Code of Conduct Update - September 25th 2019

[Sidious]

1 minute ago, subbacultchas said:

Hard saying, but I suspect it may be more of a "we will know it if we see it" type thing.

see that's a problem. if you change 10% of a pic, you effectively create a new pic. same can be said with a homage costume.

 

an exact duplicate of a costume is not really possible with the CC, trust me I've tried for 6 years on some.

 

so who decides then? what about the close, we can tell who they're modeled after but it's not the same costume stuff?

[MetaVileTerror]

An issue that I often worry about, is what happens if an original character a player makes in the game ends up becoming similar to the likeness of a piece of intellectual property created or changed by a major corporation after the fact?

[Sylar]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

It is sensible to mitigate risk where possible, especially if it is easy to do.

I can see it being annoying, but not as annoying as not getting to play at all.

how can they stop you playing the game? the code is out there, everyone has their own server running, i get being sensible, but it makes no sense if we havent heard anything about the "talks" and how far they are, can one assume this is an indicator of how close they are? maybe, but id rather have cold hard facts than sit here and wonder.

[Allekto]

 

4 minutes ago, subbacultchas said:

Oddly, though I've been vocal about this, I have no copyrighted or homage characters. I do have the Gorgon sisters, but I think Greek mythological beings are probably in the public domain by now 🙂

 

 

I don't know, that's why I brought up Thor.  Thor is in the public domain. You obviously can't make a character that looks like Marvel's Thor, but will just the *name* Thor be reset?

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by Allekto

[subbacultchas]

Just now, Sidious said:

see that's a problem. if you change 10% of a pic, you effectively create a new pic. same can be said with a homage costume.

 

an exact duplicate of a costume is not really possible with the CC, trust me I've tried for 6 years on some.

 

so who decides then? what about the close, we can tell who they're modeled after but it's not the same costume stuff?

They decide, and I suspect they will judge on intent as with the rest of the CoC. 

I wish it had not really gone this way, but I can't be mad that they are protecting the game in this way. We aren't privy to what is a serious threat as they are, and on some level we're just going to have to trust that they have good intent in mind.

[Sidious]

excellent point. I saw an Odinson here and live, LONG before Thor started going by that name.

[subbacultchas]

3 minutes ago, Allekto said:

 

 

I don't know, that's why I brought up Thor.  Thor is in the public domain, but you can't make him look like Marvel's Thor.

 

Yeah, that's a very tricky case. I expect they will have to go the hard route and not accept both versions. Unfortunately though the mythological aspects are pretty far astray from films, the look is actually pretty in line with early art. I don't know that they will have a choice.

Edited September 25, 2019 by subbacultchas

[Sidious]

1 minute ago, subbacultchas said:

They decide, and I suspect they will judge on intent as with the rest of the CoC. 

I wish it had not really gone this way, but I can't be mad that they are protecting the game in this way. We aren't privy to what is a serious threat as they are, and on some level we're just going to have to trust that they have good intent in mind.

I'm just a cynic. I distrust a lot until shown otherwise.

A move like this doesn't exactly help.

 

[Haijinx]

On the plus side .. less aquaman clones ..

[subbacultchas]

4 minutes ago, Sylar said:

how can they stop you playing the game? the code is out there, everyone has their own server running, i get being sensible, but it makes no sense if we havent heard anything about the "talks" and how far they are, can one assume this is an indicator of how close they are? maybe, but id rather have cold hard facts than sit here and wonder.

That's fine, I suspect many people also want those facts. But there may be really good reasons as to why they can't, not won't, talk about it. There may not be too, and it's still fine. We aren't owed much here, and sometimes we have to step back and remember that. 

[Fan Mail]

But I still get to keep Wolv3rine, right?

[subbacultchas]

I have a bit of a suggestion though. Since most people don't read these forums, could there be a MOTD or something that outlines this has changed when you log into the game? I'm sure there's going to be somewhat of a fire to put out when this gets enforced, it might help to let the more significant portion of players know beforehand.

[Sylar]

5 minutes ago, subbacultchas said:

That's fine, I suspect many people also want those facts. But there may be really good reasons as to why they can't, not won't, talk about it. There may not be too, and it's still fine. We aren't owed much here, and sometimes we have to step back and remember that. 

the worst thing you can do if you are trying to be legitimate is not be transparent with your community, and thats all i will say on the matter.

[Felis Noctu]

30 minutes ago, Allekto said:

How will that work with names that are in the public domain but are used by a comic company?

 

Example: Thor.  Marvel owns their own likeness of Thor, but not the name (The old Comico comic company also had a Thor character with a completely different likeness).  Mythological names have been used by multiple companies.

28 minutes ago, Abraxus said:

Those that have used those kinds of names will find out quickly enough, and I have no doubt they will report back quickly. Then we will start to get an idea of where those kinds of interpretations come down.

