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November 22, 2004 12:04 PM Subscribe
I bought the full-featured 2.0, and it's absolutely fantastic. It almost makes me wish I had more need to create character portraits. It becomes even more interesting in light of Marvel's lawsuit over City of Heroes, as the Hero Machine really does make it easy to recreate a lot of trademarked characters, and I start to wonder where the line gets drawn.
For example, if I were to use the Hero Machine to create a hugely muscular man wearing torn pants, would I only be in violation of trademark if his skin were green? What if it were purple? Or-- and here's the trickiest question of all-- what if I left the drawing in black and white, and never colored it?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:15 PM on November 22, 2004
For example, if I were to use the Hero Machine to create a hugely muscular man wearing torn pants, would I only be in violation of trademark if his skin were green? What if it were purple? Or-- and here's the trickiest question of all-- what if I left the drawing in black and white, and never colored it?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:15 PM on November 22, 2004
[this is pretty cool]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:17 PM on November 22, 2004
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:17 PM on November 22, 2004
It would be interesting to see the most commonly used attributes... my guess is Big-80s-hair and star-patterned pajamas are the big winners
posted by ba3r at 12:19 PM on November 22, 2004
posted by ba3r at 12:19 PM on November 22, 2004
faint_of_butt - thats the kind of reductio ad absurdum i (at least) need to hear more of, w/r/t intellectual property. at least right now, i get the feeling that no one really cares to answer questions like that, the questions are more along the lines of "do i have the power to get money from this? can i crush them with ease?"
like, what if i had two large binary (or something) numbers, that when added, and played in winamp, yield the song "and justice for all" by metallica. am i not allowed to distribute these files? in theory any number x would have a number y so that x+y= And Justice for All, right? and theres an incredible amount of numbers i could use that would yield AJFA if combined in some way. when i copyright a work, how much of the universe is then mine?
posted by 31d1 at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2004
like, what if i had two large binary (or something) numbers, that when added, and played in winamp, yield the song "and justice for all" by metallica. am i not allowed to distribute these files? in theory any number x would have a number y so that x+y= And Justice for All, right? and theres an incredible amount of numbers i could use that would yield AJFA if combined in some way. when i copyright a work, how much of the universe is then mine?
posted by 31d1 at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2004
That sucking sound is my productivity as I keep clicking buttons on this thing.
posted by FunkyHelix at 12:51 PM on November 22, 2004
posted by FunkyHelix at 12:51 PM on November 22, 2004
Just built my Benjamin Franklin superhero. Lightning bolts and everything.
posted by The White Hat at 12:55 PM on November 22, 2004
posted by The White Hat at 12:55 PM on November 22, 2004
31d1 - there's lots of people trying to answer questions like these. Check out Free Culture, by Lawerence Lessig. Chapter One is available in audio here.
As for the Mavel-NC Soft shenanigans, I would imagine it has more to do with CoH's success making Marvel's MMOG aspirations moot than it does with infringing upon Marvel copyrights.
posted by Loser at 12:56 PM on November 22, 2004
As for the Mavel-NC Soft shenanigans, I would imagine it has more to do with CoH's success making Marvel's MMOG aspirations moot than it does with infringing upon Marvel copyrights.
posted by Loser at 12:56 PM on November 22, 2004
I hereby copyright the letter sequence "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz," and all derivative works thereof.
(Too much prior art?)
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:10 PM on November 22, 2004
(Too much prior art?)
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:10 PM on November 22, 2004
Just hitting Randomize All over and over is pretty great.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 3:10 PM on November 22, 2004
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 3:10 PM on November 22, 2004
Shweet little programme!
Even though I am an artist and even though I've done plenty of character portraits for RPGs, one of the harder things to do is figure out the little things like clothing, colour combinations, etc. With this, I could play around with a generic character looking thing, get a feel for what I want and then do the similar thing with the real portrait! This could save me hours per image!
I'ma buy it next week! Gotta wait til' payday!
posted by GreatWesternDragon at 5:53 PM on November 22, 2004
Even though I am an artist and even though I've done plenty of character portraits for RPGs, one of the harder things to do is figure out the little things like clothing, colour combinations, etc. With this, I could play around with a generic character looking thing, get a feel for what I want and then do the similar thing with the real portrait! This could save me hours per image!
I'ma buy it next week! Gotta wait til' payday!
posted by GreatWesternDragon at 5:53 PM on November 22, 2004
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The original Hero Machine was really fun to play around with, but obviously incomplete. There was a time when I waited, poised, for him to release 2.0, but I'd totally forgotten about it by now. Thanks armored-ant.
posted by Hildago at 12:09 PM on November 22, 2004