The Generic Bat....

[RGladden]

Did you ever get hit with it?

Understand, please, that when I first started playing CoH, right around issue 6, I had never played an mmorpg.  Ever.  So I was pretty naive about the rules of character creation and copyright infringement and so forth.  Being raised during the Silver Age of classical comics my tastes in super hero characters was somewhat archaic.  When I started to create my very first hero I had no interest in creating a cyborg-super ninja-pirate-cowboy (My youngest son actually created that character;  obviously something wrong in his up-brangin').


So...anyways...my first character was an invulnerability/super-strength tank....modelled after a well-known DC comics super-hero from Mars.  I forget his name.  HOT-DAMN he was beautiful.  My oldest son took one look at him and said the developers would hunt me down.

Had a BLAST with him....even considering how much of a newb I was.  Got a lot of compliments about the costume and character.  I remember right around level 20 one player saying "Oh...WOW...beautiful work;  but they'll never let you keep him."  I didn't care.  I was already at level 20, so I reasoned that if they hadn't already done something about him they weren't going to.

I remember hitting the weekend at about level 25,  rolling out of bed, throwing on my religious bath robe, pouring a cup of coffee, and booting up the pc to get my daily dose of thug thwacking.  Only...something was wrong.  All the original costume pieces for my character were gone.  I called my oldest son to the room and asked him what had happened.  He took one look at the screen and broke out into gales of laughter.

This was disconcerting, since I always insisted that my sons treat their father with all due respect and deference.  I gave him a couple of minutes to regain the ability to breathe, and resume a standing position.  When he was finally able to speak again he said "You been genericed!   Bwahahahahahaha!"

Well, as you know, I now had to make a choice;  should I delete the character and start over, or continue on with a revamped costume for Generic 1213?

I had too much time invested in the character to delete him, so I chose the second option.  I kept the Generic 1213 moniker and picked a new costume for him.  He still looked somewhat like the popular DC superhero from Mars, but a few tweaks here and there proved sufficient to keep the devs satisfied.

Generic and I went all the way to level 50 together.  And it was a memorable run.  Hot DAMN....he was beautiful.

[ricodah]

I had a Martial Arts/Shield Defense Scrapper named Capt Latina America with 5 costumes representing 5 different countries in South America.  Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru and of course, Chile. 

Was hit with the generic bat for the name and all the costumes, not just the Chile one.  I thought it was excessive since the other 4 were costumes I made up myself, using colors/symbols of each country's flag.  They didn't look like any comic book character that I knew of.

[Blackout]

I had a Martial Arts/Shield Defense Scrapper named Capt Latina America with 5 costumes representing 5 different countries in South America.  Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru and of course, Chile. 

Was hit with the generic bat for the name and all the costumes, not just the Chile one.  I thought it was excessive since the other 4 were costumes I made up myself, using colors/symbols of each country's flag.  They didn't look like any comic book character that I knew of.

That is very odd, and more than a little hypocritical considering all of the stuff that went down with Statesman and Hero One in regards to "Copyright infringement"

[Vee]

My ill troller "Full Blown Aides" got the bat despite my pleas to the gms that i had no idea why anyone would find aides offensive. Yet Fantastic ForceKin was still going strong at closing after 2 years +. Go figure. My warshade based on Jayna the wonder twin survived even longer. They should have hit that one not only for the copyright infringement but for the concept being her changing into animals yet me making her human-only after several failed attempts at tri-form.

[Ankhammon]

I had many "Homage" type characters that players (including myself) thought were going to get hit with generichero but I never was. My way around most of em was to use the word Gaic in front of the name (IE Gaic Vision) and then change the costume somewhat. I still kept the color scheme and most of what the hero would look like but I tweeked it in some way. Usually not as much as they've done in the movies, but it worked.

Course with my altitus, it may have been the devs knew I would self police once a new idea came along anyway. :) 

[Castegyre]

My wife got generic'd for a character she'd been playing for years inspired by Raggedy Ann's look. She was less than pleased.

