Response from NCsoft Support (About Refunds)

Copyright and trademark law are kind of all over the place when it comes to player's rights.

However, I think it would be extremely unlikely for NCSoft to come after someone who turned their player character into a property. The main risk to the creator would be if the likeness of the character drew too obviously on CoH costumes or powers.

NCSoft does own the character data, although it's unclear what they could actually do about you using it somehow. What they don't really own is a the "idea" of your character, except in the portion of it that exists in their databases. If this weren't true, MMO providers could potentially scan their playerbases for the coolest characters and market them without consent of the player who created them.

Wasn't the whole reason such an EULA was put into place was due to Marvel and DC (or was it just Marvel?) trying to get City of Heroes shut down for the mere possibility of people trying to play as heroes from their IP?

Weren't Marvel's employees caught doing that very thing in-game?

As for the ownership of characters and all of that, I very much have similar thoughts as Oedipus Tex (you really only approach trouble if you use obvious, specific art assets from the game. If it is generic costume bits, don't worry... but if the character has the exact Critix helmet or something... you're using someone else's art assets. Also, other than extreme cases or blatant ripoffs, like I mentioned previously, it's really not about going after people who have outside success with characters created in their game. It's more about protecting their rights to use those characters from with their game [such as, in picture add for something for their game, or on their website, etc.]).

As for the laws/rules themselves, a really simple way to look at it is like this: When you work for a studio (let's say Disney)... part of the contract is basically - "everything that you create, draw, design while you are working for us... it ours... not yours to keep... it is the property of Disney".
They provide the assets and the means to create the thing... and they claim legal rights to it.

I honestly don't think it is anything to worry about. I don't even think that the courts would likely side with them in most cases (never mind that they probably would never pursue such things).

Still... best not to replicate blatantly original art assets of the games that you play when manifesting your own creations elsewhere.

It might be helpful for me to provide some actual examples. I'm going to pick on some popular CoH players to help illustrate. I realize some of this is still untested by law, but this is the gist of it as I understand it.


Scenario: Golden Girlis an artist in real life who has created a "Golden Girl" character, who she renders in 3-D comics. Some of these comics feature City of Heroes characters (e.g. Miss Liberty). Does the fact that she has created a "Golden Girl" City of Heroes character and forum ID give NCSoft a credible claim to the "Golden Girl" character itself if a Golden Girl comic book is published next year?

Answer: Most courts would probably say no and NCSoft would be very unlikely to persue this claim anyway. The only thing that CoH can really claim is ownership of elements borrowed directly from CoH. For example, Golden Girl cannot promote her character as a resident of Paragon City or best friend of Miss Liberty. She can probably claim that her powers are "Regeneration" and "Martial Arts," but should be cautious about, say, providing a list of powers that mimics CoH exactly (a couple of cheeky references probably are fine--but firmly maintaining that her powers consist of Fast Healing, Reconstruction, Quick Recovery, Dull Pain, and Integration is probably not. Note that this would be true even if she had not existed as a CoH character.)



Scenario: Arcanaville is a popular CoH forum poster. She decides to design a new video game that competes with NCSoft, and names it "Arcanaville" in order to trade on her popularity. Can NCSoft stop her by claiming that it owns the name "Arcanaville" on the grounds that it was her forum ID and/or character name?

Answer: Almost certainly not. The most they could likely do is take away her forum ID or character name, if she was still using them. They own the "Arcanaville" name exclusively in terms of their own servers and the CoH world.

A bit of a greyer area would be if they had created their own game named "Arcanaville." That would be getting into an issue I'm not sure has ever been tested. How much ownership, for example, does WoW have over "Leeroy Jenkins?" I don't know that anyone has an answer. Regardless, unless you are Arcanaville or Leeroy I doubt you have much reason to worry.



Scenario: Trickshooter is a long-term fan of the game who creates very detailed characters with awesome bios and costumes. Another CoH player, who is a comic book artist, decides to steal several of his ideas, and modifies the character just enough that it avoids violating CoH's IP. What defense does Trickshooter have?

Answer: This is actually the most likely situation to occur. The answer is basically that if you don't want it potentially cloned/stolen, do not put it in the game. It is true that you have limited copyright of the character, but 1) ideas cannot be copyrighted or trademarked, and 2) because of the nature of the EULA it would be very hard to prove IP theft. What protects you also leaves you vulnerable. While NCSoft itself would be unlikely to file a claim against you to stop you from using a particular character you played here, they could easily create something very like your character. And with other players (or even non-players who just visit our boards looking for ideas) there is a very thin line of defense. In general, if you plan on publishing a work containing your characters at some point it is NOT a good idea to showcase them in a MMO. This isn't because the parent company could file a trademark/copyright claim against you, but because defending your IP with the MMO as proof of your ownership is hard if not impossible.

