In a March 9 order, U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner agreed with NCsoft that some of Marvel’s allegations and exhibits should be stricken as “false and sham†because certain allegedly infringing works depicted in Marvel’s pleadings were created not by users, but by Marvel itself.
The judge also dismissed more than half of Marvel’s claims against NCsoft and Cryptic Studios, including Marvel’s claims that the defendants directly infringed Marvel’s registered trademarks and are liable for purported infringement of Marvel’s trademarks by City of Heroes’ users.
Important quote:
The judge dismissed all of these claims without leave to amend, meaning that Marvel cannot refile these claims.
Hello! Noticed that you got my blog linked, going to link it back :D
You play WoW, right?
I’m glad to see a sane court decision (for once). If the judge hadn’t struck down those parts of the court filing, it would have meant much less rich on-line worlds in which to play in the future. As it stands, we now have case law that says that there are substantial non-infringing uses of MMOs in entertainment–that makes it a lot less likely than another media company is going to sue an MMO service in the future on these grounds.
Thanks for the update.
***Hello! Noticed that you got my blog linked, going to link it back :D
You play WoW, right? ***
Cool! And yes, I do play WoW (and CoH and AC2).