IANAL but I think making a T-Shirt with your hero is ok under the acceptable usage clause of the EULA as long as you are not making money off of it (see the second and last paragraph in link). So making the t-shirt is OK, but selling it to someone is not.
My 2 Inf.
[ QUOTE ]
IANAL but I think making a T-Shirt with your hero is ok under the acceptable usage clause of the EULA as long as you are not making money off of it (see the second and last paragraph in link). So making the t-shirt is OK, but selling it to someone is not.
My 2 Inf.
[/ QUOTE ]
I read the EULA the same way.
Generally speaking, if you made the character using the CoX character creation system, NCSoft owns the rights to that character, but fair use means that you are allowed to use the likeness in a "fan art" capacity, as long as you're not profiting.
Yeah, so far Zazzle does not agree. I designed a mug and a shirt with my character on it and they cancelled it.
That's odd, did they specify why they cancelled your order (i.e., content vs. copyright)? Looking at their (Zazzle's) user agreement it looks like you comply with paragraph 3c)"lawful right to reproduce". Maybe it's the "and distribute" part of that sentence?
They believe that the content infringes on COH copyrights (since I made the mistake of putting the fact that my char was level 50 on COH). If I didn't they probably wouldn't have thought twice.
I'm hoping they will realize there is no infringement since I sent them the EULA and the specific excerpts, BUT, if they do not, I write for a couple of tech websites (and one of my articles was frontpaged on both Digg and Fark this weekend), so you can bet I will write about it.
[ QUOTE ]
They believe that the content infringes on COH copyrights (since I made the mistake of putting the fact that my char was level 50 on COH). If I didn't they probably wouldn't have thought twice.
I'm hoping they will realize there is no infringement since I sent them the EULA and the specific excerpts, BUT, if they do not, I write for a couple of tech websites (and one of my articles was frontpaged on both Digg and Fark this weekend), so you can bet I will write about it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, technically there is an infringement. It's just that NCSoft will overlook for things like fan sites. But the t-shirt site doesn't know if you're going to sell them or not, so they're choosing to err on the side of caution.
Also, I'm not sure if you're trying to get a shirt made of fan art of your character or a screenshot. If it's a screenshot, that's clear infringement.
Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to win this one. The characters you make in CoX are not yours to use.
I'm not sure why you say there. There's another thread over in general discussion, and based on the EULA, 6c:
http://www.plaync.com/help/eula_coh.html
"NC Interactive and its related Game Content Providers grant to Members the right to use the Game Content for noncommercial, personal purposes, including in connection with creating noncommercial fan fiction or fan web sites regarding the same."
Based on that I could even put Statesman on a T-Shirt.
And Zazzle should know I'm not trying to make $$$. People at Zazzle who sell their stuff publish their designs as PUBLIC. Mine are all Private.
Yeah, but Zazzle will be making money from it.
That's not the point of the paragraph, and I certainly hope you can understand that.
There have always been discussion about this particular topic, and it seems to geenrally boil down to the character is yours, the parts you use to make him or her are Cryptic's.
From the EULA
[ QUOTE ]
To the extent that NC Interactive cannot claim exclusive rights in Member Content by operation of law, you hereby grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Member Content has expressly granted) to NC Interactive and its related Game Content Providers a non-exclusive, universal, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicenseable right to exercise all rights of any kind or nature associated with such Member Content, and all ancillary and subsidiary rights thereto, in any languages and media now known or not currently known.
[/ QUOTE ]
Basically, they can use your characters anyway they see fit, but the idea of who they are is still yours.
I PMed CuppaJo--let's see if she responds.
Back after 18 months away!
[ QUOTE ]
IANAL but I think making a T-Shirt with your hero is ok under the acceptable usage clause of the EULA as long as you are not making money off of it (see the second and last paragraph in link). So making the t-shirt is OK, but selling it to someone is not.
My 2 Inf.
[/ QUOTE ]
QFT.
Zazzle has their own lawers and issues - they see CoH content as ours and thus won't let you put character stuff up on it because then they would be profiting from our copyright - which is not allowed.
Fatal error: Uncaught mysqli_sql_exception: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 's Assassin'' at line 1 in /var/www/vhosts/cityofheroes.dev/forumarchive.cityofheroes.dev/topic.php:262 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/vhosts/cityofheroes.dev/forumarchive.cityofheroes.dev/topic.php(262): mysqli->query() #1 {main} thrown in /var/www/vhosts/cityofheroes.dev/forumarchive.cityofheroes.dev/topic.php on line 262
If I design a hero, and the design of he / she is original, and not related to, say Superman or Statesman or anything like that, is that image copyrighted by Cryptic and therefore not usable on something say, at Zazzle?
I would think it's free advertising for COH and it would be OK, but I want to check. If it's not, it's not.