EDIT: I should add something to the last item here. The reason NCSoft probably would not risk directly cloning any individual character is that there is some possibility the creator either had a trademark/copyright on the character outside of the game, or even that the character was a ripoff of a trademark the player never owned. Because of this I'm not sure if there has ever been a case of a MMO deliberately thefting a player's character. What probably has happened is MMOs creating new characters who are very similar to at least some of the player characters, but this is not a violation (in fact it's part of why they make you sign a EULA, so you can't claim Desdemona is a clone of your character, "Hotpants Demon.")

ITT:

Lawyers, Doctors, Rocket Scientists, and Paragon Studios Development Team.

Don't believe me? Good.

Do not take advice from here or off what you've read thus far.
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Talk with someone about your options.

Me? As the OP?
I don't really care cause the money I lost is chump change, but to others it may be a critical amount.

Good luck on getting yours back, I'll be over here chillaxin.

I suspect the odds of anybody with a balance of Paragon Points or a power set or in-game item recently bought that's now entirely pointless is going to get a refund of any sort is exceedingly low.

I think at best the only people looking at being legally entitled to a refund are those who have paid for a future subscription service. And by future, I'm pretty sure that'll mean "November 30th", not "August 28th", even if that subscription is greatly diminished in value between those two dates due to the news. I doubt anybody will hear claims for refund based on the services paid for between August 28th and November 30th diminishing in quality due to the player base fleeing the game or because your friends couldn't become VIP with you to do the things you wanted to do with you.

According to the EULA of this, and pretty much every video game and console in existence, you don't really buy anything so much as lease it for an indeterminable period of time. It'd be hard to claim that you bought, and subsequently were robbed of, Nature Affinity power set when you really leased Paragon Points which then could be transferred to a vague in game utility of undetermined game value (sometimes none even, in the case of costume pieces).

Especially if the judge hearing the case is old fashioned minded and doesn't understand the internet and sees the Paragon Points or the game subscription as having no inherent value due to being digital or virtual. It's hard to claim that something 'valueless' that you agreed you were leasing until NCSoft decided you weren't has decreased in value and you require compensation or a refund for it. "You spent money on garbage then complained the garbage wasn't up to your standards?" seems like what somebody of that mindset would think.

I think at this point the deck is heavily stacked against us, and we're relying on the goodness of NCSoft's hearts at this point at every juncture, and hoping that they fear enough of a hit to their reputation or fear enough of a hit of customer confidence to the genres they produce to do what we'd consider the right thing to do. And maybe that will happen. So far I've been of the mind to take the approach to see what happens.

I think the most likely way for people getting refunds or for the game to be sold to another studio is for them to worry that frightened customers won't invest so heavily in new properties after a AAA title closed down.

I know a lot of people are suspecting other MMOs will see dollar signs from CoH going down, but I believe it's likely going to be the opposite. People in those games will freeze their own spending habits fearing "If it happened to a AAA game, it could happen here!". A lack of customer confidence can drive business away as fast, if not faster than quality in the game or the quality of the tech behind it. I know the big topic in all the other games I've played isn't so much "Cool, new customers and maybe employees are coming" it's been closer to "Is our game next?". That attitude in itself can drive customers to dive away from the genre.

So, I suspect that NCSoft, if it does indeed start giving out generous refunds of some kind, it'll be motivated more by trying to alleviate fear that customers will be burned if they come to their new products, whether or not they originated in CoH or not.

But considering how fast and unceremoniously axed CoH and Paragon Studios despite it making black, I suspect this is not a high priority concern for them. It's 'other games' problem', I bet. I don't really think that we, in the United States or the EU are NCSoft's primary market, in any real appreciable fashion. Good customer service or building up consumer confidence and loyalty implies you want repeat business. I'm not sure if NCSoft really cares how the west thinks of them. Not because I think they're all racist or anything like that, though I've seen that accusation thrown around a lot. It's more that, if I owned a local chain of a restaurant in Ohio, I might not be super concerned with how well I'm personally liked in Paris, France.

I wish everybody the best of luck with getting a refund, if that's the path they're taking in this situation, or with getting the game to stay online, if that is the path they're taking. I know I'm personally doing what I can to keep the game online, myself.

But I think at this point almost every avenue for legal advancement in this situation relies entirely on hoping the guys at NCSoft have bigger hearts than wallets, and I guess I'm not expecting much on that front in general. I think that if that was true, you wouldn't lay off 80 people over Labor Day weekend and then inform them by a public newsletter on their game's website.

I don't want to speak about the legality of the whole thing, but I will say this:

If a company takes a 6-month subscription from me and then shuts down the service three months later (as is my case), it owes me three months of subscription. If the company flatly refuses to do the right thing and instead gives me vouchers for its other products that I don't want, then I no longer want anything to do with the company.

I know I have a reputation as a hothead around here, but this only extends to situations where I actually care and respect the source of the argument. I'll argue and rage about City of Heroes because I love the game. But NCsoft? I find their conduct throughout all this to be repugnant. To the point, in fact, where I no longer care to be angry at them. This has gone beyond anger and into blacklisting. If that's how NCsoft treat their customer, then I will simply take my business elsewhere and never come back.

Keep my money and keep your vouchers, NC. You no longer interest me in the slightest. Welcome to the ranks of UbiSoft and EA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.