Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the legal-web-slinging dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It now looks like Marvel has a dispute with
Sony over Spiderman. This short
report tells how Sony is trying to take over Spiderman. First we saw the
dispute between Marvel and Stan Lee, and now this."
I'm confused...
by
Xerithane
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I see Marvel has a point with the merchandising, that they are supposed to do most of it with the joint agreement. I'm not sure how Sony is violating Marvel's rights on the Spiderman franchise because as far as I can tell, they're making movies.
This is a really horrible report, so Google News comes to the rescue and I found a fanboy site with a lot more information.
Hope it helps, because the Drudge report was just confusing.
Re:I'm confused...
by
Dr+Caleb
·
· Score: 4, Informative
From reading the article, I glean that Sony is advertising Spidey in such a way as to not include Marvel in any way.
"Spiderman" by Sony Entertainment. No mention of Marvel anywhere. At least, that is what I get from "MARVEL is accusing SONY of doing everything it can to disassociate SPIDERMAN and MARVEL in the minds of retailers."
-- "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
I remember the day...
by
NineNine
·
· Score: 4, Informative
... when Spiderman wasn't a corporate trademark to be argued over, but just a cool comic book that I'd pick up and read. So nice to have the corporate legal eagles shit all over it.
Re:I remember the day...
by
SoftCoreHonesty
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You must be pretty old because I remember owning Spiderman underoos about 30 years ago. Spiderman became an over-commercialized corporate trademark long before Sony came along. Spiderman, Batman, Hulk, and Superman were all sell outs. Now give me Ghost Rider anyday.
Re:I remember the day...
by
LMariachi
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Even better. In the next issues, it comes out that Spiderman is a pedophile!! Sony would drop that faster than a hot potato. Then Stan Lee spins the plot (after Sony went away) so that it was all some evil plot to frame Spiderman. Everything's right in the world again.
Marvel's next superhero
by
Infonaut
·
· Score: 4, Funny
should be "LawyerMan". Armed with the Pen of Destruction and the Briefcase of Neverending Legal Briefs, he wages war in the shadowy world of corporate dealings.
And he never loses. Well, maybe he loses every so often to make things interesting, but he always wins on appeal;-)
Literally kidnapped?
by
sssmashy
·
· Score: 5, Funny
MARVEL accuses SONY of literally kidnapping Spidey.
SONY literally kidnapped Spiderman? What, a bunch of Sony exectuves have Spidey chained up in the basement of their corporate HQ? This sounds like a good plot for the next comic book... sure, Spidey can defeat the Green Goblin, but does he stand a chance against capitalism run amok?
I've said it before..
by
NanoGator
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Sony's every bit as evil as you guys thing Microsoft is. I don't know why they're not on Slashdot's radar.
The basic gist of the complaint is that they are attempting to rebrand Spiderman as a Sony product. Though I don't have any opinion as to whether they're guilty here or not as I don't have enough info to base an opinion on, I do know that Sony's been complained about before. Anybody remember when they were developing the Super NES CD that never arrived? It fell through because Sony wanted this to be a Sony branded machine. They basically wanted to take over Nintendo's well developed market. Fortunately, Nintendo had the balls to stand up to them. That's indirectly how Sony came around with the Playstation.
Slashdot really should be eyeballing Sony. Sometimes you guys pay too much attention to Microsoft.
-- "Derp de derp."
Re:I've said it before..
by
mojowantshappy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Mostly because Sony is the big competition for the X-Box, so a lot of anti-microsoft people like to rally behind them (me included).
Also, Sony is quite broken up compared to most companies. They have their movie division, their music division, their computer division, their video games division, etc. So though I really hate Sony's music and movie division, I still like their video game division.
Also, offering linux for PS2 can't hurt.
--
This page was generated by a Barrel of Circus Midgets, and that is the way I like it!!!
Knowles Knows
by
Malicious
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Harry Knowles has explained the scenario pretty well already.
I strongly object
by
burgburgburg
·
· Score: 5, Funny
to your use of the modifier "probably" in your comments!
Drudge has worked very hard to ensure that everything he reports is a great big load, and your comments cast aspersions on his efforts.
Shame. SHAME!
Re:By The Steps:
by
ebbomega
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
By the looks of it, yes. Seemingly, Marvel had a license with Sony about the Merchandise, but now it looks like Sony has broken the terms of that license and now Marvel is asking to have it chucked out. The report has got to be one of the worst written articles I've ever seen and it doesn't explain much, most importantly it seems we have ZERO clue what the main clauses are that are going to be used since it seems that the license may not be publically available until the case itself.
