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Marvel Sues City of Heroes Makers

Posted by Zonk on from the you-wouldn't-like-me-when-i'm-angry dept.

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.

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. A new low. by dprust · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Oh noes! by Oncogene · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."
  3. Die already, Marvel by Kierthos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  4. The elite may freely violate copyright? by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.