What has this world come to?

I just wanted to chime in and say "I'm that guy" occasionally when I see copyright violators.

I saw <Name removed to avoid humiliation> who was a BLATANT joker clone. What I didn't know was that I, and three other people from VirtueUnited, happened to ALL be on that team and petition him. He got genericed mid mission, MID ANIMATION. Damned funniest thing I've ever seen.

He shouted in broadcast inside the mission "ADMIN????" and that was the last I heard of him for a long time. Then he showed up again thanks to player notes. It was surreal seeing 4 people comment on the SAME event nigh simultaneously in VU.

Moral of the story: Sometimes when you snitch on a stranger, you make great new friends.

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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

The OP is kinda late to the party, this crap has been happening since CoH was released in 2004.




Side note, it's only copyright infringement if you get caught. I once made a hero with the same exact name, costume and powerset as in the comics BUT he was such an obscure character in an obscure comic I never got caught, leveled him up to 50 and everything no one had a clue I stole the entire character even his bio. Eventually after a year I petitioned myself and got my name changed because no one cares about a DC character they've never heard of.


Honestly I believe I could create that same character again and get away with it again.

just came across an Incredible Hulk look-alike SS/Inv brute just a 15 min ago. Well instead he was wearing purple long pants so I assume he is just a homage toon. Pretty nice homage character.

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Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

...Listen ive read a couple of posts and heres my view:

what the player did was fine in my view..tht player was creative to make tht toon, its down to the game makers tbh. if they dont want people making things that look like other toons then dont put them in the game the way it looks. ive seen creative batmans supermans etc

I report blatant violators.

Guys like the one named "Psi-colps" who looked very similar to a certain X-Men character, and was standing around in Atlas spamming "I am xmen" every 10 seconds.

It amused me that he misspelled the ripoff's name.

Right after Shield Defense came out I made a blatant ripoff of Captain America myself, as close as I could get it. I named the character "EULA Violation" and hung out in Atlas with him for a while. I had several people (who were also playing ripoffs) comment on the costume and give me advice on improving it. There were at least 5 Captain America clones in Atlas at the time, and as far as I could tell none of them realized I was making fun of them.

Copyright law is sticky...

My character, Cerberus Rawr, looks nothing like Wolverine, but you can see the resemblence in the concepts and such. It is clearly an "inspired by" character.

My character, Supreme-Man, looks nearly identical to Superman, but that can be seen as a parody and thus not a violation.

My character, Megaman-Z, is clearly a violation where Supreme-Man isn't mainly because of complete package which has the name, the look, and cannot be seen as a parody character.

None of these three characters were ever reported, probably cuz i don't play them any more, but if i went long enough 2 of the 3 are likely to be, but only one is an actual violation.

Depending on how close or far away from the legality of it is pretty much how much I would get annoyed with it if someone reported it. Cerberus I would fight that all the way and be mad, Supreme I'd try to argue for parody but understand the ruling, while Megaman I'm surprised he lasted as a long as he has even when I was actively playing him and I'd laugh that it took that long more than anything.

QR: Ah, the self-appointed Costume Police. We haven't seen a thread from them in simply too long! Nothing is more fun that a bunch of people congratulating themselves on being a bunch of online Hall Monitors. Unless it be a thread about the evils of declining SB. But I digress....

Let's cut this down to the bone, shall we? If the people running CoX REALLY disapproved of "homages," they would NOT HAVE ENABLED THE FOLLOWING:

*Shields which can look like Captain America shields.

*The Bat-cape, Bat-gloves and Bat-boots

*WOLVERINE'S CLAWS! An exact copy, for crying out loud. Yeah, that makes sense.

...I am sure there are more costume parts that allow almost perfect copies of existing characters, but you get my drift. If NCSoft *really* dislikes homages, they have the power to stop it right at the costume creator, by removing these options from same. Until they do, I'm not functioning as their unpaid Hall Monitors.

And there the matter shall rest. Meanwhile you keep on keepin' on, Hall Monitors.

I only petition if it is a comic book or really well-known character, and it's blatant. Most things I'll let slide, but Gr33n Lantern or Suuuperman are a bit much. I've also petitioned a couple for offensive names. I don't care about the rest. I thought a Richard Nixon toon was hilarious. Yeah, a Darth Vader would be screaming to be petitioned, but, say, a Miles Vorkosigan? I'd ignore it.

The only one I really, really wrestled over was a toon named after a porn star. The costume wasn't especially provocative, and there was no bio. Since they were level 47, I decided what the heck, they made it that far without anyone complaining. Hopefully nobody who would be offended would recognize the name.

Well, I'll amend that: no doubt some honestly think that some higher cause is being served by acting as unpaid, in-game police. Human nature being what it is, though, I think that deep down, a lot of people report because its a great way to get out some passive aggression with none the wiser. Sneaky griefing, if you will.

If some idiot wants to run around as the Hulk, this is actually too feeble to register on my radar. That is an issue for a Game Master to address; they are paid to do that and I will let them handle the situation.

I petition names that are offensive immediately, I have friends who have kids that play this game.

Ripoffs I will petition if blatant. Bruce Wayne with a pretty good batman costume for example.

I've had several toons generic'd, but none as ripoffs.

It appears any form of drug reference is taboo, so Steroidabuseman a 4' tall 4' wide character with a vehemently anti drugs bio got done. I wish they'd specify this in the EULA as an area that was off limits, given that I've seen many "Ganjaman" or equivalent toons.

Debbie does Talos - which got more lol tells than I've ever had (and I have a lot of pun names) was guilty by association.

The oddest one was The pocket rocket, which has connotations in the US that it doesn't have here in the UK. I appealed with evidence, the nickname has been used by several small dynamic sportsmen here, boxer Wayne McCullough probably being the most recent, and I knew the phrase from there and as a pair of aces in Texas hold'em. I got the name back.

A friend had Kupid Stunt generic'd, as I think they object to spoonerisms, but this name was actually a running gag in a sketch show on prime time 1980s TV over here (youtube it, the late great bearded Kenny Everett in a basque with a ludicrous set of false b00bs as a chatshow guest), so surely can't be that offensive.

I have better things to do in game than spend my time reporting people for infringing on copyrights I could really care less about. I guess I'm not that big of a nerd that I actually care. Or maybe it's because the companies whose copyrights are being violated do not pay me to enforce them. They could go under tomorrow and I wouldn't care. I guess It makes some people feel important or as if they have some level of control over somone else to take the time to do so. Of couse though as expected there are many reasons why what he has done is ok and what the other guy did isn't. Word of advice: just play the game and let the people that are supposed to worry about those kind of things do the job they are paid to do. It's not nearly as big a deal as you tried to make it out to be.