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Cryptic's Retort to Marvel
Voodoo Extreme has a short blurb with links to the players in the Marvel vs. Cryptic legal battle. The short response from Cryptic says it all: "As reported by The Associated Press, Marvel Enterprises Inc. and Marvel Characters, Inc. have sued NCsoft Corporation and Cryptic Studios. The complaint is meritless. Cryptic Studios is confident that the District Court will reject all of Marvel's claims and fully vindicate Cryptic Studios in all respects."
If Marvel is suing because I can play City of Heros and create a character that is modeled after, say, the Incredible Hulk, that is a large green superstrong hero, then they are in the wrong.
But if cryptic is puting out advertisements with characters that look to have the same powers and appearance of various Marvel Superheroes, like the Hulk, or Cyclops, or Spiderman, then Marvel has a point.
My opinion regardless of written law:
I think that Cryptic has the right to make a game where i can design a superhero of my choosing, regardless of what I used as inspiration.
I think that Cryptic cannot market their game by trading on the popularity of characters created by Marvel without Marvels permission.
END COMMUNICATION
Why should they?!? Example (borrowed from someone else in the first story about this): You buy a crayon set (a nice one w/ the sharpener and averything) and some paper from me. I say, "Try drawing your favorite cartoon characters." You, in turn, use your amazing "skills of an artist" (thanks strongbad) to draw several fantastic recreations of Micky Mouse, Pluto, and Donald Duck. Does Disney then have the right to sue me for copyright infringement?
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
Cryptic has for the longest time been renaming characters that infringe on TMed comic book characters (at least Marvel named. Hence why you see Unamed Hero running around sometimes. These are characters that have been renamed). So you can say that Cryptic is doing something about not infringing on trademarks and copyrights.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
I refer you to my post in the previous discussion because, well, I'm a friggin' genius.
the complaint is meritless. Cryptic Studios is confident that the District Court will reject all of Marvel's claims and fully vindicate Cryptic Studios in all respects."
Does Marvel has a copywrite on characters wearing blue and yellow spandex? If so, there goes all my weekend outfits.