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The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Posted this a few days ago but it vanished, so here it is again...

Support City of Heroes, NCsoft, and Cryptic. Sign The Official Boycott Marvel Petition.

I personaly plan on mailing a paper copy of it not only to Marvel, but all of the companies they do business with, stock holders, exec's, and also NCsoft/Cryptic.

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11/13/04 15:00

thejeni

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

i've signed it! i think what marvel is doing is totally ridiculious. i'll post a longer rant about this later

11/13/04 15:07

stellari

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Thanks for reposting this. I reported it missing with minutes of its disappearance, but I guess once it was gone, it was gone.

Anyhow, I had posted a couple of links that I found on the MMO Radio thread dealing with the lawsuit and posted a link to your petition over there, so you'll get additional traffic there.

Here is a link to a PVP Online comic re: the lawsuit. I had also posted a link to a USA Today article, but it is almost the same word for word as the one from CNN that Jeni posted, must be an AP story.

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11/13/04 21:27

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

Thanks for reposting this. I reported it missing with minutes of its disappearance, but I guess once it was gone, it was gone.

There is no method for recovering a thread once it is gone. Not sure how it ended up missing..but nothing that could be done to restore it.

QUOTE

I had also posted a link to a USA Today article, but it is almost the same word for word as the one from CNN that Jeni posted, must be an AP story.

You are correct it was an AP story that broke and most of the news sources I have seen are just reposting the AP story in its entirety.

It is interesting that Marvel filed a suit against Disney for $16 Million in July before turning their attention to NC Soft and Cryptic. These suits may be more linked than you think. Marvel recently entered into an agreement with Lions Gates Family Home Entertainment to produce original animation based on their characters and they seem to be trying to bring all of their creations back into their house as part of the deal.

In any case I don't think there is much concern for the players in either law suit. These things take so many years to resolve that by the time a decision is ever rendered we will probably all have moved on to the next greatest thing 2 times removed.

Also, I would encourage people not to boycott the films based on the Marvel Comics. The companies who produce and distribute these films (Sony, 20th Century Fox, etc.) have already entered into agreements with Marvel and have paid licencing fees to have use of these characters for their films. By boycotting the movies I think it really only affects the film companies, distributors and movie theaters at this point not Marvel or at least I don't think the effect on Marvel would be nearly as significant.

Folks may not agree with me, but I think its kind of like boycotting EB Games, GameStop, Best Buy etc. for selling games that are based on Marvel Comics.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

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11/13/04 21:45

stellari

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Hmm, actually we (my husband and I) are currently boycotting a specific EB Games store. They are in a mall, which is across the street from a Best Buy. We had a game purchase to make and were shopping at the mall, so decided to pick up the game at EB. The game was advertised for $5 cheaper at Best Buy and we asked for a discount. The manager at EB said that if we wanted to buy the game for $5 cheaper, we could go across the street...so we did. We think it was just that particular store, because we've had good customer service at other ones, where we reserve games and stuff, but that specific store is not getting our money any more.

Sorry for ranting, and it is off the topic. Go ahead and give me a negative rating :) (Ok, don't really...I'm getting close to Level 2!)

11/13/04 22:25

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

From Marvels Q3 report:

QUOTE

The following are expected to be key factors for Marvel’s 2005 financial performance and are reflected in the high end of the Company’s financial guidance range.

§ Ongoing contributions from the Spider-Man 2 feature film (international box office receipts and DVD share).

§ Contributions from the syndication of the first Spider-Man feature film as well as an advance for the second Spider-Man movie sequel expected to release in 2007.

§ Approximately $20 million in sales derived from the Spider-Man JV.

§ The Fantastic Four movie release and related licensing, as well as licensing associated with other entertainment projects slated for 2005 or thereafter, noted in the table above.

§ Royalties and service fee income associated with an estimated $80 million of wholesale sales of Fantastic Four toys through our master toy licensee.

§ Domestic License renewals, including category consolidation efforts, which should exceed $60 million.

§ Domestic licensing overages of $35 million (compared to $37 million in 2004 and $44 million in 2003).

§ International licensing activities at least 10% above the $25 million planned for 2004.

QUOTE

By boycotting the movies I think it really only affects the film companies, distributors and movie theaters at this point not Marvel or at least I don't think the effect on Marvel would be nearly as significant.

Boycotting is a sure fire way to affect a company.

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11/13/04 22:41

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

Boycotting is a sure fire way to affect a company.

