Copyright Question

[Unearthly Herald]

[lemming]

6 hours ago, ZacKing said:

Might want to start with this guy lol 🤣

To me, that one is clearly parody, but I'm not a GM.    Definitely based on, but not trying to hide the origin and not claiming to be the source.

[Oubliette_Red]

What every copyright discussion boils down to...

 

[Unearthly Herald]

9 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

What every copyright discussion boils down to...

 

And this:

[Trike]

10 hours ago, ZacKing said:

 

This makes perfect sense, thanks.

 

Might want to start with this guy lol 🤣

 

 

Hey, leave him out of this. He looks nothing like Sp1d3r-Mann.

[Trike]

3 hours ago, lemming said:

To me, that one is clearly parody, but I'm not a GM.    Definitely based on, but not trying to hide the origin and not claiming to be the source.

Yes, it is. What is life without whimsy?

 

I doubt anyone at WB will care, but if it’s going to cause an issue I can delete him. No biggie. I have 580 other alts, after all. 😛

[Trike]

Also, you can always ask permission. Back on Live I made an homage to Atomic Robo called Robotomic and I asked Brian Clevinger if it was okay and he was all for it.

[Trike]

On 7/1/2024 at 5:02 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

I have never understood why people want to clone something borderline when they can make something unique, exciting and control their creation's back story.

Same reason people write fanfic or cosplay. They just want to play with the characters they like.

 

I do a lot of deep dives into mythology and history, so I have a ton of characters who are functionally the same as famous superheroes but are based on non-Western myths. My guy Kid Kibuka, for instance, is the reincarnation of the African god of war and lightning Kibuka. He is basically Thor or Storm, but no one has ever written anything about him as far as I can tell.

[ZacKing]

15 hours ago, lemming said:

To me, that one is clearly parody, but I'm not a GM.    Definitely based on, but not trying to hide the origin and not claiming to be the source.

 

Oh I'm sure it's meant as a parody.  I think it's funny myself.  But I can see how some would report it instantly on sight. 

Edited July 3 by ZacKing

[PLVRIZR]

The decisions can be somewhat arbitrary, in my experience.  I did an homage to Swamp Thing and got the hammer, but I understood.  You can see the thread, here:

 

 

Not long ago, I made ATMSMSHR (I didn't find Homecoming until early 2020, so most of my Live toon names were taken, so I went to the "license plate" theme of nomenclature) and he was genericized, due to the DC superhero "Atom Smasher"...which I had never heard of.  Looking the reference up, the costume I created didn't look anything like the original.  No big deal, as a SS tank I just renamed him to ATMSTOMPR.  Kept the costume and have heard nothing else, further.  

And here is the DC version:

[WuTang]

Ahhhhhh this takes me back to my first week here... The memories still vivid and the posts about the subject matter, still the same. 

 

I saw, what might be, the cleverest homage character ever. Dude was Hulk in appearance and his name: Big Rad Ripoff

 

All I can say is this, just do what you do and if you get generic'd then reroll. Otherwise, you are good to go.

[Ghost]

On 7/1/2024 at 5:08 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

 

 I don't think there is a single person in the known universe who gives a shit about Scarlet Shocker's back story, aside from me.

 

Id be curious to hear it.  I’m looking for a backstory for my newest toon…….Redish Shocker

[Oubliette_Red]

1 hour ago, Ghost said:

Id be curious to hear it.  I’m looking for a backstory for my newest toon…….Redish Shocker

 

Wouldn't Redish Static be more appropriate?

 

😄

[uninventive]

On 7/2/2024 at 8:47 AM, moonligh7er said:

 That's my middle finger to them for denying me that.

 

And there goes the good faith. 

 

It's not hard to guess why there's a rule against it here: Marvel sued NC in the past over the possibility of Marvel IP being able to be made in the same Costume Creator you are using now.  They settled out of court; since then it's been prohibited from then on until the game sunsetted.  Now with a license from NC to run the game again, surprise, surprise, Homecoming enforces the same rule.  I mean, we just got the game back legally.

 

If you disagree with the Code of Conduct there's only one remedy for you.  (It'll free up 5GB on your hard disk.)

[Trike]

IP owners have to defend their copyright. No one wants to become the next aspirin.

