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Role Playing (Games) Government The Courts News

Cryptic's Retort to Marvel 47

Posted by Zonk from the tttttthhhhhhhpppppppp! dept.
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."
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Cryptic's Retort to Marvel More

Cryptic's Retort to Marvel

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  • Marvel may have one minor point... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordZardoz ( 155141 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:46PM (#10822825)
    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

    • they can't help it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @04:31PM (#10823867)
      How could they avoid "market[ing] their game by trading on the popularity of characters created by Marvel without Marvels permission"? If it hadn't been for Marvel and DC, who would have thought of "guy who flies while wearing his underpants on the outside" etc etc as a game topic?
      • They can avoid it the same way that the new movie, "The Incredibles" avoided completely ripping off the Fantastic 4.

        Even though 3 of the 4 main characters had literal power matches to the Fantastic 4, they werent direct ripoffs.

        An indirect ripoff is to be expected. But its not too hard to throw a cape and tights on someone and have it not be a Superman ripoff. Just make the guy blond, and dont use blue tights and a red cape.

        END COMMUNICATION
      • If it hadn't been for Marvel and DC, who would have thought of "guy who flies while wearing his underpants on the outside" etc etc as a game topic?

        Maybe, but so many companies who are not Marvel have exploited and expanded upon this idea for so long that it would be rediculous to blame a specific company for doing it now.

        How about that Marvel v DC lawsuit?

      • Re:they can't help it (Score:3, Interesting)

        by G-funk ( 22712 )
        Well since they were pretty much all ripped off The Phantom, I think they should all have a coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up.

      • Ghost who walks - man who can never die!

        Silly costume - check

        Secret identity - check (he travels incognito as mr walker)

        Superhuman powers - sort of. Like batman or ironman, the ghost who walks is human, but he does have a habit of knocking out heavyweight boxing champs.

        Predates copycat comicbooks - check (Feb. 17, 1936), years before Marvel comics (1939) or Superman (1938) or Batman (1939).

  • Maybe cryptic, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jaeph ( 710098 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:49PM (#10822841)
    ...in my time playing the game I've seen countless blatant hulk, wolverine, and superman rippoffs, both in name and look. There's your Kal-els in blue & red, your bearded Logans, and your big, green, angry looking Bulks.

    I don't like what marvel's doing, but if I can spot these things without trying, isn't there an argument that Cryptic isn't trying hard enough to prevent these?

    -Jeff

    • Re:Maybe cryptic, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by over_exposed ( 623791 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:53PM (#10822897) Homepage
      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?

    • Re:Maybe cryptic, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sandman1971 ( 516283 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:56PM (#10822929) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • That's actually a bad thing. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @03:17PM (#10823103) Homepage
        If Marvel can show that Cryptic has been policing its game with regards to character names, they can claim Cryptic felt a responsibility there, which should logically extend to the character configurations as well. Never mind that it's a lot more difficult to determine whether a particular body style/suit color combination gets too close than to match text strings. The law is kinda funny that way.

        • Yes, but (Score:2, Informative)

          by Ghost429 ( 828987 )
          I believe that Cryptic has been looking at character designs as well. In their Terms of Agreement, they say that it is illegal to make characters based off of Marvel or other comic book characters, and that these characters will be deleted when found. So, no worries for Cryptic. Marvel is just trying to get them to lose players for their own MMORPG
        • No, that would work if the players were suing based on something that Cryptic claimed to do, and wasn't doing, like getting rid of profane language.

          But Cryptic telling players it will do X doesn't mean Marvel, a completely unrelated party, can use that against them.

          Now, if someone playing Cryptic saved a screenshot, and put it on the net, and it happened to contain a likeness of a Marvel character, and Marvel sued him, then that user could go after Cryptic, because he had been harmed by Cryptic failing to

          • Outfits are absolutely not protected under copyright laws.

            This is wrong. There is actually some dispute whether or not they are, and courts have gone both ways.

            Clearly they fall within the open endedness of 17 USC 102(a), if not the specific category of pictoral, graphical, and sculptural works in 102(a)(5).

            The only real issue is whether they suffer from the utility doctrine (if they have some utility and are not physically and conceptually seperable). National Theme Productions, Inc. v. Beck, Inc. 696
            • Hey, you're right. I'd never heard of NTP v. Beck. Well, no, you're wrong, they still aren't copyrightable in general.

              To clarify, costumes aren't supposed to be copyrightable, and, in general, are not. By costumes, I was thinking of things like Cyclop's visor, or Batman's cowl and cape, etc. Those aren't copyrightable. You can't claim to own the idea of wearing a certain outfit. You can't claim to own the idea of wearing a visor over your eyes. You can't claim a Starfleet uniform is yours.

