Pieces of CoH on our computers

[Thirty-Seven]

Thirty7 may be right about the 20%; I haven't researched it.

To clarify, I haven't researched it either... but had heard it tossed around as a helpful guide to prevent infringement, NOT as a a part of any law (though it could be).

[StarRanger4]

Thirty7 may be right about the 20%; I haven't researched it.

I seem to recall digging around about that sort of stuff once myself; the 'number' my subconcious keep dragging out isn't a percentage, but "7 differences"

[Victoria Victrix]

The "20% rule of thumb" is a complete fallacy as is the "7 differences."

Copyright protection is copyright protection; otherwise someone could take one of Tolkien's books, rename all the characters, swap some of the characters' sexes, delete a few scenes and add some new ones and publish it as "their" book.

So the answer is "no, you cannot legally do that."

[DrakeGrimm]

The "20% rule of thumb" is a complete fallacy as is the "7 differences."

Copyright protection is copyright protection; otherwise someone could take one of Tolkien's books, rename all the characters, swap some of the characters' sexes, delete a few scenes and add some new ones and publish it as "their" book.

So the answer is "no, you cannot legally do that."

...I think I've read that book, actually...

[QuantumHero]

...I think I've read that book, actually...

Was it shannara?   

[Defcon Kid]

  Sorry got lost with all these laws... so who's the owner of the characters I've created since 2005? NCSoft or me? and what if I was able to use already stablished and well-known superheroe costumes for my characters (not exactly the same, but with a few changes)?

[Victoria Victrix]

Sorry got lost with all these laws... so who's the owner of the characters I've created since 2005? NCSoft or me? and what if I was able to use already stablished and well-known superheroe costumes for my characters (not exactly the same, but with a few changes)?

Answer to the first question: according to copyright law, you are the owner of the characters you created, but at the moment NCSoft has an unlimited license to use them however they see fit.

Answer to the second question:  NO.  You cannot just change an established and well-known superhero costume and get away with it.  Besides, THOSE costumes are not only under copyright, but TRADEMARKED, and as such come under a whole other set of laws that are a lot more stringent than copyright (to the point that Cadbury's has successfully won the a suit over using purple and silver as their exclusive right for candy wrappers under international trademark law)

[chaparralshrub]

All right, next question: the CoH comics. Right now you can download them here, but notice that the web address is a Paragon website, so it may not be around for too much later.

Can we archive them on Titan (so that we have access to them), or is this a case of "get them now while we still can"?

[Scott Jackson]

When asking about the amount of changes required to have your character (with its original name & story) wear the costume of a well-known character like Batman, it's less of a legal question, and more of a "real world" question.

Are you ok with being sued, as long as you win?  Then make enough costume changes that would convince a judge/jury that you didn't copy.  The "right amount of changes" varies by jurisdiction and how well your case is presented.

Do you want to avoid a lawsuit entirely? Then make enough changes so that the IP owners will be afraid of losing a lawsuit...or simply stay beneath their notice.

The "Avoid lawsuit" one is a tougher standard, and if you're publishing popular comics or selling merchandise - that will get noticed.  Safely making money off your character as it wears another's costume is basically impossible - much better to wipe out all distinguishing connections between the character's costume and its source - essentially creating a new costume, with only a few small shared characteristics like a modified utility belt and cape.  However - if you're just using the character quietly, in a superhero MMO game where you run missions with friends, and never broadcast Batman quotes, then a Batman-inspired costume is unlikely to get the attention of anyone who cares, and even if it does, the consequences have been minor - such as a generic'd costume for the first offense.

[Olantern]

VV and Mr. Jackson posted everything I wanted to say here already. 

[houtex]

This is what I was talking about in the CoH forums, in that *we* own the characters we make. 

We do not own the *art* the characters are made up from.  But we own the "assembly process" if you will, the selection of the parts that the character is made of, that *code* is ours.

As is the text/lore of our Bios for those characters.

And is extensible to the pertienent parts of the MA missions you write: The mission makeup, the text in it, and any custom creations that are truly yours.  I.E., not a Venom clone or such.

But also note that if any of this is previously copyrighted (Iron Man clones... or even anyone making a 'Thing of Bigness' or 'Brawling Humiliator' character that looks like mine, shares my character's name, or has my character's back story, btw) could or will invalidate your claim to rights of the IP of that character/story, or portions of it.

---

Or so I read it as, anyway. 

Now... this is the thing I wanted to ask, as the tough part has been settled, IMO, on whether I own the character or not:

Is it possible that, if the game can't be saved/kept running otherwise, to somehow injunct NCSoft from shutting down all pertinent services related to *my being allowed to access my character?*

Thing is... without a functioning client and game server (in this case, Pinnacle, and Virtue for my 'houtex' avatar)  I cannot access my character.  I also cannot access my missions.

In other words, I am prevented from accessing MY IP. 

Can NCSoft do this?  Or is it that I can... somehow... get the 'my IP' part of the characters and/or MA Arcs offline and separated from the game, and that's all I need to have NCSoft be washed of any further action?  Regardless of whether I can actually use them or not?

I think this is A Thing(tm) that needs to be looked into by people way more intelligent and versed in The Law than I.