 

That said, there are a lot of gray areas where corporations look the other way, such as tee shirts and such. I strongly suspect this would be one of those cases, because there’s no money to be had and it would only garner them bad publicity. Disney, for instance, is already treading water reputationally and Homecoming isn’t even small potatoes, it’s no potatoes. There’s no upside to going after us.

 

Just as no one wants to be the next aspirin and lose control of their trademark by not enforcing it, no company wants to find itself in the same situation as ASCAP did 30 years ago when they went after the Girl Scouts for singing licensed songs around the campfire. ASCAP demanded that every camp pay a fee and blowback for that overreach was ferocious. That was when those videos of pre-teen Girl Scouts dancing the Macarena hit the news… but they were dancing without the music because they didn’t want to incur the $10,000 fine or go to jail. The optics were bad. 

[GM Crumpet]

I understand the temptation to create your favourite characters in game. The costume creator is so versatile you can get a picture perfect copy if you want to. Some characters are really basic. Due to the limitations and time constraints of comics originally a lot of the older characters are very simple and are basically a body suit with detailing.

 

We allow parody and homage. Change it up, move the colours round. make a pun name. I have Super-Duper Man. Body suit, pants on the outside, S on the chest, cape. But the colours are different to supes, He's blonde with a floppy fringe and a goofy smile. "Inspired by" is perfectly acceptable.

 

As always, if you feel you have been generic'd in error you have a right of appeal. Pop a ticket in with your reasons as to why you think we were mistaken. It will be passed to the leads to adjudicate. Sometimes people have been successful. But if you have Deadpool and it looks like Deadpool and has a bio that screams Deadpool then don't expect a favourable result 😛 

[uninventive]

2 hours ago, Trike said:

ASCAP demanded that every camp pay a fee and blowback for that overreach was ferocious. That was when those videos of pre-teen Girl Scouts dancing the Macarena hit the news… but they were dancing without the music because they didn’t want to incur the $10,000 fine or go to jail. The optics were bad. 

Public performance rights vs. comic book IP in a video game about comic books is not quite an equivalent.  Even less so than the Cosplay Argument.  (I know, "you're not a lawyer, upside down U guy, so shut up."  Fine, last I'll say about it here.)

To the public, torturing girls at Jamboree isn't the same as upsetting a bunch of 30- to 50-year olds in Secret Lab chairs running Radio missions in-between watching episodes of The Bear and folding laundry.

Edited July 4 by uninventive

[GM Crumpet]

4 hours ago, uninventive said:

Public performance rights vs. comic book IP in a video game about comic books is not quite an equivalent.  Even less so than the Cosplay Argument.  (I know, "you're not a lawyer, upside down U guy, so shut up."  Fine, last I'll say about it here.)

To the public, torturing girls at Jamboree isn't the same as upsetting a bunch of 30- to 50-year olds in Secret Lab chairs running Radio missions in-between watching episodes of The Bear and folding laundry.

PPL rights are very convoluted and seem very short sighted sometimes. At least with cosplay the rights holders understand the love for the characters and the free advertising they are getting.

 

And you can multitask better than me. I can barely concentrate on not dying, I can't watch TV and do laundry too 😛 

[Trike]

4 hours ago, uninventive said:

Public performance rights vs. comic book IP in a video game about comic books is not quite an equivalent.  Even less so than the Cosplay Argument.  (I know, "you're not a lawyer, upside down U guy, so shut up."  Fine, last I'll say about it here.)

That’s not what I said nor what I meant. I was very clearly talking about how it would appear: a bully beating up on a little guy for no sensible reason other than a strict reading of the law tells them they should.

 

i’m not a lawyer either but I *was* an editor at Lexis-Nexis and edited more than 10,000 cases. I was absolutely stunned that Marvel lost the suit against NCSoft, since so many of the original costumes and powersets in the game were clearly patterned after characters like Wolverine. But it just goes to show how messy the law can be and that the right argument can sway the right court in your favor, something I saw play out time and again. (Also, Marvel’s lawyers did some dumb things, but that’s a side issue.) They should have sued in the Texas or Delaware district courts, which are notorious for siding with skeevy patent-owners who have simply bought the patent and proceed to use said ownership to sue people they claim infringe on it. Since the law for trademark infringement changed in 2011, there is a better chance a similar lawsuit today would come out in favor of the corporation filing it.

