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Blizzard, Microsoft Codify Licenses for Machinima
Wired has up a piece looking at two recent licenses released by Microsoft and Blizzard clarifying their policies towards player use of their games to create Machinima. It's an interesting discussion, because while Blizzard's license grants rights for the first time since World of Warcraft was released (essentially deliberately opening holes in their EULA), Microsoft's new policy takes rights away from enthusiastic Halo players at a time when everyone has just been given the capability to create their own in-game videos. Despite some trepidations, both licenses seem to be well received: "Even digital rights advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation signed off on the rules ... Fred von Lohmann, an EFF senior staff attorney who examined both sets of rules, said the main difference between them lies in a user's base set of rights ... 'It's great news that both of these companies are taking machinima seriously enough that they have been willing to come out and authorize some kinds of machinima ... That's a huge improvement over where we were before, which was (that) no one wanted to give machinima guys any kind of guidance at all.'"
Machinima is the art of using someone else's rendering engine to portray a story different from the original intent.
For instance using the half-life engine to create a love story or something just as crap (Garrys mod is actually great for setting that kind of crap up).
That about covers my knowledge of machinima, whether my comment is crap or not is relative (though I think it was a bit rushed myself).
liqbase
Machinima is the art of using someone else's rendering engine to portray a story different from the original intent. Machinima is the practice of live-action filmmaking within a 3D virtual space. However, do to accessibility, it mostly defaults to existing game engines and their associated IP. This will change as more sandbox-theme virtual 3D space is developed.
Using your logic, it should be illegal to make a replica of Michelangelo's david and sell it for profit? even scale replicas?
what about scale replicas of the statue of liberty? it should be illegal to copy Bartholdi's work on that too shouldn't it?
What about fanfiction? is that illegal too? Also regarding the movie props and stuff, if they just used them it wouldn't be considered theft, trespassing yes (considered to be a lot less of a serious crime than theft), but not theft if they were simply used in another movie. Using copywritten images is also different than physical theft, (more like digital trespassing). comparing the two shows an ignorance of law. props are property, images aren't. Images are copywritten works, not physical property. the statue of david is physical property. making a physical copy of it isn't removing that physical property it's a replica.
Also it's pointless to use the statue of david as an example in this case, as any copyright on the statue of David has obviously long since expired, and it's value isn't in the image, it's in the physical work itself. And numerous people have used the image without diminishing the original work (Simpsons even had an entire episode devoted to the statue of David). I suppose it does work for some arguements. Since, it shows that a work of art, can be replicated, used in other mediums, photographed, replicated, and shown off for free numerous times, and the value of the original work never decreases. in fact it increases with time.
And to be honest if somebody made a complete full scale, exact replica and named it "bob", It would be considered a knock-off, and be labeled a replica of David, and if he insisted on calling it "bob" he'd be laughed at. And again it wouldn't diminish the value of the original one bit. in fact the controversy in the media would most likely increase the value of the statue of David.
The question is also: Does the original studio benefit from the dirivative work? Rooster Teeth (obviously the biggest example) made a killing and a phenomenon with Red Vs Blue that Bungie (and Microsoft by extension) saw as essentially free advertising for the games, and even actively promoted. Which gave the group license to do alternate projects for other games as well as a means of advertising, much like how a select few webcomics creators are commisioned to do special mini-books for promotional purposes.