Anyway.  There I went.  Thanks!

#SaveCoH

Mike

[Victoria Victrix]

Again there is no legal precedent for this but in the laws regarding written copyright, it is assumed that you kept a personal copy of your own work, and if you did not, that is your problem. 

For instance, if I had lost all the backup and hard copies of one of my books, I could not sue the publishing company that had allowed it to go out of print because I no longer had access to it.  The onus is on you to keep copies, not on the publisher.

[billymailman]

Is it possible that, if the game can't be saved/kept running otherwise, to somehow injunct NCSoft from shutting down all pertinent services related to *my being allowed to access my character?*

Thing is... without a functioning client and game server (in this case, Pinnacle, and Virtue for my 'houtex' avatar)  I cannot access my character.  I also cannot access my missions.

In other words, I am prevented from accessing MY IP. 

Can NCSoft do this?  Or is it that I can... somehow... get the 'my IP' part of the characters and/or MA Arcs offline and separated from the game, and that's all I need to have NCSoft be washed of any further action?  Regardless of whether I can actually use them or not?

NCsoft aren't preventing you from accessing your IP. They're preventing you from accessing a specific depiction of the concepts and ideas that are a part of your IP, but the IP itself? That's all still yours.
That's the thing. IP is Intellectual property. It's not some physical thing they have access to, but a collection of rights you can excercise. Specifically (since very few players will have registered their characters for trademark), it's the copyrights related to your characters' images, names, stories, etc. Those copyrights are the IP we're talking about, and the rights don't exist on a disk drive anywhere. You still own the rights, even after NC shuts the game down. The stuff on their servers is merely a depiction of characters and stories, some of which you may own the copyright to.

[Victoria Victrix]

NCsoft aren't preventing you from accessing your IP. They're preventing you from accessing a specific depiction of the concepts and ideas that are a part of your IP, but the IP itself? That's all still yours.
That's the thing. IP is Intellectual property. It's not some physical thing they have access to, but a collection of rights you can excercise. Specifically (since very few players will have registered their characters for trademark), it's the copyrights related to your characters' images, names, stories, etc. Those copyrights are the IP we're talking about, and the rights don't exist on a disk drive anywhere. You still own the rights, even after NC shuts the game down. The stuff on their servers is merely a depiction of characters and stories, some of which you may own the copyright to.

And unless you published your story arc (and maybe after, I am not sure) it is still on your computer.  It isn't in a form that you can use or read, but that is not NCSoft's problem.

Also, for the visual depiction of your characters, NCSoft can argue convincingly that you had 3 months to demorecord them (which I am going to start next month myself), and if you didn't do so, it also is not their problem.

[chaparralshrub]

My published story arcs are on my computer. I am *using* them to program software that will tell their stories sans CoH, if need be!


Again, what about the comics? Can we freely distribute them once Paragon goes down and they're no longer available? IP-wise, they do not belong to us, although some of us have licenses to them (we bought the copies), and right now, they're free for download: http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/media_and_downloads/official_comic_archive/comic_archive.php

[dwturducken]

Again there is no legal precedent for this but in the laws regarding written copyright, it is assumed that you kept a personal copy of your own work, and if you did not, that is your problem. 

For instance, if I had lost all the backup and hard copies of one of my books, I could not sue the publishing company that had allowed it to go out of print because I no longer had access to it.  The onus is on you to keep copies, not on the publisher.

I actually knew a writer (of religious works) who had me source half a dozen "back up" USB floppy drives, because all of her work was on floppy disks, and she didn't want to be unable to access them if her existing drive died, as it's harder and harder to find computers, let alone laptops, that have a floppy drive.  Her reasoning was exactly this, that she had to be able to access the work if someone needed it in the future.

We also had a long discussion on the importance of the "feel" of the keyboard, but that's a discussion for another day.

WRT our characters, if we want to retain anything that we might have, say, adapted from characters we had created for another medium, we probably should get on the stick and start up the Sentinel tool with those characters while there's time.

[Victoria Victrix]

Again, what about the comics? Can we freely distribute them once Paragon goes down and they're no longer available? IP-wise, they do not belong to us, although some of us have licenses to them (we bought the copies), and right now, they're free for download: http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/media_and_downloads/official_comic_archive/comic_archive.php

/em rubs head

OK...there are a couple of quasi-legal use-at-your-own-risk may-vanish-one-day comic book archives that have taken a staggering amount of back issues of things and loaded them up.  These are all scanned by hand from back issues that are long out of print including some that are (still) worth scary amounts of money (after the investment-in-comics crash) just so that people who actually want to read them can do so.  That might be the place to put them...the archivists know the risk they are taking (though not even the Two 600-lb Gorillas have taken any steps to stop them) and it takes the risk off CoH Titan. 

Here's one:  http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/

Here's another: http://aibq.com/index.php

Larry tells me the standard format is .cbr which puts all the pages in the right order so you can flip through them.

[DrakeGrimm]

Let me just say that, as someone who reads his comics digitally almost exclusively, I adore .cbr file formats.

[chaparralshrub]

Well, the simplest thing for any of us to do is just to download them and make personal repositories for ourselves. But what if somebody in the future needs them?