Celebrity Hero Lookalike Screenies
By
CentralNexus,
Posted on: 2008-01-01 15:23 in Multi-Media Fan Creations
The OP could base the "Celebrity Hero Lookalike Screenies" off of characters from the CoX Universe, I'm sure they wouldn't have any problems doing that.
I don't have any Marvel/DC "homage" characters either. I do have a few from the Champions (Hero Games) Universe, but none that I play. I just made them to see if I could. If they got genericed it would mean nothing to me.
I have, however, made 2nd and 3rd costumes that look like famous characters. I made the 3rd costume of my fire/kin look like Ghost Rider and my inv/mace look like Thor. I don't play them like that, but it's fun to make up the costumes using the CoH generator.
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I've done some costume reminiscent of heroes or heroines before, but the character and name weren't anything like them.
As for celebrity Lookalikes, I think I've seen a character looking a bit like Pamela Anderson before. At least in the topular zonage. 
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As for celebrity Lookalikes, I think I've seen a character looking a bit like Pamela Anderson before. At least in the topular zonage.
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.... Yeah but around here, who hasn't? 
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I think the thing is that, homage or not, a character that is recognizably a modified clone of an established character
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Yeah, I understand this about clones, but not all homages are clones, and that's why I asked the question. It sounded to me like she might be saying that any homage of any kind was not allowed.
Regardless, I think I have the answer to my question in a second reading of her statement (though I'd still appreciate confirmation or clarification from her):
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Sorry but no likeness or homage characters are allowed that are the intellectual property of someone else by name or physical likeness.
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I read an extra "of" in there, like so:
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Sorry but no likeness or homage characters are allowed that are of the intellectual property of someone else by name or physical likeness.
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The difference is that the first one specifically states that the character is someone else's IP. The second one says that even being based on someone else's IP is an issue, effectively (for example) putting anyone on a fan site like virtueverse.com at risk for openly admitting that the character is an homage to someone, even if they wouldn't have been genericed otherwise.
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Homage characters aren't clones or ripoffs. If a character in question looks like a ripoff, it probably is. Creating a character that is similar to but clearly different from trademarked characters should not be an issue.
Here's some good examples of homages
Manticore (as someone sort of pointed out already), a rich kid who lost his parents grows up to fight crime with gadgets and an animal-theme name & costume. Clearly similar to Bruce Wayne/Batman in many ways, but he's not a clone or a ripoff.
Statesman, a super strong flying nigh invulnerable guy who can toss around some energy to boot (lightning rather than heat vision). Very similar to Superman in what he can do, but rather than making him the sole survivor of an alien world with godlike powers, he was a mere earthman who actually gained the power of a god (Zeus). Additional similarity, Superman has a cousin who later showed up on Earth... Statesman created his own "super girl" --his granddaughter, Ms. Liberty.
Mynx, young girl who volunteered for a Crey research project was given a "dangerous" serum that transformed her into feral cat-girl that Crey considered a failure because they could not control her. Somewhat similar to Tigra, a lab assistant for a scientist developing a process to enable a human to attain his full human potential... she was subjected to the process and later donned a cat costume to avenge the apparent death of her mentor. Later still, she was actually transformed into a cat-woman through magical rites. Close, but yet so very different.
Sister Psyche, a red-haired mutant telepath who... didn't attain the power of the Pheonix force, apparently. But her basic look and powers (as well as their source) are similar to Marvel Girl (Jean Grey, pre-Pheonix).
Luminary an android built by another hero to replace the original who retired. The new Luminary's physical appearance was modelled after the original hero's new bride, and the android has developed a strong personality resembling that bride's. Let's see... Jocasta was build by Hank Pym to be a bride for Ultron, and transferred (while brainwashed) his own wife's essence into Jocasta's form. Even though Wasp was saved, a portion of her essence remained in Jocasta. Its a bit of a stretch, but the two are clearly similar.
Citadel, another android hero who does not understand human ways but is a staunch defender of humanity regardless... even though his powers may differ, his basic concept seems similar to the Vision.
Let's also not forget that most (if not all) of the Detective contacts added for safeguard missions are inspired by and named similarly to various television cop/detective characters. How they failed to include Inspector Sledge Hammer in that illustrious list escapes comprehension.
