Archive for December 13th, 2004
The Challenge of Free, Creative Expression
"For kids reared on comic books, what could be more natural than tumbling into the backyard with their friends to make up new adventures for their favorite superheroes? How many comic book fans adorned their grade-school notebooks with hand-drawn images of the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, and Captain America?
"Apparently Marvel Enterprises Inc., which owns the copyright and trademark rights in these classic superhero characters, thinks that these generations of American children were all infringers, little better than the downloaders targeted by the music and movie industries. At least that’s the impression left by a complaint (.pdf) filed Nov. 10 by Marvel against NCSoft Corp. and Cryptic Studios, the operators of an online game called ‘City of Heroes.’
"Marvel is alleging copyright and trademark infringement, as well as a variety of state law claims. The chief claims are for contributory and vicarious copyright and trademark infringement. In other words, Marvel’s complaint is premised on the notion that NCSoft and Cryptic should be held responsible for the infringing activities of the players in the game. According to the complaint, the players are infringing Marvel’s copyrights and trademarks by creating characters that are recognizable copies of Marvel characters, including Wolverine and the Incredible Hulk."
Fred von Lohmann. Et tu, Marvel?. Law.com. Dec. 3, 2004.
See also:
Daniel Terdiman. Marvel Battles Role Players. Wired News. Nov. 16, 2004.
SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.
MSN Bloggers Try to Circumvent Censorship Tools
"MSN Spaces, Microsoft’s new blogging service, has sparked a new game for some of its users: trying to circumvent its censorship controls.
"BoingBoing, a popular Web log, on Friday reported that MSN Spaces is rejecting certain blog titles or URLs because they contain words that Microsoft has deemed inappropriate.
"However, like so many censorship tools, Microsoft’s is proving less than perfect. BoingBoing found that all of the most obvious profanities fell foul of Microsoft’s electronic sentries."
Graeme Wearden. MSN Bloggers Try to Foul up Censorship Tool. News.com. Dec. 3, 2004.
SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.
Musicians Mixing Soundtracks with Video Games
"In the past three years, particularly this year, the link between the music industry and the video game industry — the former in a revenue slump, the latter on a revenue high — has gotten only closer.
"For example, the rock-punk band Incubus wrote music for Halo 2, and Snoop Dogg’s cover of the Doors classic ‘Riders on the Storm’ made its debut on Need for Speed Underground 2. Both games were released last month.
"For artists as established as Green Day, whose ‘American Idiot’ has just been nominated for a Grammy as record of the year, winning a spot on Madden NFL’s soundtrack is like having a 20-second commercial on ‘Monday Night Football’ or ‘Desperate Housewives.’ For an up-and-comer such as the Game, it’s an even bigger deal, the kind of break that gives instant celebrity. For both, it’s a new route to an old audience, as sure a bet as any when it comes to grabbing a prized demographic: 18-to-34-year-old males, 75 percent of whom play video games, according to Nielsen Interactive Entertainment."
Jose Antonio Vargas. Musicians Are Making Tracks to Video Games. WashingtonPost.com. Dec. 9, 2004.
(Editor�s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archives.)
SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.
COPYCENSE 