NCSoft has filed for dismissal in the suit brought against them by Marvel, which suit claims that City of Heroes allows folks to generate clones of Marvel’s trademarked and copyrighted characters. The horror!
Some choice bits:
Kids with wandering imaginations have long decorated school notebooks with pictures of fantastic and supernatural beings of their own design. The ingenuity of individuals, as expressed through the creation of characters incorporating timeless themes of mythology, patriotism, ‘good,’ and ‘evil,’ has been a source of entertainment in the form of role-playing games for ages. In the face of technology that enables individuals to engage in such activities in a virtual, on-line context, Marvel Enterprises, Inc. and Marvel Characters, Inc. (collectively, ‘Marvel’) have taken the unprecedented step of attempting to appropriate for themselves the world of fantasy-based characters […]
City of Heroes is a tool that encourages originality, not slavish copying. It allows young and old to exercise their imaginations to create super-powered beings and send them off to interact with the creations of other individuals in a virtual world called Paragon City. If it should be banned, then so should the #2 pencil, the Lego block, modeling clay, and anything else that allows one to give form to ideas …
Hearing on the motion is scheduled for 7 Feb.
(via Thought Balloons)