Gauracandra 1 Report post Posted August 30, 2002 MIT Rips Off Comic Book CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - When MIT announced in March that it won a $50 million grant to design high-tech gear for the U.S. Army's "soldier of the future," the project was hailed as the stuff of science fiction and comic book heroes. It turns out there was a lot more to those plaudits than most people realized. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has grudgingly acknowledged that it copied images from the sci-fi comic book "Radix" as part of its winning bid to host a research center that aims to make soldiers partly invisible and allow them to clear 20-foot walls in a single bound. But with the Canadian creators of "Radix" crying foul and weighing their legal options, the tale may not end there. The illustration in question -- a masked female soldier -- appeared on page 13 of a grant proposal MIT submitted to the Pentagon to host the high-tech Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. When MIT won the grant, beating out other schools such as Cornell University, national news media used the image to illustrate the kinds of futuristic warrior gear that the institute hoped to develop. "It was an innocent use," MIT spokesman Ken Campbell said. "We didn't know it was from anyone else's artwork." The university issued a statement explaining its stance after an article appeared in the Boston Globe. (Reuters) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
