Are branded character names illegal?

[BoWarrior]

Are branded character names  illegal?

Edited April 24 by BoWarrior
misspelling

[Rudra]

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.

[lemming]

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.

[PeregrineFalcon]

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.

[Oubliette_Red]

Unless the OP means 'brand name' as in Q-Tip or Xerox.

[Player2]

I took "branded" to mean with a hot iron, like branding steer.

[ZekeStenzland]

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

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

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 . . . 

[Lazarillo]

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.

[Go0gleplex]

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. 

[ZekeStenzland]

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. 

[keyguardactive]

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?

[Snarky]

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.

[drbuzzard]

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. 

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Jim Butcher. 

Jim the Butcher?  Great name.  Is it copyrighted?

[drbuzzard]

21 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Jim the Butcher?  Great name.  Is it copyrighted?

I doubt it but you never know. 

[Haijinx]

All but one man died ...

 

 

 

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

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.

 

 

[Techwright]

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.

[Jack Power]

No one tell Pepsiman. (O.o) 

 

❤️ Guardian Server

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, Jack Power said:

No one tell Pepsiman. (O.o) 

 

❤️ Guardian Server

Hmmmm BigK Cola Man?

[DougGraves]

6 hours ago, Jack Power said:

No one tell Pepsiman. (O.o) 

 

Duffman likes your style - oh yeah!

[Sanguinesun]

We just got official licensing and people want to already push the boundaries so we potentially lose the licensure.  Color me surprised....

[cranebump]

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...).

[UltraAlt]

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.