I think it's quite possible that Marvel has a case. Pretty probable too... big companies tend not to go up against bigger better companies that could buy their ass out unless they happen to be faltering *coughSCOcough*.
Marvel's doing better than ever. Movie exposure is enticing more and more people to read superhero comics and it seems to have moved once again away from the stereotypical fanboy and more into the traditional playgrounds of childhood fantasy.
Marvel wouldn't cut the rug out from underneath them by ending a contract with SONY without good reason. Obviously there's tension between the two companies and Marvel wants out of the contract so they can build a better relationship with a different company.
Fine. No real harsh damage done to anything really except that Sony doesn't get a third Spidey movie. I don't even know if Sam Raimi's going to want to touch a third Spidey movie, and most likely there's going to be lots of FUD around a third movie any ways, cuz frankly I don't know if people have forgotten about Batman Forever and Batman and Robin yet.
-- Karma: Non-Heinous
Marvel to employ Iraqi Information Manager ...
by
binaryDigit
·
· Score: 4, Funny
As new Minister of Marketing.
"Those infidels at Sony don't even have the rights to the character at all. If they think they do, it's all in their minds"
"I feel safe from Sony, so should you"
"They are going to surrender or burn inside their little rice burners"
"Sony has never made a Spiderman film! This I tell you!"
"We will welcome them, with lawyers and taunts!"
"they are nowhere near completion on the sequel..they are lost in the Australian desert...they can not read a compass...they are retarded."
Re:EXLUSIVE DRUDGE REPORT
by
bomb_number_20
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
don't be a fucktard.
Most of drudge's stories are just links to articles in other publications, most of whom get their news through AP or Reuters (their validity is an entirely separate argument). What you're complaining about is the focus he chooses to use for compiling his articles.
sensationalistic? yes. but that doesnt mean he's wrong. the bigger problem is the same one that plagues/., no one bothers to read the articles. they glance at the headlines and then act like they've read the whole thing.
-- That's ok, Jesus likes me anyway.
I remember when trademarks weren't legal.
by
Syncdata
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Spiderman was a cool comic book because Marvel, not sony, not you, and not some amorphous, non corporate comic machine in the sky, paid cool artists, and cool writers, to produce a cool comic, which had to be printed on a cool press, and distributed nationwide. This takes money, and if Marvel doesn't recieve the fat royalties that come from having a lucrative franchise (are people allowed to have those anymore on/.?)then there will be no more cool comics. I remember when someone could be protective of their own intellectual property, and not be sanctimoniously lectured about it. This is not a troll, though it will likely be modded as such.
-- "Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
is that why they paired with Verant?
by
Stalcair
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
back during the Ultima Online beta many expressed distaste of EA's customer support. Many places detail the treatment of testers then customers (or rather just the way that known bugs were ignored in favor of "enhancements" and extensions). EQ came along and many jumped ship (or Captained both... must live on that planet with 36 hour days and only 4 hours of sleep). After the honeymoon was over however, many reported that the customer service showed signs it was flat out sick of dealing with its customers. I feel sympothy for them but they should be professional. I and my wife decided we would like to get back into the game of MMOG so I did a bit of research at that time on the various MMOG's out then. What I came across was a varied array of horror stories dealing all with customer service. I read about how players had their accounts suspended and then terminated often when they were actually the victim of hacking attacks. (it was hard to filter through the BS, but some presented their cases very well to include providing what evidence they had and Verant/SOE responses.
I was warned by some that in the unlikely event that my account was somehow compromised through no fault or negligence of my own then by reporting it there was a high probability that my account would be permanently deleted. I thought that was odd and so decided to verify the policy with Sony.
Looking online at their site, I did multiple searches through the knowledge available and perused everything from the FAQ's and posted legal mumbo jumbo. However, it appeared that all that was ever mentioned was, "We are not responsible for securing your computer or network." OK, that doesn't sound unreasonable at all. However, past experience also knew that this could easily be just an ambigious coverall attempt to justify stupid decisions upon their part. I needed hard facts so why not ask their friendly customer service reps (that was before the trend to call it "customer care" appeared I believe).