Yeah...but in this case unfortunately its the wrong companies...wrong boycott in the case of the movies though.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

11/13/04 23:32

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

Well you are boycotting a specific store for a specific reason, but are you really going to boycott each and every store that sells a Marvel Licensed Product? I challange you to find too many stories that don't sell Marvel licenced products from software stores that sell the games to department stores that sell clothing to grocery stores that sell lunch boxes etc...heck even automotive stores sell Marvel licensed products...so do Wal-Mart and Target, Sam's Club and Costo you will find far more stores that sell it than don't.

If you boycott all of these stores your hurting the local retailers not Marvel for the most part.

I am not saying a boycott of Marvel isnt a bad idea...just be thoughtfull of who you boycott and why. There are people besides Marvel who feel the impact of some boycotts. I am sure that you can appreciate the fact that boycotting for example all movies based on Marvel licenced Heroes affects a lot of other people much for significantly than the effect it would have on Marvel right down to the local neighborhood theatre that depends on a certain dollar revenue in ticket sales to pay the salaries of its employees and bring in other movies for your entertainment.

QUOTE

Sorry for ranting, and it is off the topic. Go ahead and give me a negative rating :) (Ok, don't really...I'm getting close to Level 2!)

Not from me...I have a hard time giving out 3's let alone anything negative lol.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

11/13/04 23:43

NightMyst

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

I'm pretty sure the main thing is to boycott the products themselves, not the stores that sell them, so you can boycott them and read Batman, just stop buying Spider-Man, and if you're buying a lunchbox, get a Superman one ;)

The movies will do well and be watched no matter what, I can't see anything having a huge effect on it, unless they let George Lucas direct and he casts Jar-Jar as the new "cute yet ebil uber-villain" ;)

I guess I'm back then... :)

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11/14/04 11:03

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Well the point I was really going for though is that non of these companies (Sony Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, EB Games, etc. are Marvel Subsidiaries) so boycotting them is ineffective and would only hurt the wrong companies.

You are right though..the movies will make millions regardless of a handfull of boycotts of the films. Marvel will feel it least of all and thats the point I was trying to make. I have a friend who owns 4 small theaters in the Vail area. He is a small businessman with a family to feed and support. Do you think a boycott of a movie would hurt him or Marvel more? Come on support your local theater.

11/14/04 11:23

Transmission

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

I dont think anyone is suggesting to boycott EBgames,Gamestop,the local theatre, ect,Or to quit patroning the corner mom-n-pops comic book store.You can boycott Marvel by going to the mom-n-pops and buying the Coh dvd edition and not the Spiderman 2 dvd.Marvel Enterprises Subsidiaries include companies like Toy Biz, Marvel Publishing, ect.

However if say the film 'Elektra' is boycotted since it is a Marvel based character and Fox doesnt make 60 million, I cant say I would loose any sleep over it. Also if Vivendi Universal Continues to develope the Marvel based MMO And it doesnt sell more than a 1000 copies I wouldnt have any sympathy. The profits from 'WoW' and 'Middle Earth online' would make up for the losses. Hopefully these companies will be more cautious the next time they deal with Marvel.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

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11/14/04 11:56

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Come on..lets be honest here..there are 294 signatures. Of those a large percentage will be secondary email addresses etc. of the same people. Other will be people who signed but will buy the products or see the movies regardless. Some will be people who don't buy the products or see the movies anyway. Saying that number nets 50 people who will stick with it and would otherwise not have purchased products or would not see a movie they would otherwise see is generous.

For each of those people how many will see the movies or buy the games? The Games and Movies will make millions. If Vu goes ahead and makes a Marvel based MMORP it will go gold in Pre-Sale boycott notwithstanding.

I know a lot of folks are hot on this and wont agree with my opinion of it and thats fine..it certainly inst a requirement of the board lol. I am just pointing out some honest truths about the matter and the reality of it is that it wont have much of an impact on CoH either way. Companies always sue broad to begin with, but it will in all likelihood narrow down to a couple of minor changes in some powers etc.

11/14/04 13:21

NightMyst

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

But that 290+ is 10 times the ammount there were when i signed it yesterday! So it's growing, who cares if it doesn't make a difference, or whether you stick with the boycott, the important bit is to sign it, they can play the numbers game themselves, that's their worry, not ours, the point is to do our best for them to back off COH

(and someone needs to move the "rate" button, I keep pressing it to reply when i'm tired and rating ppl with "0" :( sorry)

11/14/04 13:28

stellari

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

You're such a cynic, Caerbannog ;) I think it is important for people to take a stand on such things and do things about it, such as putting together a petition or boycott. I may only signify that .005% of their customer base is upset over these tactics, however, it does bring to light that there are people who are upset about it. I read somewhere that actual letters to a company actually do better, because for every letter they receive, there are 20 people who would have written one but didn't take the time to get the address, write the letter, and mail it.

