Captain Fabulous

I guess it depends upon the system(s) you're talking about. I'm fairly sure ED is a database function that can be changed. If not it can be circumvented. Defense calculations are in the database, as are target caps and travel suppression. Things like the auction house and Architect you can't "rip out" but you can block access to them, essentially removing them from the game. You wouldn't need the revert to the original code. Wasn't there a group that was working on reverse-engineering the server code as it was in I3? I don't remember their name or have any idea of their current status. IIRC the goal was to create a server that would be functional with the client that was released on disc back in the day.

Honestly I kinda miss the days of Hovering across Kings Row or The Hollows for 20 mins to get to a mission. There was a certain charm... 😂

Most of these things are done via the database and in theory shouldn't be difficult to remove or circumvent. Time consuming tho.

The login for the game is not the same as it is for the forum. Make sure you're using your game account name (listed on the password reset page) with your game account password.

This. All of this. The live game also hugely benefitted from people grinding away endlessly for threads and INF. It kept people in the game playing and (hopefully) paying. That need no longer exists, so no reason to make things overly difficult to obtain. But to be fair, a full build of the best IO sets can easily cost upwards of a billion INF, which is not something the average player is going to have access to. Now this is not to say it's not possible to have a solid build for far far less because it is. But there are still thresholds that simply cannot be reached without the extreme wealth that comes from playing the market. The game is as easy or difficult as one wants to make it. I've never understood people who go out of their way to make themselves godly and then complain the game is too easy.

I'm not sure I agree with this assessment, but it's not for me to decide.

Indeed. I'm not "defending" Hasbro. I'm merely providing a non-kneejerk unbiased commentary. Hasbro is free to change the license in an attempt to monetize D&D. Content creators and consumers are free to patronize another game. That's exactly how it works. Another thing that no one points out, a draft proposal is just that, a *draft*. A work in progress. Subject to change at any time. It wasn't the a final revision.

And that's the thing, just because they once allowed you to play in their sandbox for free doesn't mean they're required to do so forever. Licenses can change at any time. Privileges once granted can be revoked at any time. People profiting off the IP without any compensation did so solely by WoTC's and Hasbro's grace. The changes would have affected only a tiny percentage of people who make and sell D&D content. They're not coming for you or the campaigns you and your buddies create to play on weekends, nor are they expecting you to pay any royalties to do so. Kinda a moot point now as they've rolled back the proposed changes anyway. But if Hasbro is really intent on doing more to monetize D&D they're gonna find a way, and the next time it might be even less palatable and affect more people. And they're probably going to be less inclined to roll back the next one regardless of how much people who don't have a lick of understanding about what they're complaining about complain anyway. Y'all can dislike my statements all you want, but the funny thing about facts is that they're not going to change no matter how much you dislike them. Devin's video does a good job of explaining why all the moaning, groaning, crying, wailing, and hand-wringing was over a big fat nothingburger.

So you expect to be able to use an established IP for your own profit without any compensation to the IP holder?

People are losing their goddamned minds over nothing. As usual. Seriously kids, go outside and get some sun or something.

It just struck me as so odd. Like, why would you say that to someone? Mindyobizniz.

I literally had someone in Oro, in local chat, tell me the AT and powersets I chose for a particular homage character were not only incorrect, but then spent the next 5 mins explaining why. I was like "Bish, please go bother someone else with this nonsense."

I don't believe it's something we should be concerned about at all as long the devs continue to remove violations when they're found. It's in the TOS, they maintain a blacklist of copyrighted and trademarked names, and they genericize blatant costume violations and names that have found ways around the blacklist. We're good.

I don't believe Disney cares about what's done in City of Heroes provided there isn't a rampant outbreak of Marvel clones and the devs turn a blind eye to them. As long as they continue to genericize characters that cross the line there should be no issues. Disney knows from previous court rulings there's a threshold that needs to be met in order to successfully win such a case. But, that being said, if they wanted to issue a C&D they absolutely could and it would be over, as neither Homecoming nor NCsoft is going to take that battle to court over a 20 year old game that doesn't generate revenue. Extremely unlikely Disney would do such a thing, but it *could*. Remember, Disney is the company that sued a public school fundraiser after one of the dads popped in his disc of The Lion King at the event without having paid the $250 public performance license he wasn't aware was needed. No one knows how Disney even found out about it, but they somehow did. So yeah, never once for an instant doubt that Disney can be a huge dick when it wants to be, for no other reason than it can.

It really comes down to whether a court (or multiple courts) perceive suits as abusive in some way. It's incredibly rare for a lawyer to be sanctioned, suspended, or disbarred without having committed a crime. The Righthaven shitshow is a good example. Once judges/courts realized the suits being filed were thinly-veiled extortion schemes with legally-questionable standing the whole thing went tits up fairly quickly. But it took someone to stand up to their claim of infringement and fight them in court. The lawyer involved in that mess, Marc Randazza, has a LONG 20-year history of highly-questionable and flat out unethical court dealings and yet has managed to still cling to his ability to practice law in multiple states.

