more expensive for both of you."

Still More on Dueling D&D Movies

Last week, Sweetpea Entertainment, producer of both D&D movies, filed a motion for summary judgement, asking the court to toss out Hasbro's lawsuit on the grounds that Hasbro failed to provide written notice that it was revoking Sweetpea's rights to the D&D property with the opportunity to cure (Read the motion here).

Hasbro it also claiming copyright infringement, which Sweetpea argues is impossible since there is no property yet on which to infringe copyright.  Stay tuned.