In this case, there are probably other people who would sign the petition and boycott the company, but don't know about it. We game on Saturday nights with some other people who play CoH and they didn't know about the lawsuit. While they aren't interested in boycotting, they may write Marvel and tell them that they are disappointed with their tactics. While I am no longer as idealistic as I used to be, I hope that if a company receives 100 letters about disappointment/disapproval they would do something about it. Especially on such a weak sounding lawsuit.

*rant ended*

11/14/04 13:31

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

I am not a cynic..but I will be very honest with you. I think there are far more important things in the world to get our activist hackles up for and stand behind say like nuclear weapons proliferation and human rights violations, racism and equality just for a fast few, But as Denis Miller used to say...thats just my opinion..I could be wrong :)

11/14/04 13:37

stellari

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

This is a training ground for those other items. This is an issue that appeals to younger people. Of course, it works better if the petition/boycott works... But if they get involved in this, the hope is that they will get involved in other, broader, worldy issues.

11/14/04 13:40

Caerbannog

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

(and someone needs to move the \"rate\" button, I keep pressing it to reply when i'm tired and rating ppl with \"0\" :( sorry)

I will check with Nogame and see if it can't be moved..if it can't be maybe he could at least have it default to 5 like the WoW site does. I dont think anyone would complain if they where accidently rated a 5 lol.

11/14/04 13:49

NightMyst

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Yeah, i was only kiddin around, but i do do it fairly often, setting it to 4or5 would help, or maybe i should pay attention? hmm...

11/14/04 14:24

stellari

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Hey, did anyone say why I'm getting more than a rating of 5 on posts? Are the points accumlating? Like if 4 people rate me a 4, do I get 16?

11/14/04 14:46

Transmission

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

337 signatures. petition was created 3 days ago. on average 100 people a day are signing it. Alot of comments are from EX-Marvel customers.

"20+ year Marvel collecter that is very disappointed by this frivolous lawsuit."

"You have thoroughly disappointed a 20 year fan, Marvel."

"I am a retailer. I will drop my orders to 0 every week until this passes."

The idea of a petition is to give a voice to the small unheard people that make up a huge corporation. Their customers. When someone (a company, branch of the government,ect.,) does something that people feel is wrong. The best thing to do is petition and boycott. It is sucessfull even if there are doubters. There may be a few people that dont really care about the situation between Marvel and NCsoft but there are alot more passionate people who do. Who will follow through with boycotting. Who will tell there parents "No I dont want spiderman 2, I want Mallrats instead, I like Stan Lee but Spiderman is just a corporate tool now."

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11/14/04 19:04

Lonestar

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Its ALL about the Bling Bling!!

Marvel gives absoluetly = 0 = crap about COH fans. I'm actually very interested in the Intellectual Property presidence this case is going to create. Looking at this from a layman legal point of view this one could end up in the Supreme Court. It is not often that cases come up that find absolutely no legal presidence. The closest is napster, but it really isnt the same.

They could be granted an injunction that shuts down COH pending the trial outcome - could.

The results could be complete shutdown, or more likely, major revamp patch/expansion. some characters nuked outright, well forced change. Hi! You login to find your characters completely redesinged and you name changed to Hero893786632.

Back to my main point/interest is the legal presidence. This case really is SOOO MUCHH bigger than COH-Marvel. It could impact huge coporations like Kinkos, Tivo, Computer Scanners, any corp that makes something that can copy another entity's work.

In simple terms, it could cause a re-write the US Copyright laws.

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11/14/04 23:09

stellari

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

I've heard a lot of different things about this lawsuit and actions regarding it in the last couple days.

First, there are a lot of GenericHero#s hanging around Paragon City. I imagine that they have to petition to get a name change then. CoH is asking that if you see a hero with a name that infringes on a trademark, that you petition them. They are pressing the End User License Agreement where when we log into the game, we say we will not do such things and could have our accounts banned as a result. I have not heard of any bannings yet, but I guess if someone were to keep creating such avatars, they would.

Also, I have also heard that Marvel is doing this to protect their trademarks. If they do not fight the infringements, they could lose the rights to them and then lose the rights for official movies, etc. in the future.

However, their tactics are pretty scummy, and I still stand by boycotting them. They could have approached Cryptic and NC Soft and asked them to enforce their EULA. Instead they jumped into the lawsuit. Blah..

11/15/04 00:36

Lonestar

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Hmmmm. This is going to be very interesting. I hope Cryptic argues that Marvel never saught injunctions against games such as Champions, Hero System, GURPS, and other game systems that allow players to make Copycat characters just in a different medium.

Also, I saw on another thread how people who makethemeselves up as Spiderman or Wolverine on halloween are doing the exact same thing (one who do not buy the official licenced costumes).

It gets deeper and deeper the more you look.

