Mortal Kombat film producer sues Midway

[Sylin]

Source: GameSpot News

"The Mortal Kombat franchise, as it stands today, is far more a creation of Threshold and Kasanoff than of Midway," the suit states. "Midway's creative input was almost entirely limited to the videogames. …Threshold was responsible for transforming each of the pattern or 'stock' characters present in the underlying Mortal Kombat video game from an unprotectable idea into a fully-realized, completely-delineated and independently copyrightable expression… Each such character represents a separate, protectable, derivative work for which the copyright is owned by Threshold."

Seems like a power move on Kasanoff's part, knowing Midway has limited resources to fight such a claim in court. But it looks a lot like mob tactics.

By the same logic, it's like saying a fan fic author could claim copyright on an established book series if they expanded on certain characters that the original author wrote about only peripherally.