How do you keep a copyrighted name?

And Mercury is the Roman God of flower deliveries making him the perfect symbol for FTD Florists.

Hello everyone, I can't say what decisions the GMs have made regarding the OP or even their thoughts on my character the Mythic Hercules. Unlike others experiences shared here, CS did not have a sit-down with me over my character. They only communicated to me that any appropriate action has already been taken, if any action was taken at all (it's not the kind of information they're at liberty to provide). It was extremely brief and formal, and probably entirely copy/pasted.

But at the end of the day, and then the week, Hercules was still on my roster. Works for me. I'll never know how CS feels about Hercules; only that they've decided to let me keep him. That's a big deal in my book. But do characters like Hercules create headaches for CS? Thinking about the things that Chase Arcanum wrote on the matter, this incident has made me that much more respectful of Paragon Studios. So I sent them another message:

Fair and responsible use of the public domain wins a victory today; I'm relieved to see Hercules available on my roster for play. I'm writing to say thanks, and to reassure CS that Hercules will never stray from a likeness in origin and imagery based solely on (a) The 12 Labors of Hercules, and (b) Paintings and sculptures from Greek, Roman and Post-Renaissance art, something my research showed that comics publishers have avoided in the interest of pursuing a stronger trademark for their adaptations. Rest assured, my likeness of Hercules bears no likeness to any of those properties. As a professional writer and creator myself, I take this subject very seriously. But I also know that if the day comes when ordinary people cannot participate and share (responsibly) in the public domain within digital spaces like yours, a terrible precedent will be set. I posted pictures of Hercules and his bio in JazMan's thread in General Discussion ( http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=290059&page=3 ). (If you also would like to visit Hercules in-game to inspect his likeness and bio, let me know and we can agree on a time when we can both be online.)

I got a thanks in reply.

One of the reasons why works go into the public domain is so that we can become participants in those tales in order to keep them alive, and some authors, such as H.P. Lovecraft and even J.R.R. Tolkien, expressed their strong desire to have this happen to their works after they died (Tolkien's estate had other plans, of course).

But because likenesses can be trademarked, this privilege is also a responsibility. Further research will often reveal that many public domain characters have had a life outside of their original works already.

Marvel Thor looks like a Mace / Invulnerability Brute anyway (with the Lightning powers provided by an APP, though there isn't one in game for Brutes, with the Mu Mastery PPP being the closest thing).

That said, I do remember playing with a Thor-alike a few years back (before the movie). He was an Electric/Mace Tanker (since this was before you could make heroic Brutes), and he wasn't named anything close to Thor. (But the costume and powers made it obvious enough)

I had a point when I started this post, but I've forgotten it along the way while I was reminiscing.

The OP is in the position of someone pulled over for speeding, who's berating the officer writing him a ticket and DEMANDING to know why they didn't pull over any of the other people who are clearly going MUCH faster than he was.

There is no way that this can lead to a satisfactory result, unless the OP's only intent is to vent, complain, and/or whine.

If the un-genericed "well-known Greek god" is Apollo, DC would probably love to sue you but they can't for reasons mentioned repeatedly by others. Ditto Marvel and Hercules but he's Roman. Yes, I'm pedantic.

I'm just happy that since coming back I haven't seen another garbage clone of a 40k Space Marine or Halo Spartan. It's the little things that matter.

Funny brain exercise.

Let's say an artist over at Marvel Comics is playing City of Heroes one day and spots my Hercules character running around and says to himself, hot damn!

A year later, a character who looks exactly like my character shows up in a Marvel comic book. I buy the comic book at my LCBS and see my character running around with Spidey and Iron Man and I say to myself, hot damn!

It's just a brain exercise. I'm one of the Marvel Universe's biggest fans. I don't think this will ever happen. Marvel Comics knows better and with all their awesome talent, they don't need to copy anything.

On with the exercise, I report the IP violation to Customer Support, under the assumption that all content that is created on NCSoft's servers belongs to NCSoft, not Marvel Comics.

Does NCSoft/Paragon Studios:

A) Generic my character for infringing on Marvel's newly trademarked copy of my character

B) File a Cease and desist

C) Do nothing

D) Do nothing, but prepare a legal response in case Marvel files a cease and desist letter

Something like this could happen if a smaller independent comic book studio artist copies a character he runs across in a super hero MMO. If something like this happened to one of our City of Heroes characters, what would we be able to do in order to protect our creations inside of NCSoft's servers?

Well, technically, Marvel already has a Hercules.

I know, he made a stand-in for the Incredible Hulk series (The Incredible Hercules) and also had some AWESOME scenes in Civil War--I haven't followed his adventures too much outside of those appearances, but he was a big part of Agents of Atlas and has a nice big fan following.

But back to the brain exercise, I think you misunderstood me, which is my fault for not distinguishing between name and likeness. If you want to get super technical, well, this isn't a realistic scenario at all. Imagine if the likeness of my character replaced Marvel's likeness for Hercules, even if it was just one artist's "adaptation" in a limited run of issues. How would that turn out after I reported the situation to CS?

This might work better if you extrapolate beyond Hercules and imagine one of your characters being lifted by some artist at a comic book studio. What would you do? How do you imagine NCSoft might react?