 

To reiterate though, winning the case wasn’t really the point for Marvel. The rules of trademark law include the vigorous defense of one’s IP or risk losing it. That’s why Disney sued Berkeley Breathed over his character Mortimer Mouse in his comic strip Outland. They had to do it but it made them look really bad.

 

In recent years there have been more lenient views on small-time use of IP, such as t-shirt designs I mentioned earlier. It’s a form of benign neglect that came along with corporations being allowed to extend their copyright/trademark. It’s an unspoken rule of, “You can have 95 years of protection if you aren’t being a dick about it.” It helps that George Lucas has always allowed people to play with Star Wars as long as they follow one rule: you can’t make any money from it. It underscored to companies that letting fans play with the toys kept interest in the IP burbling during fallow periods.
 

That’s why Paramount has no problems with Star Trek Continues but sued the pants off of the guy who made Prelude to Axanar. The former is a non-profit fan production while the latter is a for-profit venture using Trek IP. (Which is too bad since Prelude was better than 90% of official Trek.) These days it’s more of a slippery slope, what with Patreon and YouTube monetization, etc.

 

All of that to say that’s the reason why I don’t think Homecoming is in any real jeopardy if someone makes a knock-off or parody version of a comic book character. There’s no real upside for a lawsuit because there’s no money to be had, this is a fan-run joint, and no reasonable person would buy that player-created characters are endangering the company’s IP.

 

That said, Winnie the Pooh and OG Mickey Mouse are now in the public domain, so have at ‘em. 

 

[Trike]

28 minutes ago, GM Crumpet said:

And you can multitask better than me. I can barely concentrate on not dying, I can't watch TV and do laundry too 😛

I like to listen to audiobooks while doing TFs.

[Forager]

On 7/2/2024 at 12:58 PM, ZacKing said:

 

This makes perfect sense, thanks.

 

Might want to start with this guy lol 🤣

 

 

 

That's parody. It's not subtle or clever, but neither are Scary Movie or Teen Movie.

 

Parody is an exception to legal copyright protections. Keep in mind that Homecoming policy could be more restrictive than copyright law and each GM tasked with enforcing that policy will have their own interpretations of the policy, copyright law and how those two things relate.

 

They might also be human, so they'll come with their own biases and moods.

 

That's why the GM in the thread can't give the OK in advance. Same way cops can't authorize you to do anything. He could be wrong... the cop after him could be wrong. Hell, both can be wrong or neither can be wrong.

[Forager]

I realized I specifically said copyright and there is a high concentration of pedants on internet forums, this one being particularly infested.

 

My post as it relates to this issue would also apply to trademark. They are different in many ways... not really in this one.

[PeregrineFalcon]

7 hours ago, Trike said:

All of that to say that’s the reason why I don’t think Homecoming is in any real jeopardy if someone makes a knock-off or parody version of a comic book character. There’s no real upside for a lawsuit because there’s no money to be had, this is a fan-run joint, and no reasonable person would buy that player-created characters are endangering the company’s IP.

You're right about parody versions, but not about knock-offs.

 

The way copyright and trademark laws are written the person/corporation with the copyright/trademark almost has to sue regardless of whether there's any money in it for them or not. Copyright/trademark laws require the owner to defend their IP or it's considered released and public domain. So if DC doesn't sue Homecoming after they see a ton of YouTube videos featuring Superman in Paragon City (just as an example) then when Marvel starts making Superman comics and DC sues to stop them, Marvel can claim that Superman is now public domain because they refused to defend their IP by suing Homecoming for aforementioned Superman videos.

 

By having a strong policy in place, and active moderation that provably works to stop IP theft in the form of knock-off characters, Homecoming is protecting itself from these lawsuits.

 

So yes, every time someone makes an obvious IP rip-off character they are actively endangering Homecoming.

 

Edited July 4 by PeregrineFalcon
Spelling hard. Need more coffee.

[Herotu]

It's Right to Copy.

[ZacKing]

9 hours ago, Forager said:

That's parody.

 

I know.  I said as much.  Maybe you missed my post.

 

On 7/3/2024 at 11:02 AM, ZacKing said:

Oh I'm sure it's meant as a parody.  I think it's funny myself.  But I can see how some would report it instantly on sight.