The argument that playing canon characters is 'uncreative' and 'original' is not only wrong, but also irrelevant. It takes a degree of skill and technique to be able to play someone else's character and do it well. Sure, maybe it's 'without permission', but this entire server is ripping off NCSoft's IP without permission and nobody seems to care about that.
I'd love to see a good justification for the reasoning that using NCSoft's characters without permission is okay, but using DC or Marvel's isn't.