Law.com: et tu, Marvel?
For kids reared on comic books, what could be more natural than tumbling into the backyard with their friends to make up new adventures for their favorite superheroes? How many comic book fans adorned their grade-school notebooks with hand-drawn images of the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, and Captain America?
Apparently Marvel Enterprises Inc., which owns the copyright and trademark rights in these classic superhero characters, thinks that these generations of American children were all infringers, little better than the downloaders targeted by the music and movie industries.
The Trademark Blog has a nicely illustrated post: Marvel v. City of Heroes : “Marvel Comics says that City of Heroes infringes Marvel’s trademarks and copyrights, and has filed this complaint. Marvel says that, for example, Statesman, is just like Captain America, except that COH put the helmet of Magneto (a Marvel villain) on him.”
Marvel Enterprises v. NCSoft