              However, in a fe

              • To clarify, costumes aren't supposed to be copyrightable, and, in general, are not. By costumes, I was thinking of things like Cyclop's visor, or Batman's cowl and cape, etc. Those aren't copyrightable. You can't claim to own the idea of wearing a certain outfit. You can't claim to own the idea of wearing a visor over your eyes. You can't claim a Starfleet uniform is yours.

                However, in a few cases, the courts have apparently upheld that graphics and whatnot that could be separated from the costume could be
          • > But I doubt any of the characters on Heroes even have a boackstory. [sic]

            You underestimate some people's addiction to that game. I've read some rather elaborate stories during my tenure there.

            A lot of people have commented on Cryptic's policing and warnings about using trademarked characters, but interestingly enough I find that other players have more of an effect on what people do with regards to his or her superhero. It is considered particularily bad form to make a copy of a premade hero. Real
    • I haven't ever played this game, but I feel like the selling point is that you can be any super hero you want. Whether this super hero that you choose to be is completely original or a rip-off of your favorite hero should be up to you.

      If you go to any MMORPG there are gonna be ripoffs like that. I don't think that's wrong. These games are made to create a fantasy world that you can live and interact in. It's your fantasy, you should get to make the rules.

      The only way that Marvel would have a case is i
  • I think most of us are super unoriginal and like to make our characters like our favorites.

  • A question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @03:04PM (#10822999) Homepage
    I have not played the game, so I ask this. Is the character generator very generic or are there specific character models available?

    The discussions on this game to date have never been entirely clear on this. I ask because, it seems to me, that if the character generator is generic and players choose to model their avatar after Superman or the Hulk then that can hardly be the fault of the game maker. If they are premade charcter types that borrow heavily from Marvel or DC property then this is a whole different kettle of fish.

    So gamers, I ask of you, which is it?

    • Re:A question (Score:5, Informative)

      by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Monday November 15, 2004 @03:09PM (#10823035) Homepage
      I refer you to my post [slashdot.org] in the previous discussion because, well, I'm a friggin' genius.
    • I played until recently. There are no premade characters per se, but there are things like the "bulky" character model, and individual items like a visor that resembles cyclop's, a haircut that resembles wolverine's, things like that.

      My own personal view is that since the character creation options run into the billions, Marvel is making an ass out of itself with this lawsuit. Perhaps next they will sue Bic or HB for making drawing implements with no safeguards to prevent the user from sketching Marvel c
    • No, there are no premade character types. The character generator is very powerful and it's really easy to make characters that look like Marvel characters.
    • The character creator is the most generic in existance, so the comparison with selling you crayons and paper is very apt.

      Basically it goes like this:

      - you choose your body type: male, female or a _massively_ muscular male on steroids

      - you choose your height

      - you choose your, well, basically width multiplier. So you can drag this down and be a scrawny geek, or to the max and look pretty muscular. (Doing this for the already muscular model is quite impressive.)

      - you choose your face, hair style, and clot

  • Wow, there goes my wardrobe (Score:5, Funny)

    by JavaLord ( 680960 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @03:15PM (#10823087) Journal
    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.
    • Does Marvel has a copywrite on characters wearing blue and yellow spandex? If so, there goes all my weekend outfits.

      Ah, but there's an easy solution to that. Keep wearing the outfits, but keep yourself factual and objective. That way, you can claim that you have no "character" as such, and can't be analyzed in the context of fiction.

  • bad writeup (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) *
    It's a bad writeup when you have to follow the link (assuming you don't already know) to realize that Cryptic = City of Heroes, a MMORPG.

    (Yes, I know this assumes the reader knows what an MMORPG etc is, but still...)
  • It isn't Cryptic's responsibility to monitor every single superhero character that is created in their game. If Marvel feels so strongly about its copyrights, then it needs to get in touch with Cryptic and sue each and every person with a hero character which infringes on their IP. It's like someone posting bits of a book onto Slashdot.org. The Publishers could inform Slashdot that the text is copyrighted, and they would remove it.They could even ban the user account on the request of the Publisher of the

  • Slippery slope this one (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Attaturk ( 695988 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @05:00AM (#10840468) Homepage
    After all anyone that plays MMORPG's has bumped into more than their fair share of characters named Legolas, Gandalf, Drizzt etc. Is every MMORPG developer going to have to censor player characters in case they bear a resemblance to a character portrayed somewhere in popular fiction? IMHO Marvel should shut up - CoH has helped feed the ongoing superhero zeitgeist, which is much more help than hindrance.

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