The character pictured in the article looks vaguely like Link if you've had a couple drinks. It might be important to note Nintendo's specificity to Wind Waker and not the Zelda series in general.

Character branding is simply a marketing manuvuer that is now becoming obsolete because with graphical community online games such as MMORPGs, people don't have to depend on the releases of a particular image of an alter-ego to live out their imagination. Say you see yourself as Wolverine or Link or Mario. The copyright holder of those characters has you as a loyal customer. If you're able to fashion your own image of an alter-ego, you break free of that grip and they lose their traditional business.

If Webzen is going to use the Linkish-looking character (who is wearing a blue Revolutionary War-style coat and NO HAT for those who haven't RTFA) as the primary advertisement for the game, then *maybe* Nintendo has some kind of point here. Otherwise, this is simply about owning the meta-image of a cartoonish character with spiky blond hair.

This would be like Disney suing Warner Brothers because Bugs Bunny kind of looks like Thumper.

That branding your customers as CRIMINALS and treating them as such is poor PR, and only ENCOURAGES what they call "crimes"?

Unfortunately, I suspect soon ALL commercial CD burning programs will have DRM. And when that happens, it may be used as a wedge to kill off OSS/GPL'ed OS's and software, which will most certainly remain on the side of the user.