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.'"

Comments

Well received?

[apdyck]

Despite some trepidations, both licenses seem to be well received How can one really say if a license is well received? Doesn't everybody just click "I accept"?

Re:Only for Halo?

[LiquidCoooled]

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).

Reading is hard. Jump to conclusions, instead!

[Malkin]

You didn't actually read Blizzard's Fair Use Guide before posting that, did you?

No, they don't expect the 16-year-old kid to go out and get a license before he makes his movie. They only want you to get a "content use license" if your film ends up being used for a commercial purpose, or screened in public at a festival. That's not at all unreasonable, since you're making ample use of their artwork in your movie.