BoWarrior Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 (edited) Are branded character names illegal? Edited April 24 by BoWarrior misspelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudra Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Copyrighted characters are. And the 1st thing that draws someone's attention to whether or not a character is a copy of a copyrighted character is the name. So while I'm pretty sure you can make a character named Colossus or whatever, if the character is a mutant male with steel skin that is an Invulnerability/Super Strength character or similar, yeah, you're going to at the very least get generic'ed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 https://forums.homecomingservers.com/terms/ Infringing Content. Do not do anything in connection with the City of Heroes Services that infringes any copyright, trade mark, patent, trade secret, privacy, publicity, or other right of others, such as images, photographs, sound files, text files, graphics files, and any other material or information. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Homecoming and its officers, employees, agents, affiliates, subcontractors, members and assigns, with respect to any and all claims, disputes, demands, actions, suits, damages, liabilities, obligations, losses, settlements, judgements, costs and expenses (including without limitation attorneys’ fees and costs) made or entered into against us that arise out of, relate to or are the result of your actions which misappropriate, violate or infringe any third-party Intellectual Property right or any other proprietary right. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeregrineFalcon Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 By branded do you mean "a character that's owned by someone else"? Like say Superman or Darkwing Duck? No they're not illegal. They wouldn't exist if they were illegal. However, and I suspect that this is what you're actually asking, it is against the terms of service to make a copy of a well known character (like Superman) on the Homecoming servers. When a mod finds out, and they will, your character's name will be removed and the costume changed to some generic preset. tl;dr: Yes. 1 "It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire posts, the posts become warning points. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion." Being constantly offended doesn't mean you're right, it means you're too narcissistic to tolerate opinions different than your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oubliette_Red Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Unless the OP means 'brand name' as in Q-Tip or Xerox. 1 1 Dislike certain sounds? Silence/Modify specific sounds. Looking for modified whole powerset sfx? Check out Michiyo's modder or Solerverse's thread. Got a punny character? You should share it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Player2 Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 I took "branded" to mean with a hot iron, like branding steer. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZekeStenzland Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 (edited) It’s not against the terms of service if you are the owner of the character in question. You might need to make arrangements with the GMs though. I seem to recall a story about Dave Butcher(?) making Harry Dresden in CoH. And he was reported. But since he actually owns the character he wasn’t genericed. Otherwise, yeah, don’t do it. Edited April 24 by ZekeStenzland Bizarro autocorrect 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game Master GM_GooglyMoogly Posted April 24 Game Master Share Posted April 24 Actually, I believe he WAS genericed. Then he asked for a review saying, "I'm the author!" And then provided proof after a skeptical GM essentially responded, "Yeah, right." Of course, that might all be myth . . . 4 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarillo Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 38 minutes ago, ZekeStenzland said: I seem to recall a story about Dave Butcher(?) making Harry Dresden in CoH. And he was reported. But since he actually owns the character he wasn’t genericed. From what I recall of the way the original EULA was set up, I suspect he still would've been, because it basically said "you're giving NCSoft the right to use any characters you create and play on our servers to uses as our own intellectual property", so I suspect they wouldn't even let original owners keep their own characters (assuming that story was true), lest some dicey legal issues come up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Go0gleplex Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 They most likely are as branding creates a sort of IP and/or commercial recognition that can affect marketing and business profits. Best to err on the side of caution and just avoid such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZekeStenzland Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 The owners would kind of have to give the game some rights to the owned characters, since the characters (name, likeness, chat) would need to be visible to other players. I am not a lawyer. I haven’t studied the actual verbiage of the EULA and ToS. But I’m sure there’s a way to word the ToS so that the owner could allow the game to use the character as normal, but not cede any and all rights to the game. Oh yeah, the author is Jim Butcher, not Dave. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keyguardactive Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 How about, conversely, someone named "HeroCorp's Statesman." After Marcus Cole's death, the company trademarked the name, so now they have an employee running around using it. And it's the whole thing every time, "Thank you for saving me, HeroCorp's Statesman!" Would that be acceptable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snarky Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 5 hours ago, BoWarrior said: Are branded character names illegal? On live I had a bit of a go with naming an energy blaster Zerg. I had NO idea it meant anything, seriously. Ask anyone that knows me, it's like I live in a tomb... errr. Anyways I got generic'd, then petitioned for why, and after two weeks got "my" name. Why did i want Zerg? Erg is a unit of energy, and Zs are cool. Zs are one of the reasons i took up studying german lol. i am a glutton as well i guess. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drbuzzard Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 3 hours ago, ZekeStenzland said: I seem to recall a story about Dave Butcher(?) making Harry Dresden in CoH. And he was reported. But since he actually owns the character he wasn’t genericed. Jim Butcher. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snarky Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 4 minutes ago, drbuzzard said: Jim Butcher. Jim the Butcher? Great name. Is it copyrighted? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drbuzzard Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 21 minutes ago, Snarky said: Jim the Butcher? Great name. Is it copyrighted? I doubt it but you never know. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haijinx Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 All but one man died ... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yomo Kimyata Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 6 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said: Unless the OP means 'brand name' as in Q-Tip or Xerox. I'm tempted to make Pepsi Marlboro and see what happens. 2 1 Who run Bartertown? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Techwright Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 5 hours ago, keyguardactive said: How about, conversely, someone named "HeroCorp's Statesman." After Marcus Cole's death, the company trademarked the name, so now they have an employee running around using it. And it's the whole thing every time, "Thank you for saving me, HeroCorp's Statesman!" Would that be acceptable? If I remember previous dev comments correctly, that would probably fall under "homage" which would be acceptable so long as the costume is not a match as well. It might be as simple as making sure the chest symbol was a Hero Corp symbol. But when in doubt, refer back to the EULA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Power Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 No one tell Pepsiman. (O.o) ❤️ Guardian Server 1 "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others.” ― Groucho Marx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haijinx Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 2 hours ago, Jack Power said: No one tell Pepsiman. (O.o) ❤️ Guardian Server Hmmmm BigK Cola Man? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougGraves Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 6 hours ago, Jack Power said: No one tell Pepsiman. (O.o) Duffman likes your style - oh yeah! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanguinesun Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 We just got official licensing and people want to already push the boundaries so we potentially lose the licensure. Color me surprised.... 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranebump Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 14 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said: I'm tempted to make Pepsi Marlboro and see what happens. Hmmmm...I'm thinking of a knockoff cowboy zombie MM....Merle Barrow (Yep...them's mah zombies...). 1 I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UltraAlt Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 1 minute ago, Sanguinesun said: We just got official licensing and people want to already push the boundaries so we potentially lose the licensure. Color me surprised.... It is mostly new players or players that have been flying under the radar that have finally been caught. The person that started this thread is still showing only 1 post. If someone posts a reply quoting me and I don't reply, they may be on ignore. (It seems I'm involved with so much at this point that I may not be able to easily retrieve access to all the notifications) Some players know that I have them on ignore and are likely to make posts knowing that is the case. But the fact that I have them on ignore won't stop some of them from bullying and harassing people, because some of them love to do it. There is a group that have banded together to target forum posters they don't like. They think that this behavior is acceptable. Ignore (in the forums) and /ignore (in-game) are tools to improve your gaming experience. Don't feel bad about using them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now