What happened next seemed at first to be sadly just another fine example of dealing with customer service and tech support today. I first stated my question. Then stated after that more specifics about it, including what I was NOT asking. I also pointed out clearly at the beginning that I had read as much info as I could find on their site and included the relevant FAQ portions that I felt did not fully answer my question. First response back? Noise. It appeared that an automated system went through and mined my question with the customer rep only reading the scripts output. He responded that I look at the FAQ and restated what I myself had quoted in my email regarding their "responsibility." (BTW, my questions were basically "If I take precautions of firewall, anti virus, spyware checking, yadda yadda yadda, what would happen if someone somehow managed to crack my account?" and also "In such a case as this, would Verant and SOE's policy allow banning of the victim's (me) account?")
I responded with a generic statement up front of "please read this email in its entirety as the original query was not addressed" and proceeded to then quote my original question. I really could not think of another way to post it.
This time it seems he read a bit more. He then proceeded to quote from the FAQ how each banning case goes through a review process... yet did not say that it was possible. Time for response numero dos.
This time he addressed the portion of my query about the compromised account review policy... but still did not give a concrete answer as to whether their policy allowed them to ban the victims account. (I had explicitly asked this every time). Well I guess I will fire up another response.
This time I apparently had worn him down a bit (and I refrained from calling him a turdstain or anything else like that) and he testily responded that the security of the accounts was solely the responsibility of the user. He then seemed to use his own words to paraphrase the parts of the FAQ about, "don't give yo
--
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
Slashdot Mirror
I see Marvel has a point with the merchandising, that they are supposed to do most of it with the joint agreement. I'm not sure how Sony is violating Marvel's rights on the Spiderman franchise because as far as I can tell, they're making movies.
This is a really horrible report, so Google News comes to the rescue and I found a fanboy site with a lot more information.
Hope it helps, because the Drudge report was just confusing.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Sony vs Marvel
Sony's next big console game....
-Tolerate my intolerance
... when Spiderman wasn't a corporate trademark to be argued over, but just a cool comic book that I'd pick up and read. So nice to have the corporate legal eagles shit all over it.
I guess Spiderman himself wasn't available for comment...
Even better. In the next issues, it comes out that Spiderman is a pedophile!! Sony would drop that faster than a hot potato. Then Stan Lee spins the plot (after Sony went away) so that it was all some evil plot to frame Spiderman. Everything's right in the world again.
And he never loses. Well, maybe he loses every so often to make things interesting, but he always wins on appeal ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
MARVEL accuses SONY of literally kidnapping Spidey.
SONY literally kidnapped Spiderman? What, a bunch of Sony exectuves have Spidey chained up in the basement of their corporate HQ? This sounds like a good plot for the next comic book... sure, Spidey can defeat the Green Goblin, but does he stand a chance against capitalism run amok?
Sony's every bit as evil as you guys thing Microsoft is. I don't know why they're not on Slashdot's radar.
The basic gist of the complaint is that they are attempting to rebrand Spiderman as a Sony product. Though I don't have any opinion as to whether they're guilty here or not as I don't have enough info to base an opinion on, I do know that Sony's been complained about before. Anybody remember when they were developing the Super NES CD that never arrived? It fell through because Sony wanted this to be a Sony branded machine. They basically wanted to take over Nintendo's well developed market. Fortunately, Nintendo had the balls to stand up to them. That's indirectly how Sony came around with the Playstation.
Slashdot really should be eyeballing Sony. Sometimes you guys pay too much attention to Microsoft.
"Derp de derp."
Harry Knowles has explained the scenario pretty well already.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
What a waste. I actually read the article first before posting this time. I've learned my lesson.
...comes a great army of lawyers.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
So which one is Apple and which one is Microsoft?
Mr.Lee is very obviously Xerox.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Drudge has worked very hard to ensure that everything he reports is a great big load, and your comments cast aspersions on his efforts.
Shame. SHAME!
By the looks of it, yes. Seemingly, Marvel had a license with Sony about the Merchandise, but now it looks like Sony has broken the terms of that license and now Marvel is asking to have it chucked out. The report has got to be one of the worst written articles I've ever seen and it doesn't explain much, most importantly it seems we have ZERO clue what the main clauses are that are going to be used since it seems that the license may not be publically available until the case itself.
I think it's quite possible that Marvel has a case. Pretty probable too... big companies tend not to go up against bigger better companies that could buy their ass out unless they happen to be faltering *coughSCOcough*.
Marvel's doing better than ever. Movie exposure is enticing more and more people to read superhero comics and it seems to have moved once again away from the stereotypical fanboy and more into the traditional playgrounds of childhood fantasy.