You and I don't get to decide what is fair use and what isn't. That's up to a court to decide. The unfortunate truth is that most entities do not have the resources to fight billion-dollar corporations in court, even if they are in the right. Which is why once a C&D comes it's over, even if you're 1000000% sure it's fair use. Court cases very frequently don't end the way people expect them to. As for the 3 statements in that last paragraph: Wrong, not necessarily, and highly unlikely, in that order.

Not sure if you're trying to be snarky or sarcastic, but you are correct.

They are absolutely copyright infringement and yes, their continued existence is tacit permission. "Legal" is really the wrong term. It's infringement. The thing about copyright is that it's something a court decides. We can speculate, but ultimately it comes down to a court decision. If Disney or Time Warner has an problem with this game they would issue a cease and desist. At that point it's pretty much over. No one in their right mind would try and fight a C&D from Disney or TW over this game. IMHO all of those SGs should be renamed, as they're using trademarked names. I'm not entirely sure why they haven't been. The excuse given is not a valid one.

I keep saying copyright can get complicated, and here is another example. Dressing up like Iron Man for a convention as a fan does not hurt Disney in any way. If anything it promotes the brand. So they allow it, just like they allow fan films (with heavy restrictions). It's also fair use. You're not going to convince people you're actually Iron Man. Well, at least most people. It's the same reason they generally don't have issues with people putting on costumes and accepting tips for photos on Hollywood Blvd or in Times Square, despite many of these people doing it for a living. Could they issue cease-and-desists? Absolutely. They have simply chosen not to, mostly because it would be a huge costly pain in the ass to identify them so proper papers could be issued. In fact, Disney was in all in favor of a proposed law in NYC that would have required costumed performers to register and obtain a permit, as it would then make it really easy for Disney to target them. The bill never went anywhere. As far as we know NCsoft still holds all the rights to City of Heroes. These servers exist solely at their grace. They can roughly be seen as something akin to a fan film -- use of copyrighted and protected IP material in a not-for-profit production not in any way intended to compete with any works created by the owner of the IP from which they currently or could potentially derive revenue (technically these servers are bootlegs, but let's not go there right now). Everything in the game, including every character you created on live is the property of NCsoft (rights to any characters created solely on these public servers is nebulous at best). The problem is this: both Marvel and DC have a litany of licensed game products, and the developers of those products pay a very large amount of money to obtain and renew those licenses. Anything that lets you play as one of their characters, or a reasonable facsimile of, in a game that's not owned or licensed by them is verboten. Period. Full stop. It doesn't matter that the game is free and not-for-profit. You can't do it. If I created a "fan production" Justice League video game that let you play as copyrighted DC characters they would shut me down before I got to the end of "Jingle Bells Batman smells...", even if I was giving it away for free and was a registered not-for-profit organization. They just won't allow it, as it has the potential to draw people away from products that make them money. There was a guy a few years back named Joel Furtado that made these amazing X-Men pixel art cartoon shorts in the style of the 90s X-Men show, using very short snippets of audio from the original cartoons for embellishment. Being a digital artist he made them just for fun in his spare time (IIRC over a year's worth of work), without any intention of making any money from them. Disney shut him down, and fast (it's suspected it was due to the use of the audio snippets, but that was never clearly stated). I'm sure you can find bits and pieces of them out there someplace, but he was never able to finish the product nor release it as he intended. The only reason Marvel lost their lawsuit against NCsoft is because although there existed the ability to create reasonable facsimiles of copyright characters they would only be a tiny fraction of what could be created; the primary use wasn't to infringe upon their rights. Any infringement would be done by players, not NCsoft, who had the burden to remove such potentially-infringing characters when they are found (that Marvel used examples of characters they themselves created didn't help them). It's exactly the same "safe harbor" rules that applies to sites like YouTube. As long as a concerted effort exists to remove any potentially-offending material everything should be fine. Does this mean you personally have to report them? No. We as players are under no obligation to do so. But should you? Probably. But it's really a personal choice.

No. A copyright holder can selectively allow some infringing works while going after others. It's completely at their discretion, as ultimately it's a court that decides if something is an infringement or not. Trademark is what must be enforced at all times. There is no copyright on Nosferatu in the US, so any remakes and restorations made here are legit. Interesting fun fact: restorations can themselves be copyrighted by the restorers as so to prevent others from using it without permission.

One could argue, and there is court precedent, that if one has the right to order a work destroyed that they therefore own and control it. 🤷‍♂️

Technically it never had any copyright to begin with, as it was ordered destroyed by the court when Florence Stoker sued for copyright infringement and won. The only reason it exists is due to a bootleg copy that made it out of Germany. But like I said, it's complicated. The Stoker estate could argue they own the rights since it was declared a derivative work based on Dracula. If that's the case I think it would still be under copyright till 2029. Or 2041. Depending upon which copyright laws apply. To a film that shouldn't even have one because it shouldn't exist. Did I mention it's complicated? 🥴🥴🥴

It's incredibly complicated and honestly would require a court to sort it out. Best answer I have is the Stoker estate, but that's just a guess on my part.

It blows my mind that we're just NOW getting to the point where TALKIES are in the public domain. It's so ridiculous.

It's public domain in the US, tho it's not in some countries, including Germany.