I even heaed "Landmark Case" from somewhere today.

But, we will see.

11/15/04 19:06

NightMyst

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Or how about suing any other game where you can make your own mods, like UT or Quake or etc etc, people made superhero models, skins and entire mods with trademarked superheroes! And that other superhero game that was customisable "Freedom Force", you can download Marvel TM characters that are custom created for that also, the only reason for them suing NCSoft and COH is because they are their competition for online superhero games, and they hav no way of competing!

11/16/04 09:39

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Also in regards to Marvels MMo... There's no such thing as bad advertising.

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11/16/04 11:57

NightMyst

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

Also in regards to Marvels MMo... There's no such thing as bad advertising.

You're absolutely right, alot of people wouldn't have even heard of Marvel's MMO for ages, now they will get their fans a little hyped, I knew about it, and WAS looking forward to it (the more comic inspired MMO's the better) but now I am disillusioned that a company like Marvel is being so petty. They are basically saying, "We disaprove of this game because it makes it possible to copy or imitate our characters. After we shut it down, come and play our own MMO, where ALL you can create is Marvel spinoffs, yay!"

That is another point, say COH was altered so that you could no longer recreate Marvel heroes, it would still have most of it's power pools and builds etc. But Marvel's own game would HAVE to then be limited to it's own character builds, sure you can cross breed the Hulk and Wolverine, or a wall crawling eye-laser dud called Spider-Clops, but they'd find it very hard to create new pools in the way that City Of Heroes has, cos guess what? NCSoft/Cryptic can sue 'em right back for stealing THEIR stuff!

11/16/04 12:55

Wei

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

First, I admit to not reading every post thouroughly, merely skimming, so forgive me if I repeat everything.

Next, I want to say that I already signed the petition, and that, no Ceag, I only signed once.

I think the lawsuit has nothing to do with character creation and everything to do with the MMO that Vivendi is contracted to publish. Yes, Vivendi. Scary thought, no? A 10 year contract makes it even worse.

Now, I am not saying Vivendi has not published any good games. They have Half-life 1 and 2, Warcraft 3 and WoW, DAoC, Counter-Strike, Diablo 1 and 2, Starcraft, and Tribes 1 and 2. However, publishing and developing are two vastly different things. These are all games that were developed by other companies and merely published by Vivendi.

Every game that Vivendi ahs developed in house has been, to be diplomatic, less than wonderful. But who am I to talk. After all, who can forget Jurassic Park 3: Operation Genesis? What about the breath-taking ER? Yeah... Me too...

With that said, I believe this is just an attempt by Marvel to destroy the competition through suits, and do so early enough that the player-base has a chance to forget what they did. With Vivendi doing the developing, it may be the only chance they have.

For those who have not heard, the as-of-yet-untitled game is set to be released in 2005 for pc and console, and will be based on around 4700 Marvel characters. No word or not whether players will actually be able to run said characters, or if they will act in a npc fashion.

If they do allow you to play the characters, how would it be decided who would play who? Is it first come first serve? If so, then you had better be in line at midnight when the game is released, rush home, and set up your account. You will have to be in very early by the east coast USA time table, or the characters that are worth taking would be gone.

Would you have to pay extra to play the more famous characters like Spider-man or Thor? I would not put it past Marvel.

For those who may not know, Marvel is very sue happy. They once sued Image shortly after it started, several of the artists coming from Marvel, claiming trademark infringments from characters such as Spawn. They failed that time, and I hope they fail this time.

11/16/04 19:21

Wei

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

QUOTE

or a wall crawling eye-laser dud called Spider-Clops

Actually, I think Cyder would be a better name...

Hmmm...

*runs off to make Cyder so he can be sued*

11/16/04 19:24

Transmission

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

Copy of a post I made on the official sites thread (page 91).
Another article about the case from Wired news.

"'Statesman,' a character strikingly similar to Marvel's Captain America (right down to the trademark large white star on his chest and shield), prominently appears on the front of the City of Heroes box and guides the user through the 'creation' process," argues Marvel's complaint. "Defendants' infringement is so brazen that their only attempt to disguise 'Statesman' is to give him a helmet that is nearly identical to the trademark helmet worn by 'Magneto,' another of Marvel's X-Men characters."

Take a good look here and decide for yourself.

The ONLY similarity I see is the star.

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***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

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11/17/04 09:49

NightMyst

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Re: The Official Boycott Marvel Petition

lol, I think DC may join Marvel in suing CoH, I mean, in that image, Statesman is obviously immitating the famous "Superman throwing a car" cover...

Wait a minute... Statesman can't be a Cpt America ripoff! He's a real person! I read his posts on the official site! HAH!

11/17/04 13:13

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