Hulk SMASH puny MMOR...uh, O... P... Q?

[sigma7]

Marvel sues over City of Heroes

According to a story written by the Associated Press today, Marvel Enterprises is suing South Korea-based NCsoft and San Jose-based Cryptic Studios over their MMORPG City of Heroes. Marvel claims that that the game allows players to create characters which are too similar to the Hulk, X-Men, and other heroes from their comic book series, violating their trademarks. Marvel is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction against the two companies to stop using its characters.

Sigh. Marvel suing over a lack of creativity. Guh.

Comments

[opheliasclone.livejournal.com]

This raises serious concerns about character creation games in general.

Could The Sims be sued for creating characters similar to those in popular television dramas, movies, and books? Is physical resemblance going to be the primary judge, or is Marvel's argument that the 'special powers' of their characters are really that unique?

Not to be harsh, but how much brain science does it take to come up with, 'Character gets big and strong when angry/fighting.' Isn't the Hulk in turn a rip-off of Jekyll and Hyde?

And will there be any legal difference between physical features and characteristics provided by the game makers, and those created by the game's fans for download? Could Marvel sue the Sims makers themselves, or would they be stuck suing the private citizen who created a skin that looks like Wolverine?

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

It's not quite suing, but the Skindex used to have quite the array of Sims skins of Marvel characters before getting a NastyGram from Marvel.

But Marvel's going after a game-maker for giving users the ability to make a character (arguably) similar to their own. By that logic, couldn't they sue Adobe for making software which allows people to infringe on their copyright?

And like you pointed out, there's not much room for new ideas in comics anymore...a Marvel lawyer could probably pick through 40% of the heroes in COH and assign to them a Marvel character that they are "infringing." (And DC would be there before you could say "prior art.")

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I'm torn on this issue, and can easilly see both sides of it. I feel for the fans, while understanding where Marvel is coming from, from a legal and business standpoint.

Of course, the hundreds of Wolverine clones I foresaw back when I first heard of the game is what kept me faaar away from it in the first place. ;)

I'm all for encouraging creativity, but don't think suing is the way to produce it. But that's not really Marvel's point here.

J