COPYCENSE

"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.

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