City Of Heroes Being Sued
StormLiong
Join Date: 2002-12-27 Member: 11569Members
Join Date: 2002-12-27 Member: 11569Members
<div class="IPBDescription">by Marvel</div> Not sure if anyone posted this yet but tot I bring it up. Marvel is suing NCSoft.
<a href='http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041111%2F2235482241.htm&sc=1333' target='_blank'>http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp...241.htm&sc=1333</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Marvel Enterprises Inc. is suing two firms behind a computer superhero role-playing game it claims allows players to make virtual characters that are too similar to ``The Hulk,'' ``X-Men'' and other heroes in the comic book company's stable. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I personally think NCSoft expected it hence the rule int he EULA saying not 3rd party existing characters. And it took Marvel long enough to start suing now.
<a href='http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041111%2F2235482241.htm&sc=1333' target='_blank'>http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp...241.htm&sc=1333</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Marvel Enterprises Inc. is suing two firms behind a computer superhero role-playing game it claims allows players to make virtual characters that are too similar to ``The Hulk,'' ``X-Men'' and other heroes in the comic book company's stable. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I personally think NCSoft expected it hence the rule int he EULA saying not 3rd party existing characters. And it took Marvel long enough to start suing now.
Comments
This is ridiculous. They just want money. Marvel are idiots.
And you're doing this on purpose. There IS a search function.
edit: funny, I'm sure there was a thread on this a few days back...
I think Marvel is just being a bunch of corporate idiots but then again in a society run mostly by greedy folk with the common sense and intellect of a cold baked bean is that really any surprise? =P
They just have to be on the safe side and show that their characters aren't public domain.
2) I imagine there are a lot of CoH players who felt inspired by the game to go check out some comic books.
Marvel wins on both of those. You can't say "hey we're not happy with your taking our intellectual property" while at the same time advertising the offending product.
le sigh.
hehe, and as I said before, NCSoft jumped through hoops to avoid infringment
Though the swear filter is a toggle, you can't have character names with anytihng in it.
superman is in the swear filter.
so are alot of other names (hulk, cyclopse, wolverine, etc)
sorta silly.
Marvel owns the copyrights to all its characters, and thus is what allows them to control use of said characters in commercial settings. This is a good thing for a business entity to do. Bill Watterson never copyrighted his characters, which was an admirable moral stand on the issue of intellectual property, but as a result we now have an endless supply of stickers of Calvin peeing on random objects. I think we can all agree public domain Marvel superheroes would be not cool.
So we have here, in a <i>commercial</i> setting, the City of Heroes game. In it, people are able to create characters nearly identical to Marvel (and other) copyrighted/trademarked characters. It's one thing to make a character with a similar name, and another to make one with a similar appearance, but putting both together is where the problem lies
So Marvel ends up in a lose-lose situation. They file suit to protect their copyrights, and in turn look like greedy moneyhungry bastards. But since COH is a commercially sold product, if Marvel <i>doesn't</i> file suit, they open themselves up to further (and much more serious) infringements on their copyrights as well as giving opposing entities legal grounds to say "Well, they had a chance to pursue it here, and didn't..." Thus, if they don't file suit, they might lose their copyright down the line, putting their characters in the public domain.
There's no comparison to the ability to draw your own renditions of these characters, because that's not commercial. But if it becomes commercial, i.e. if you sell it, then you're screwed. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I see what you mean to some extent but I still think that it even had to come to this is downright stupid -.-
A lot of different companies with intellectual property have had to do this sort of thing because of the inherent stupidity of the legal system.
le sigh. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Encore!
<img src='http://www.pvponline.com/archive/2004/pvp20041112.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
GG corperate America.
It seriously is messed up. It's like suing Clavinova for making pianos that can play copyrighted music. Or suing a paper company because you can draw Marvel characters on the paper.
Seriously, though, after seeing some screencaps of some of the marvel characters created in COH, I think Marvel may have a case.
When you buy a piece of paper, a pencil, or 3D Studio Max, you get a program that lets you make anything you want. If you make a Marvel character, as long as it's not commercial (i.e. you don't sell it - which is really common sense anyway), there's no problem. What you don't get is a template to make your own Marvel characters. In City of Heroes, you create a character not from scratch, but from a large set of pre-defined characteristics, many of which are modeled after Marvel characters. This becomes comparable to selling pencils and paper with cutouts and color-by-number pieces of Marvel characters, which, unless licensed, is illegal - Cryptic/NCSoft is selling these templates, where the alleged infringement occurred.
Cryptic could have prevented this by a) not including these options for characters and b) better enforcement against characters infringing on copyrights (an action they take/have taken already).
I agree it's a crappy situation, but there's content there close enough that, as I mentioned before, they leave themselves wide open to future (and more serious) damages by not taking action here. It's unfortunate things work that way, but there were steps that could have been taken to better avoid this.
Seriously, though, after seeing some screencaps of some of the marvel characters created in COH, I think Marvel may have a case.
When you buy a piece of paper, a pencil, or 3D Studio Max, you get a program that lets you make anything you want. If you make a Marvel character, as long as it's not commercial (i.e. you don't sell it - which is really common sense anyway), there's no problem. What you don't get is a template to make your own Marvel characters. In City of Heroes, you create a character not from scratch, but from a large set of pre-defined characteristics, many of which are modeled after Marvel characters. This becomes comparable to selling pencils and paper with cutouts and color-by-number pieces of Marvel characters, which, unless licensed, is illegal - Cryptic/NCSoft is selling these templates, where the alleged infringement occurred.
Cryptic could have prevented this by a) not including these options for characters and b) better enforcement against characters infringing on copyrights (an action they take/have taken already).
I agree it's a crappy situation, but there's content there close enough that, as I mentioned before, they leave themselves wide open to future (and more serious) damages by not taking action here. It's unfortunate things work that way, but there were steps that could have been taken to better avoid this. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, they DO enforce it.
I've heard from a few(so my facts may be off) that they have been known to delete characters when the costume is too similar to a certain official character of some type, or the name too similar.
I feel for them both really- CoH for getting sued, Marvel for being forced to cover their ****, really. Its like someone suing you for pants, as an example- you just wanted to make sure you didn't get it up yours later, so put it there.
As I said before, Marvel probably expected themselves to lose the lawsuit. They just have to do it for the sake of defending their characters in the future.
le sigh. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd love for it to happen, if only because it might convince EA to <b><i>STOP</b></i>. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
- Shockwave