And, while we're on the subject, a clear and obvious line can be drawn between another in-game/out-of-game pair, a clear homage from the developers toward someone else's intellectual property. The donut shop in Faultline, named Drenched Donuts... spelled out in the colors of that famous donut franchise I love so much: Duncan Donuts! Honestly, I don't know how they get away with this one and still have any shred of dignity when they set policy for genericizing someone's potentially questionable trademark violation character.
...and I'm sure very clear similarities can be drawn between numerous other official COH characters. These could be described, at "worst" as ripoffs rather than homages. Still, they are different enough that they are legally distinct from their alleged counterparts. And if someone makes a character who's appearance and/or backstory makes you think of another company's character... [u]that does not make it a ripoff[u].
The ripoffs are those that are clearly clones of the original... Zubermann in his blue tights with red shorts & red cape and big "Z" on his chest is a ripoff of Superman, not an homage!
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And, to briefly address Marvel's accusation that Statesman was a ripoff of Captain America: all I can say is that they've gotta be completey nuts or high if they were serious about that, otherwise I will just assume that the entirety of Marvel Comics has become a soulless corporate sellout willing to take shots at anyone for a quick buck. Statesman is as much a ripoff of Captain America because of the patriotic colored costume with star on his chest as Lord Recluse is a ripoff of Spider-man's nemesis, Venom, because of the whole spider motiff.
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Now, back on topic... when I started reading this thread, I wasn't thinking of other companies' trademarked characters when I came into this thread. I was thinking heroes that looked like celebrities. Silly me. Here's a few I've seen in the game and took screenies of:
Albert Einstein
Sigmund Freud
Ghandi
the Devil (or South Park's interpretation of him)
and Jesus!!!
Zeus, Father of Olympus
Elvis Presley
Michael Jackson
Kid Rock???
Don Johnson, as appearing on Miami Vice -- this screenie is older than the Safeguard mission detective of similar appearance, but I bet this guy was genericized!
Now I get that the celebrities shown above deserve to be genericized... even Elvis, who is dead, still generates revenue and any image that generates revenue is not something to be trifled with. Also, I'm pretty sure Jesus and the Devil would get genercized (one for being a violation of South Park's image of him, the other for the same reason the word God is in the game's language filter).
However, where does NCSoft stand on historic figures? Is Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud okay, or is there some entity that hold the trademark on their names and likenesses? Would Ghandi be nerfed too, and if so... why?
And finally, that brings us to my favorite part of this topic: Zeus. Zeus is mythology and, as far as I know, fair game for anyone to take advantage of... you can't trademark historical mythology. Marvel Comics uses Zeus because Hercules is one of their second string heroes (#1 in my book, baby!!) and DC Comics also uses Zeus as part of Wonder Woman's whole backstory. NCSoft references the mythological father of the Greek gods, various movies make use of him, other game systems use Zeus... EVERYONE gets a crack at making their own interpretation of Zeus.
So how come Thor is off limits? Marvel does [u]not[u] OWN the mythology of Thor regardless of what they may think. They do own their likeness of him and the full name of the title of his book, "The Mighty THOR," but the name alone (and variants of it) should not be off limits... nor should original interpretations of a viking thunder god using variant names. However, NCSoft is afraid of going to court again, so they're willing to concede Marvel's right to something they don't necessarily have a right to. (Mind you, I am not referring to blatant ripoffs of Marvel's interpretation of Thor and those character violations [u]do[u] need to be addressed.)
Anyhow, I would like a little more clarification in the matter of "celebrities" as heroes... no, not like Mr. T, Chuck Norris, or Britney Spears (she should be a villain, not a hero! ) --but rather the historical/mythical celebrities. Is Ghengis Khan fair game? How about Robin Hood? What about... Cassanova? Just curious.
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Sorry but no likeness or homage characters are allowed that are the intellectual property of someone else by name or physical likeness.
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You'd think the PPD, of all people, would know better. Shame on them.
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Already mentioned them (collectively). 
I don't think Ex was trying to make a statement about the entire EULA and protected IP...
...she was just responding to the request to run a thread where someone would say "Here's the best Nightcrawler I can make" and someone else says "Here's the best Colossus I can make" and someone else says "Here's the best Indiana Jones I can make".
I was hoping that by identifying the specific IP and by not actually using them ingame, there wouldn't be any problems. But I understand why they want to steer well clear of litigation.
Does this mean then that if I draw a pencil sketch of Superman and post it on the internet "This is the best Superman I can make" I run the risk of litigation from DC?