14 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

I do have to ask though, what's the range of the copyright?  I mean ideally all copyrightten characters shouldn't be allowed, but what are you specifically looking for?  I can definetly see not allowing clones of other comic characters or major media franchises, but what about lesser things, like my aforementioned Hamburglar or something more obscure and/or niche?  What about deliberate parodies, like a group of people on Triumph many years ago who did a whole Sentai bit that wasn't exactly Sentai but in the spirit of it?

14 minutes ago, Kistulot said:

So, my main issue...

 

Will the AE be wrecked like it was in live, where we cant even use the word Gambit for fear of Marvel getting pissy at us?

I know you really want this server to be above board (that honestly seems a bit misplaced of a priority to me, but that's just me) but I'm really hoping that we can be a bit more sane and logical than it was on live.

 

This is the main thing I'm concerned about. Staying away from copy-written content is always the best decision (maybe light references at best), but having a similar name should be irrelevant if the player subject has nothing to do with whatever associated copy-written subject. There were some cases back on live of people's characters or names being shot down due to similarity only, not to mention AE levels like what Kistulot is mentioning.

 

As someone mentioned, DC and Marvel can be extremely litigious. The issue there is, especially in our situation, they can also (and may very well) try to bully. Hopefully the HC team won't need to bring the hammer down hard!

[Troo]

9 minutes ago, Sidious said:

I just want to know how close are they looking? Exact names? Exact costumes?

 

It's really hard to get an exact costume with the character creator so most of them can be considered homages.

knowing the parameters would help.

While I don't have inside information, it's likely name.

The tools are already in place and working to block names. Throwing a couple versions of [Insect-man] into the profanity bucket and that's likely enough to show a good faith effort.

[subbacultchas]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

While I don't have inside information, it's likely name.

The tools are already in place and working to block names. Throwing a couple versions of [Insect-man] into the profanity bucket and that's likely enough to show a good faith effort.

Haha, well I may have one then. I made a vampire plant/dark called Black Orchid, just looked the name up and there is one in DC. I never knew, and the characters aren't close but that's fine too. I'd been considering Blood Orchid anyways.

 

[Felis Noctu]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

Throwing a couple versions of [Insect-man] into the profanity bucket and that's likely enough to show a good faith effort.

This right here. They can toss the big names in the filter and call it a day. My main concern voiced above is that there are hundreds of comic book character names out there, and while it's unreasonable to assume every single one should be monitored, there's always the possibility that X company tries to make it hard on HC deliberately.

[Display Name]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

It's too bad we live in a world that...  Never mind.

[Haijinx]

4 minutes ago, Felis Noctu said:

This right here. They can toss the big names in the filter and call it a day. My main concern voiced above is that there are hundreds of comic book character names out there, and while it's unreasonable to assume every single one should be monitored, there's always the possibility that X company tries to make it hard on HC deliberately.

A number of f list characters share names between multiple comic companies.  As well as other media.

 

That's probably beyond the scope here.

 

 

[subbacultchas]

I expect it will be a couple of things, but I don't think it would be limited by names. People can get around names pretty easily by substituting numbers for letters, and things like that. It's very hard to filter content like that based around names, it tends to catch a lot of false positives too depending on how it's set up to search (think Thor vs Bas'thor which I just made up).

[Troo]

13 minutes ago, Felis Noctu said:

This right here. They can toss the big names in the filter and call it a day. My main concern voiced above is that there are hundreds of comic book character names out there, and while it's unreasonable to assume every single one should be monitored, there's always the possibility that X company tries to make it hard on HC deliberately.

I'd expect rarer situations to be complaint driven. The game is supported by volunteers, if something came to their attention it would be dealt with.

 

That said, I love the debate, unsubstantiated theorizing and even those play devils advocate. It's entertaining.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Troo
misspelled 'complaint'

[Felis Noctu]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

A number of f list characters share names between multiple comic companies.  As well as other media.

 

That's probably beyond the scope here.

You might think so, but what we're doing here is in rough legal waters, and US-based companies in particular love their legal action. 😛

[subbacultchas]

If I wanted to make a homage and fly it under the name radar, I could just make Crimson Crone instead of Scarlet Witch. So I suspect whatever they have in place will likely be a bit more complex than just that. I have no clue what tools they do have at their disposal.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Felis Noctu said:

You might think so, but what we're doing here is in rough legal waters, and US-based companies in particular love their legal action. 😛

If you have a character name that's used by marvel, dc, abc, an anime, a movie, etc.  and none of them are particularly popular, how do you even know? 

 

That's what i mean.   

 

 

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, Sylar said:

If NCSoft aren't even concerned at this point, why would Marvel or DC or any other franchise give a hoot, especially when this isn't even a legal server?

If NCSoft makes the HC servers legit, via a low- or no-cost license ... then NCSoft, as the issuer of that license, could conceivably be held liable.  And Disney/Marvel is a very, very, very big shark indeed.