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Marvel Sues City of Heroes Makers
Walkiry (and many, many others) writes "In yet another copyright bickering lawsuit, Marvel is suing NCSoft and Cryptic Studios over their MMORPG City of Heroes due to copyright infringement, apparently because of the costume creator. "Marvel argues that the game's character creation engine easily allows players to design characters that are virtual copies of its own superheros, including 'The Incredible Hulk'. Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the two companies to stop using its characters." There are quite a few people suspicious that this is nothing but an effort by Marvel to undermine Cryptic Studios' successful game to prepare for the launch of their own comic book based MMORPG." USA Today has the story as well.
A new low in using the courts to unethically hurt the competition. It makes me scared to innovate. For example, I'm writing a music description language. If someone uses it to create music that is significantly similar to a copyrighted piece of work, am I going to get sued? This abuse of the courts is killing this country.
This is akin to suing Bic because it allows users to draw pictures extremely similar to Hulk or Wolverine.
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"All hail the glory of the Hypnotoad."
The thing is, I wouldn't play a Marvel Comics based MMORPG even if they did have one out (which they don't, and I seriously doubt we'd see one before 2006).
I don't want to play a super-hero who is second banana to Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four or the Avengers. I don't want to have to deal with people wanting to be able to storm the Avengers Mansion because they think they should be able to.
I want to make a hero who is as unique as I can make him, and is not burdened down by years of comic book history, much of which is crappily written. (I refer you to the Clone Saga, in particular, and most titles that start with the letter 'X'.)
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Because he did not start or create the company, he just created the characters that helped it grow. Bill Gates founded MS, Stan Lee did not found Marvel. Gates also still has power at MS, even if he doesn't have his hands in everything they do. Stan Lee does not have power at marvel. It is argueable that he never really did.
I am currently going to sue HP because I just realized the scanner I bought can be used to make perfect copys of my copywrited artwork. Plus, I'm also going to use sony because their dvd burners can make perfect copys of my copywrighted home movies. Who's with me? Millions of SCO lawyers are about to lose their job and are ready to work with us.
They should just license the characters from Marvel and then sell an Expansion pack with all of the Marvel characters included.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Your argument is equivalent to saying that it's ok if the elite (in this case, those skilled in drawing) violate copyright, but to make that available to everyone is wrong.
In fact, neither case is correct, and the horrible nonlogic of damaging a general purpose system with the goal of restricting certain things is stupid.
To take this from the other side, if Marvel wins this terrible case, then that implies that creating a character in City of Heroes is akin to creating one in a comic book- so if your guy has an orange cape and yellow tights and black hair, maybe you can sue someone who introduces such a character in comic books. Meaning that, if you want to create a comic book with an entirely new character, you can't just check the history of comics, you have to access the CoH (and any other relevant MMORG) database to make sure you aren't "infringing" on a similar design that some kid in Kansas came up with at 2 AM on pot.
The irony is, it's unlikely Marvel's own game would actually let you play the Hulk[tm], Wolverine[tm], et cetera, just as Star Wars online doesn't let you play Luke, Han, and so on.
So they're suing over a game that lets you mimic their own heroes, arguing that it ruins the market for their own superhero game, even though their own game won't let you play their own heroes.
A.
(Sorry in advance for the long post)
Does anybody remember the good old days...
...when companies tried to actually be better than their competition instead of taking legal measures to ensure that they don't have competition?
...when you could have a clever idea and actually be free to proudly develop, sell, or give it away instead of hiding it or anonymously distributing it?
...when stupid people sometimes got sued for doing stupid things, instead of smart people ALWAYS getting sued for doing smart things?
I've played City of Heroes, and it's a cool game. It's a very original idea in MMORPGs, and there is NOTHING in the game that in any way helps, steers, or suggests that a player create any superhero that I've ever heard of before. All of my characters are 100% made up by me, as are over 99% of the other characters I've seen online.
Can you create a character that looks like other licensed characters? Sure, but that's by virtue of the flexibility of the character creation options with billions of combinations of body type, costume styles, accessories, and colors available. The "sue people who use pens" analogy is appropriate and right on the money.
I have seen a few characters now and then that are imitations of "real" comic book characters. When I do see them, I tend to think it's kind of lame. (Really, do you suffer that profound a lack of imagination that you can't come up with something original?) Obviously, another reason people may do this is because they are avid fans of existing licensed characters. No one (neither the publisher NOR the player) should be punished for this type of activity. Sometimes when I like a character in a movie or on television, I'll impersonate them in various real-life situations. ("I've got a bad feeling about this...") I'm not trying to rip off or demean the character, it's the opposite: sincere appreciation for the character.
Hopefully, this lawsuit will be tossed out before it sees any kind of light of day for, among others, precisely these reasons:
1. City of Heroes does not entice or conduce players to create likenesses of licensed characters. In fact, they actively discourage it by threatening to ban players who do so in their license agreement and screening character names for all common (and many uncommon) licensed character names. This is a reasonable effort, and to demand more would be holding the publisher to an unreasonably high (and unreasonably costly) standard of vigilance.
2. By asking the publisher of City of Heroes to disallow the possibility or ability of creating likenesses of licensed characters, you are effectively asking them to unreasonably cripple their product by severely limiting the ability of players to customize their characters, an important selling point of their game. It would be similar to asking Microsoft to prevent Microsoft Word from being able to type the scripts to copyrighted television shows.
3. I'm not conceding this point by any means, but EVEN IF City of Heroes did somehow entice or conduce people to copy licensed characters, Marvel cannot possibly prove that they have suffered any damages from the publisher's actions. If they were receiving complaint letters from people threatening to boycott The Hulk because of something a hulk character did in City of Heroes, maybe, but even that's a stretch since it is obvious to reasonable people that City of Heroes and Marvel are not associated with each other. Also worth nothing is that Marvel does NOT have a competing product on the market, so it is not like City of Heroes is stealing customers by swiping the likenesses of Marvel's characters. (sigh)
The key in all of these reasons is the standard of what is reasonable (and unreasonable). I hope with every fiber of my being that the publisher fights this lawsuit for several reasons. First, if they settle, then it is effectively an endorsement for Marvel to continue making unreasonable demands on companies and individuals. Second, if M