[Floride]

I think most players at some point created a trademarked character, if only to test the power of the character creator. I made a Lobo toon named The Main Man when I was a noob, but after that I only made wholly original characters because it was... funner!

I'd be surprised if anyone ever got hit with the bat based purely on costume since none of the costume pieces were logos or marks (like the Bat symbol or Superman's "S"). Marvel got spanked real good by NC's lawyers when Marvel tried to say they owned all rights to the generic "star on a shield".

"Full Blown Aides" probably offended some delicate spaz, and the devs had to respond as per policy. It's impossible to know the actual numbers but I'd be willing to bet half the toons that got the bat were from complaints, not from (what people mislabel as) infringements.

Where's FatherXmas? He'll put me in my place with some official stat! (Secretly, I tremble in fear of his immense knowledge smiting my assumptions)

[RGladden]

"Full Blown Aides" probably offended some delicate spaz, and the devs had to respond as per policy. It's impossible to know the actual numbers but I'd be willing to bet half the toons that got the bat were from complaints, not from (what people mislabel as) infringements.

I think you're right about this.  There was only one instance during all the years I played the game where another player complained about one of my toons being a copyright infringement and threatened to report me.  I told him to take his best shot, mainly because I thought he was some juvenile punk spouting off so people would notice him in chat.  But I can guarantee you there were others who never said anything directly to me that probably complained to the devs....

[Steelhelm]

My first character I ever made was named Power Mace, an Electric Armor/ War Mace Tanker. I modeled him look exactly like Thor. Two years later, I renamed him to Steelhelm and made him a different look, although it still kinda bore some resemblance to Thor, but less blue and red and more black and gold.

[doc7924]

Once only - when Captain America was being dead in the comics until he got better,  I did a shield / MA scrapper called "Cyber-America" - made a really nice robot version of Cap. After a couple weeks they genericed the costume and sent me a message "too close to a copyrighted character..yada yada yada", but let me keep the name. So I just made a new non-Cap-like costume and was fine.

I knew a SG mate who made a hero called "Wally West" - with the Flash costume and Super Speed and all that, and then got mad when they genericed his name and costume. We were all like - "well DUH".

At least TRY to make it a little different.

[Super Firebug]

I did have some few who, I suppose, should have been whammied, but they never were. I had a Fusionette clone as spot-on as I could get her by eyeball estimate, but I also had her bio reassuring the devs that I liked her and wouldn't run her dishonorably, and they seemd to leave her be.

On more serious ground, I had a few Venture Bros. tributes, as shown in my group photos of my toons in the "Multimedia" section here. I actually ran Dr. Myron Morpheus and Briana Morpheus (my tributes to Dr. Byron Orpheus and his daughter, Triana) quite a bit, and was surprised that they never got gigged.

My version of Captain America is on the right, in the back row, in my group photos. A female toon, dressed in vertical red-white-red stripes with a red maple leaf in the middle (Canadian flag), called Commander Canada. She had a white shield with red rim and red maple leaf, and a war mace instead of super strength. Recognizable as Cap-inspired, but definitely not actionable. :) There's also Big Orange Guy in the photos - my version of the Incredible Hulk.

While the occasional questionable toon does beg to be tried, I have to agree that originals are more enjoyable. You don't have to worry about them, and they're YOUR creations - something to take pride in.

[Vee]

I did have some few who, I suppose, should have been whammied, but they never were. I had a Fusionette clone as spot-on as I could get her by eyeball estimate, but I also had her bio reassuring the devs that I liked her and wouldn't run her dishonorably, and they seemd to leave her be.

Did they generic their own copyrights? That seems odd.

[GenericHero05]

Back in 2004, my very first character (electric/electric blaster) I tried to costume him out like some type of medieval knight. I named him Sir Cumcision. He made it to level 16 and then was nerfed to GenericHero05 mid mission. He kept that name up to shutdown.

[Super Firebug]

Did they generic their own copyrights? That seems odd.

Not to my knowledge. I read Blackout's above post about Statesman, Hero One and copyright infringement. Not having heard anything about any specific incident, I had assumed that, perhaps, NCSoft had objected to players copying Statesman and Hero One.

