Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Marvel sues City of Heroes

Thanks for pointing this out Reboot. I've been lax in reading Newsarma and Pulse lately. This had not yet even been mentioned on the CoH boards. But I've remedied that.

This was reported briefly on CNN this morning, though without mentioning the "City of Heroes" game specifically. The "presumed super-villains" being sued had no comment.

I'd say that the infringement claim is fairly ludicrous -- though not unexpected, given the aggressive and litigious mood of "intellectual property" owners these days.

The character-creation engine is as much a tool primarily intended for infringement as is Photoshop, FreeHand, or QuarkXPress. That is, not at all. (Until Orrin Hatch gets his abominable INDUCE Act through Congress, anyway, to redefine these issues.)

Marvel has more of a case for saying that "CoH" would hurt sales of its own massive-multi-player game. Not a reasonable case, but more of one, given the courts' being lenient (and stupidly so) toward suits about shrinking prospective markets.

Don't get me started on Horrin Snatch Grey. Yet another reason to be ashamed that I live in Utah.

One big problem I have with the lawsuit is that, as described, "Marvel claims that the game’s character-creation engine allows players to create characters which are virtually identical to its characters, such as a giant, green ‘tanker’ style character whose powers are science based, which would be similar to the Hulk; or a mutant-based characters whose powers and costume could be seen as being nearly identical to Wolverine."

So they're not complaining that CoH players are making Wolverine clones, they're complaining that CoH's character designer makes it possible to make a character "nearly identical" to the Hulk or Wolverine.

Now, as someone who's played with the CoH character desiner a lot, there aren't very many design elements available that I consider uniquely identifiable design elements. By that I mean individual parts of the design that recall a character... like green skin or a large frame or purple pants. The three together do recall the Hulk, but trying to take any one of the three out of the game so that people couldn't create characters "nearly identical" to The Hulk would be an unreasonable demand IMO because they're used by other characters.

Two elements I do find objectionable are the design of the claws powerset (they do look close to Wolverine, though they're drawn as a device and not necessarily as knives build into the hand) and the metal with skin design which recalls a non-Marvel character. Any other copycats are more, IMO, a matter of not-so-unique designs (Hulk) or players working hard at making things not meant to look like chaaracter elements look that way.

{[...] players working hard at making things not meant to look like character elements look that way. }

The same effort is made by many users of HeroMachine when creating characters. I'm amazed at how that capable, generic hero-creating program can be made to fashion close imitations of characters in commercial comic books.

Yet Marvel is choosing to go after "City of Heroes" for one reason alone: It's highly profitable, or at least potentially so. A two-bit part-time programming operation that barely covers expenses, such as Jeff Hebert's HeroMachine, is barely even noticed, because there's no cash cow to milk.

To an outsider like me it seems that the only press Marvel gets these days is bad press. From its stories to its creators to its marketing tactics to things like this... I'm glad I have absolutely zero emotional investment in that company.

I find it interesting that, without any comment or even a note to me, the thread I started this morning about this over at the CoH boards has been locked. They not only aren't returning calls from news agencies but don't want us showing our support for them over Marvel, which most of the posts in the thread had been.

Actually, one of the board mods locked all the treads and started an official one. She says she just wanted the discussion to stay within one thread.

Thanks Lyle. I looked but could not find an official thread.

No problem... now is it just me or is that one seem to be locked? I swear it didn't look that way a few minutes ago...

Oh, duh, nevermind I'm not logged in.

Since I've been reposting it at every place I haunt I'll highlight (yet again) the paragraph that gets me the angriest:


And the part that annoys me the most:
Unless that quote is messed up to sound differently, that's a flat out lie.

the whole thing sounds like they want to bring out a city of heroes game, but think there product won't sell as well.

Any business/ law types around? Is it a justification to sue because someone makes a better product than you? even under the dubiously worded 'copyright infringement' part?

and as for the statement Lyle quoted above: HELLO MARVEL, Squadron Supreme hmmm? Imperial Guard mini series? Nightwatch?

marvel is sueing disney right now too. over spider man mechandise, i believe.

sounds like they are a bit sue happy.

The next lawyer I see I'm gonna kick in the face. This may necessite me kicking them first in the ass to drop them to foot level, but this is a sacrifice I am prepared to make.

Does CoH ban characters from having actual trademarked names? That's the pretty standard lawsuit-avoidance technique for MMORPGs, I thought.

And if so, wouldn't the ability to create a big green guy called "The Bulk" or something be protected as parody, therefore fair use?

On another note, I think it's hilarious that the Marvel management admits that, as far as they're concerned, the Hulk is completely defined as a big green guy with purple pants. And Wolverine's a little angry guy with claws, full stop. Way to hype the subtlety and complexity of your artistic creations!

