whats legal and whats not

[fyrefyghter]

Hello, i played a while ago and made a character named Cyclops and made him look like the old one from the comics. You guys just tweaked the costume and made me change my name. i was wondering how close im aloud to look like cyclops without getting in troube. No hard feelings i just want to see how close im allowed to get

Edited September 9 by fyrefyghter

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

There is no bright line rule that can be applied.  The closer your character appears to be a copy of the intellectual property of someone else, the more likely you are to get the name and/or costume genericed.

 

Homages and parodies are permitted by law.  But the GMs are neither lawyers nor judges, and we will take action if we think it is too close, even if a player claims it as homage or parody.  When GMs get a complaint or see a potentially infringing character, we frequently do share it with the other GMs to see if we can reach a consensus.  And if you feel that a GMs action was unwarranted, you can appeal the decision to a Lead GM by filing a support ticket. (https://forums.homecomingservers.com/support/ or /petition in game)

 

[biostem]

3 hours ago, fyrefyghter said:

i just want to see how close im allowed to get

It has to be left vague, because if they gave a hard & fast rule, people would go right up to that edge, yet it may still not assuage an IP holder or relevant legal authority.  Best to not use the name and/or appearance of any existing character...

[Techwright]

On 9/9/2025 at 10:39 AM, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

There is no bright line rule that can be applied.  The closer your character appears to be a copy of the intellectual property of someone else, the more likely you are to get the name and/or costume genericed.

 

Homages and parodies are permitted by law.  But the GMs are neither lawyers nor judges, and we will take action if we think it is too close, even if a player claims it as homage or parody.  When GMs get a complaint or see a potentially infringing character, we frequently do share it with the other GMs to see if we can reach a consensus.  And if you feel that a GMs action was unwarranted, you can appeal the decision to a Lead GM by filing a support ticket. (https://forums.homecomingservers.com/support/ or /petition in game)

 

 

Seems like a good place to ask a question:

 

From time to time, I've seen characters that appear to be blatantly ripping off the trademarked character, no homage or parody about it.  This will usually be in a combinations of ways:  name, costume, power sets, and/or biography.  But the first paragraph of the biography will state something like:  "This has been approved", "This is an homage, so you can't report it" or something crazy like that.  Obviously, the person could just type in lines like that in hopes of not getting dinged.

 

Since there is a potential legal issues, and we've been instructed to report any who appear to be violating the rule on this matter, leaving it with the GMs, how do we tell if a character has legitimately been cleared by the GMs?  It seems a shame for you good folks to constantly be pestered about something you've already cleared, but I've never heard of a mark applied that would demonstrate formal approval.  Perhaps one should be designed?  Even so, if a character has been approved as "homage", what's to stop that player from abusing that approval, and altering the character afterwards to full copy, or adding costumes that do violate the license rule?

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

how do we tell if a character has legitimately been cleared by the GMs?

 

We do, on rare occasion, agree that something close is acceptable for one reason or another.  We also find players that state that their character is intended as homage or parody in their bios.   Such a statement is not dispositive to our decision.

 

If you feel that something is too close, go ahead and report it.  If we have previously approved it, there should be a note (possibly several) in our internal tools to that effect and the player will get a pass again. 

 

As players can change costumes and write whatever they want in their bios you can give any such statement whatever weight you think that deserves.  It may be true that a character was adjudicated as acceptable but you won't be able to tell.  We will.  If you, as a player, successfully pass a GM review on a character you can certainly note that, if you wish.  If a GM jumps the gun and issues a generic on something that has been previously approved, file a ticket to appeal it and the decision can be reverted.   If you write something like that down in your bio and our notes disprove your statement, you might find that you just dug your hole several feet deeper. (I'm using a generic you, not YOU = Techwright)

 

While I am way down on the decision making chain of command, I'm pretty sure that we are not going to come up with a literal stamp of approval.

Edited Saturday at 04:23 PM by GM_GooglyMoogly

[fyrefyghter]

Thanks for the clarification! ive seen people have trademarked costumes but i wasnt sure why i had to change mine. But it makes sense with it being an identical copy of the name moveset and costume