Intellectual property laws vs. the future:
Something has to give
Okay, so the week before last's word that Marvel Entertainment is suing City of Heroes is neither news to anyone who cares, nor is it the end of civilization as we know it, but it is at least in part symptomatic of an increasing conflict between arguably out of control copyright and intellectual property laws attached to immortal corporations and the functioning of a free and innovative society. A parody of the above story provides an extreme angle on the situation.
The capsule specifics of the story for those who aren't comics and/or roleplaying shut-ins: City of Heroes is an online roleplaying game where users can use system tools to create original, super-powered characters that serve as their online identities and which can then move about in a virtual world where they can battle alongside and against other players. This lawsuit is layered, looking both at intrinsic similarities between many of the basic character & power types and Marvel properties such as the Hulk and Wolverine, and to what degree City of Heroes is responsible for how close to copyrighted characters its members are allowed to get. Currently, the terms of service only prevent members from using the names of characters that are the properties of other companies.
I'll be interested to see how far this goes. My fear is that as Marvel is now seen as a mine for potential billions of dollars in potential Hollywood properties and has its own legal department that largely exists for the purpose of exercising due diligence, that City of Heroes will fold its hand and come to a financial settlement with Marvel. I wouldn't blame them for doing it, and they definitely left themselves open for it by being both cutesy with the "Wulferine, Wolvereen, and Wulverine" shtick in the strategy guide (mentioned in the first link's article) and apparently being too pre-fabricated in its character creation tools, but it would be unfortunate. I suspect DC is watching this, too, as I find it unlikely that some members haven't used the system tools to create some avatars more than a little evocative of Superman or Batman.
Hopefully the iconic (perhaps to a Jungian level) nature of various powers and powerful images, and incestuous nature most of comics mainstream, will ultimately derail this lawsuit.
Also, the idea that Marvel was planning a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) of its own based on its own characters is quickly shown to be silly as soon as one looks around at the usernames on any comics-related bulletin board... unless they seriously think that many will want to pay a subscription fee to be Wolverine928, Hulk540, etc. Admittedly, the notion of a city inhabited by thousands of players who are mostly duplicates of a pool of less than a dozen characters has some intrinsically comic (no pun intended) potential, but it would get old verrry quickly.
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