"Shakespeare Sues Hollywood Over Every Romantic Comedy Ever Made: 'I Did That Two People In Love Thing Already,' Says Bard"

If I understood correctly, CoH actually contacted all the major comics companies during development and asked them to provide them with a list of anything they would find objectionable. Marvel apparently sent them 47 pages (or some such number)of names (and other details) to which they would object. CoH then used these lists to create their unacceptable database.

CoH has also (prior to the filing of this suit) forced members to alter the names of the characters if they felt it was too close to a trademarked name enen though it wasn't on any of the lists and have forced people to change the names of their supergroups as well if they thought it was an infringement.

While you still see some that slip through the cracks, I feel that CoH has done everything humanly possible to avoid a problem. People are very creative and the Devs can't anticipate every possible variation.

Actually, the terms of service, which every player must agree to every time they log in, specifically prohibit creating characters whose names infringe on registered trademarks. They're a little more vague when it comes to the characters' appearance, though the ToS could also be read to prohibit lookalikes as well.

Either way, I hope that Marvel knows what they're getting themselves into. If they manage to bring down CoH, they're going to have a lot of irate fans on their hands. That's going to hurt their sales more than "the Bulk" ever could.

Funny side note: when I was a little kid, I had a puffy green down jacket. At recess I would wear it back to front and my friends and I would play "the Incredible Bulk." Don't know why we didn't just just the character's actual name. Think Marvel will go after the makers of puffy green down jackets, too?

I am a big fan of the CoH comics and i think alot of the stuff they went through to create these superheroes were quite hilarius, especially The Increadible Bulk.

Yep, they're pretty vigilant about enforcing the TOS which states no creating characters that infringe on copyright or trademark.

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On another note, I think it's hilarious that the Marvel management admits that, as far as they're concerned, the Hulk is completely defined as a big green guy with purple pants. And Wolverine's a little angry guy with claws, full stop. Way to hype the subtlety and complexity of your artistic creations!

See, that's the thing, some of the article's I've read say that trademark usually is a fairly narrowly defined to include a name, appearance and a core conept and that Marvel's trying to expand the trademark definitions in the suit in a broader fashion... that any big green strong guy in purple pants is a trademark violation.

However the case goes even further because Marvel's saying that the character creation system allows the creation of "nearly identical" versions of Marvel characters. Since, apparently, their examples of characters that are easy to duplicate include Captain America they're using "nearly identical" pretty broadly (because there's no way you could make a character that looks like Captain America to my eyes in CoH). Whew, I rant in long sentences, don't I?

But my point was, Marvel says that because you can make characters the kinda look like Marvel trademarks (the ones with generic designs to them) in the CoH costume designer the whole game is a trademark infringement.

They say something even more ridiculous...

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Considering that defendants own no comic characters themselves, it stands to reason that the comic books to which they refer are those that depict the characters of Marvel and others

Ohboy...

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"Shakespeare Sues Hollywood Over Every Romantic Comedy Ever Made: 'I Did That Two People In Love Thing Already,' Says Bard"

Ah, but Jane Austin has a stronger case... "The 'he's too proud to admit that he loves her and she's too stubborn to realize that her first impression of the guy was wrong' story was my creation!" She's been copied more specifically.

For me Marvel's most ridiculous claim that's come to light is:

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Statesman,' a character strikingly similar to Marvel's Captain America (right down to the trademark large white star on his chest and shield)... is so brazen that their only attempt to disguise 'Statesman' is to give him a helmet that is nearly identical to the trademark helmet worn by 'Magneto,' another of Marvel's X-Men characters.

Check out the pictures of Statesman at this CoH fansite . Do you think "Captain America with Magneto's helmet"?

And if that helmet is "nearly identical" to Magnets then the Roman Empire owes Marvel some royalties...

Hmmm, so I'm curious. We have a bunch of City of Heroes costume creator experts here... aside from Captain America, which characters are blooming impossible to recreate in CoH?

Vindicator comes to mind, there are no asymmetrical design options.

I guess Destiny is one of those the depends on how picky you are -- if you're fine with Mystique not having the sexy dress, you'd be fine with Destiny's mask not being quite right or the sheer shawl.

I know there are other overly-elaborate costumes out there, but I just don't know the MU that well.

A few specific costumes come to mind:
Storm's original costume
Ms Marvel's original costume
silver-age Scarlet Witch (with that funky mask)

Thanks for posting that link Reboot. Looks like CoH has decided to take Marvel on (rather than roll over and play dead), and done a good job of responding to Marvel's ridiculous claims. It will be interesting to watch this as it developes.