[Angel Phoenix77]

I think you're right about this.  There was only one instance during all the years I played the game where another player complained about one of my toons being a copyright infringement and threatened to report me.  I told him to take his best shot, mainly because I thought he was some juvenile punk spouting off so people would notice him in chat.  But I can guarantee you there were others who never said anything directly to me that probably complained to the devs....

I hear you about this one, when I made a villain I named it after my main character but added dark to it. I made quite sure that it did not look anything like a marvel character even made it a mastermind. But a really big tool I came across told me I was going to get genericed. I told him i used a Yugi-oh sort of thing buy adding Dark to my main character. I got angry and I told how is my character even close to resembling the marvel character he was talking about. (there is a reason for being vague about my characters names sorry.) He backed off and that was the only time someone tried to threaten me with an ip violation.

[Blackout]

Not to my knowledge. I read Blackout's above post about Statesman, Hero One and copyright infringement. Not having heard anything about any specific incident, I had assumed that, perhaps, NCSoft had objected to players copying Statesman and Hero One.

I was referencing an incident where Marvel apparently threatened legal action because of Statesman's supposed similarities to Captain America, and Hero One's Supposed similarity to Captain Britain; I said that it was odd simply because despite being threatened over a design based upon a shared symbol (American flag, and the Union Jack) they generic batted Ricodah Captain Latin America character.

Sorry for the confusion there :)

[RGladden]

I was referencing an incident where Marvel apparently threatened legal action because of Statesman's supposed similarities to Captain America, and Hero One's Supposed similarity to Captain Britain; I said that it was odd simply because despite being threatened over a design based upon a shared symbol (American flag, and the Union Jack) they generic batted Ricodah Captain Latin America character.

Sorry for the confusion there :)

Don't know where Marvel was coming from with that threat....cause I don't think they have a copyright on the use of the stars & bars of Old Glory.  Those are used in a million different ways across the entire country.  It's my opinion that they were just looking for cheap publicity...

[Blackout]

Don't know where Marvel was coming from with that threat....cause I don't think they have a copyright on the use of the stars & bars of Old Glory.  Those are used in a million different ways across the entire country.  It's my opinion that they were just looking for cheap publicity...

Did a little digging around and it seems that I misremembered the case a little bit; Marvel weren't suing over hero one and Statesman, they were suing over an even more ridiculous reason.
The fact that you can create Marvel look alike's in city of Heroes. No, really. They actually tried to sue over the fact that you can create characters with green skin and purple shorts.

http://www.out-law.com/page-5381
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=460240
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/marvel-sues-ncsoft-over-city-of-heroes/1100-6113055/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-11-marvel-sues-over-avatars_x.htm

[Thunder Glove]

I never got generic'd. I tried to make my characters' costumes different enough from their inspiration that they'd pass inspection, and I suppose it worked (even for the character who was named directly after a DC character - Dr. Bodog was named after his inspiration, Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana).

[MWRuger]

I had a character named Richard Greyson. He had a Nightwing and Robin (earth 2 version). I also had a street biker outfit. They genericed his name and the Nightwing outfit. I avoided it for a long time by only appearing in public in the street biker outfit, but I forgot one day and was in Went's and someone reported me. (Screamin' Jayhawk seemed to be taking a hard look at me.)

They never got my pulp guy's:

Shadow's Ghost
John "doc" Savage
G8-Battle Ace
Air-Lad
Alex Raymond Gordon
Spirit Who Walks
Master of Men
Det. 1st Class Tracy


or my Misc weird guys

Major Matt Mason
Tom Corbett
Sebastian Collins

Or oddball Comic Guys:
Kamandi The Last Boy on Earth
Phantom Traveler
Foolkiller
Killraven
Sun Tsu Chang
Mr. Winterbourne
Sir Atom Knight
Doctor Mysteriso
Dr. Challenger
Captain Mar-vellous

Or my Music guys:

Jameson Hendrichs
Mr. Blue Suede Shoes
Farrokh Bulsara
Fool on the Hill
Thin White Duke.

Some of these were pretty obscure, but some I was sure were doomed.