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02/01/2005

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LiQiuD

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you...

As a player of COH...I am so glad that you tried what you did...People don't realize that NCSoft tried to keep people from copying characters...

So Thank you.

ironmonkey

Nice to see your timely post, bowler!! :)

I agree that there are enough difference in COH characters that normal people will figure out that yeah, the costumes look pretty similar, but there's obviously something "off" about them.

Normal people aren't going to say, "Wow! I'm just like Iron Man!!!" Scr3\/\/ Marvel!! I'm never going to buy another comic book again!!"

right.

Hey, you should consider updating your profile as the URL for your monolith blog is turning up missing.

Also, have you written any more Matrix fiction??

viscous

I recently read your article on the Marvel vs. NCSoft case. I am a longtime player of CoH (since the beta period). It's actually possible to get a lot closer to Marvel heroes than those you came up with. It does require some good time/familiarity with the character creator. For example, you CAN go barefoot. You have to change your boot type to "flat."

kpallist

The issue isn't really how close you can get to Marvel characters, but three issues in particular:

(a) whether NCSoft provided tools with the deliberate intent that they violate Marvel copyrights (e.g. if there was an "add spider to chest" button", or "add big S in a pentagram" button), and more importantly

(b) whether NCSoft is responsible for their users violating Marvel copyrights.

Let's look at some parallels. If I buy a drawing program like a corel draw or similar, I could create a drawing of Homer SImpson. Doesn't mean corel did anything. Depends whether I do anything with it. If they, on the other hand, included a Homer.jpg sample clipart, that's another issue.

There's a third issue related to (b), and that's whether NCSoft is responsible for the content hosted on their servers, and that includes player-created characters.

This third area seems to be the only place that Marvel may have a case. There are some dangerous precedents set here in the areas of MP3-hosting. I dont recall how that all played out, but I seem to remember the record labels having some amount of a legal stick to hit people with.

My 2c,

K

Caviar

On page 041 of this month's Wired, there's a similar article, with an accompanying graphic clearly showing a "Not The Incredible Hulk" mockup claiming to be from CoH, but with big green toes and everything!

What gives? Did Wired fudge the graphic?

Caviar

Ah, nevermind - I just scanned the comments and somehow missed viscous's point that you can, indeed create bare feet. Does this mean that Wired is a bigger CoH geek than GGA? I'm shocked!

NelC

I could go into a stationer's and buy a pen and paper, and using my considerable drawing talent (not really) draw a Marvel character. I could then photocopy that illo onto a t-shirt and wear it proudly around town for the whole world to see. Does that mean that the stationer's, the guy who taught me life-drawing, the photocopy manufacturer, the t-shirt printer have all bust Marvel's copyright? (Have I, for that matter?)

Oh, and of course, I shouldn't forget the publishers of "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" without whose valuable help I would have been unable to render the superhero so perfectly.

Do you think we can get Marvel to sue itself for busting its own copyright? Or maybe they'd just sue Stan Lee?

Spoofblackheart

I belive that the real reason behind all this lawsuit non-sense is that marvel itself is most likely hopeing to make it's own massmog...or at least i think i read that somewhere... or maybe im just retarded.

Mobius

1) there is much, MUCH, more complexity to the character generation than your pictures let on.
a) as mentioned above, you CAN have bare feet
b) you CAN utilize the same texture across the entirety of the body, including the face.
c) your 'wolvereene' and 'manspider' could have been made to look even more so like their marvel inspirations (different shirt pattern, more of a scowl to the face along with the canucks trade mark chops, and a better mask along with the glove coloration as you pointed out for the webslinger)

2) Marvel is legaly bound to persue action against any possible copyright infringement that they know of. if they knew about this, but did nothing, and then some third party comes along and proves that this is infrinement, Marvel would stand to LOSE the copyright.

strider_mt2k

This is just sad.
Marvel Comics fired my imagination as a child and helped me become the socially maladjusted adult I am today.

It's a bummer that today's youth won't have similar opportunities playing this game, but there will be other games.

The legal stuff seems to ruin it, but the folks at Marvel have mouths to feed too I guess.

This particular kick will be found elsewhere eventually.
The whole debacle has shown that there is interest in the first place, so maybe one door closing means another will open?

Just tryin' to bright side it folks...

REBBELWIVCAUSE

SOZ DUDE HAVNT GOT ROUND TO PLAYING CoH JUZ YET BUT I DO WANT TO PLAY CoV (CIT Y OF VILLIANS) I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT THE BAD GUYS HAD MO FUN, BUT HONESTLY DUDE, GREAT REPORT.. WILL LINK U ONCE I GOT CoV UP AND RUNNING.

REBBELWIVCAUSE

HERES ONE FOR U, WOT IF MARVEL SUED DC OR DARK HORSE FOR USING CHARACTERS WITH ALT' EGOS AND "SUPER" POWERS.. I THINK MARVEL ARE JUST TRYING TO FLEX SOME MUSCLE, 'COS THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING REMOTELY FUN IN A LONG TIME AND ARE A BIT MIFFED THAT SOME ONE ELSE HAS!

nilcypher

Jesus wept man, was the shift key just too much effort for you?

Marvel would have a hard time suing DC btw, as DC were around for about 30 years before Marvel were.

Leopold

It seems like a really closed minded lawsuit. Like suing crayon companies because fans of their comics draw crude superhero pictures...

I'm thinking Marvel must have some online superhero game coming out (or doesn't want to be precluded from doing so because someone else did it first) and is aggressively trying to protect its trademarks so that 5 years down the road the courts don't say 'hey, well you didn't complain about it BEFORE...'

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