Marvel wouldn't cut the rug out from underneath them by ending a contract with SONY without good reason. Obviously there's tension between the two companies and Marvel wants out of the contract so they can build a better relationship with a different company.
Fine. No real harsh damage done to anything really except that Sony doesn't get a third Spidey movie. I don't even know if Sam Raimi's going to want to touch a third Spidey movie, and most likely there's going to be lots of FUD around a third movie any ways, cuz frankly I don't know if people have forgotten about Batman Forever and Batman and Robin yet.
Karma: Non-Heinous
As new Minister of Marketing.
..they are lost in the Australian desert...they can not read a compass...they are retarded."
"Those infidels at Sony don't even have the rights to the character at all. If they think they do, it's all in their minds"
"I feel safe from Sony, so should you"
"They are going to surrender or burn inside their little rice burners"
"Sony has never made a Spiderman film! This I tell you!"
"We will welcome them, with lawyers and taunts!"
"they are nowhere near completion on the sequel
don't be a fucktard.
/., no one bothers to read the articles. they glance at the headlines and then act like they've read the whole thing.
Most of drudge's stories are just links to articles in other publications, most of whom get their news through AP or Reuters (their validity is an entirely separate argument). What you're complaining about is the focus he chooses to use for compiling his articles.
sensationalistic? yes. but that doesnt mean he's wrong. the bigger problem is the same one that plagues
That's ok, Jesus likes me anyway.
Spiderman was a cool comic book because Marvel, not sony, not you, and not some amorphous, non corporate comic machine in the sky, paid cool artists, and cool writers, to produce a cool comic, which had to be printed on a cool press, and distributed nationwide. /.?)then there will be no more cool comics.
This takes money, and if Marvel doesn't recieve the fat royalties that come from having a lucrative franchise (are people allowed to have those anymore on
I remember when someone could be protective of their own intellectual property, and not be sanctimoniously lectured about it.
This is not a troll, though it will likely be modded as such.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
I feel sympothy for them but they should be professional. I and my wife decided we would like to get back into the game of MMOG so I did a bit of research at that time on the various MMOG's out then. What I came across was a varied array of horror stories dealing all with customer service. I read about how players had their accounts suspended and then terminated often when they were actually the victim of hacking attacks. (it was hard to filter through the BS, but some presented their cases very well to include providing what evidence they had and Verant/SOE responses.
I was warned by some that in the unlikely event that my account was somehow compromised through no fault or negligence of my own then by reporting it there was a high probability that my account would be permanently deleted. I thought that was odd and so decided to verify the policy with Sony.
Looking online at their site, I did multiple searches through the knowledge available and perused everything from the FAQ's and posted legal mumbo jumbo. However, it appeared that all that was ever mentioned was, "We are not responsible for securing your computer or network." OK, that doesn't sound unreasonable at all. However, past experience also knew that this could easily be just an ambigious coverall attempt to justify stupid decisions upon their part. I needed hard facts so why not ask their friendly customer service reps (that was before the trend to call it "customer care" appeared I believe).
What happened next seemed at first to be sadly just another fine example of dealing with customer service and tech support today. I first stated my question. Then stated after that more specifics about it, including what I was NOT asking. I also pointed out clearly at the beginning that I had read as much info as I could find on their site and included the relevant FAQ portions that I felt did not fully answer my question. First response back? Noise. It appeared that an automated system went through and mined my question with the customer rep only reading the scripts output. He responded that I look at the FAQ and restated what I myself had quoted in my email regarding their "responsibility." (BTW, my questions were basically "If I take precautions of firewall, anti virus, spyware checking, yadda yadda yadda, what would happen if someone somehow managed to crack my account?" and also "In such a case as this, would Verant and SOE's policy allow banning of the victim's (me) account?")
I responded with a generic statement up front of "please read this email in its entirety as the original query was not addressed" and proceeded to then quote my original question. I really could not think of another way to post it.
This time it seems he read a bit more. He then proceeded to quote from the FAQ how each banning case goes through a review process... yet did not say that it was possible. Time for response numero dos.
This time he addressed the portion of my query about the compromised account review policy... but still did not give a concrete answer as to whether their policy allowed them to ban the victims account. (I had explicitly asked this every time). Well I guess I will fire up another response.
This time I apparently had worn him down a bit (and I refrained from calling him a turdstain or anything else like that) and he testily responded that the security of the accounts was solely the responsibility of the user. He then seemed to use his own words to paraphrase the parts of the FAQ about, "don't give yo
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.