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(borderline IP infringing name)
Only if you sell it
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Does this mean then that if I draw a pencil sketch of Superman and post it on the internet "This is the best Superman I can make" I run the risk of litigation from DC?
No, but if you try and profit off of that, then you do.
NC soft profits off of people playing the character, that is how they are able to be sued.
They also profit offn people playing around on the character creator to post pics on this forum. Your still paying $15/mo to make Marvel/DC ripoffs on the the creator wether you play them in game or not. So as Ex already stated...don't post em here.
If I made an "Officer Murdoc", with the "sleek" Veteran costume, and basically copied the background they gave Murph- umm, Murwell, would it get generic'd?
*ponders*
Actually, I fear the result would shake my trust in NC
Ahhh, so THIS is where the obligatory Co* Forum 'clone-thread' has been hiding out for the month. Whew, I was starting to get a bit worried for the moment, since it wasn't found in the General forum as usual.
JANUARY '08: CHECK!
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See ya'll next month.
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Sounds like a fun idea, but we've been around the legal court before and don't wish to return the EULA is in place to protect us and you as users.
Sorry but no likeness or homage characters are allowed that are the intellectual property of someone else by name or physical likeness.
Our character creator tool is amazing, so there should be no shortage of heroic or villainous concepts that we can create without copying someone else's protected content.
If you have any questions let me know.
Regards,
Ex Libris
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Tell that to Angelina Jolie running around Liberty....lol.
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I've been watching this subject for YEARS. Clones usually come in cycles -- and seem to increase right before special events, issue releases, and any sort of Free-trial promotions. HEAVEN help us if it all happens at once.
New users ALWAYS seem to be clueless as to the risk of being genericed. I always see the easy ones -- Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, Iron Man, Hulk, Spiderman, Flash, etc. Several of them have gone out of the way with punctuation, capitilization or spelling to get THAT name they wanted. (I tend to "friend" several of these just to see HOW long before they get genericed. Some occur so fast.)
Some cloned characters were clever enough to change the name, but put copyrighted terms in their Description. If you are Superman-esque and mention Krypton there? You are guaranteeing a Generic name status...
Homages are tricky -- If you did an OLD style Green Lantern costume, but then changed the color scheme? Yet the Guardian server ATTRACTS GL groups and clones. Several going the Green/White/Black theme.
I see no problems with some homages. Some characters are tricky -- I did an Uncle Sam character once calling him the American Gentelmen -- He was around LONG before DC made him into a Freedom Fighter. How do they manage with that being more or less public domain before they used it? With so many mythological based characters, THATS got to be a problem.
I've seen several Thor-like characters, especially post-I11. But most are renamed like "Son of Odin" , "Thunder-Lord" or some such. As long as they don't go for a SPECIFIC blond haired red caped, blue armored look - I see no problem. Its the combination that makes it bad. Marvel has had a Hercules character in The Avengers I believe -- hasn't stopped Wonder Woman from using Hercules from time to time in her story lines. The trick here is are you basing it on the comic character itself, or the original mythological character?
Cloned characters will be with us as long as there are new players. Last month I saw a costume contest that had 1 Flash, 1 Die Fledermaus, 1 Tick, 2 observers in Superman-esque costumes off and on, 1 female that was going from her own costume thru a Supergirl one, a Ms. Marvel one, and then to a Power Girl one.
Many Homage characters are on the edge -- but not all.
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Lookalikes? Hmm... I recently had a Comrade Hero commission done by Shannon Brocas, a fellow New Zealander and Graphics Art graduate.
Shannon based the facial likeness off a living actor (and no this isn't a photomanipulation or done in Poser) and I'll give a No-Prize to the first one who guesses who that actor is
Comrade Hero by Shannon Brocas
woah.
I think the thing is that, homage or not, a character that is recognizably a modified clone of an established character MUST be genericed, or Marvel can point it out to the courts that NCSoft is violating their agreement by not protecting Marvel's IP.
So if you can tell who the character is an homage of with a glace at the costume or a scan of the bio, or if the name makes you do a double take...AND if a GM has noticed it or it has been brought to a GM's attention, it probaly MUST be genericed.
In fact, a "how close can you copy a Marvel character" contest thread would be a great way for a Marvel lawyer to squeeze some mony out of NCSoft if they let such a thing happen.
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