September 3, 2007EFF: Microsoft Embraces Machinima
Posted by The Ori
The big news in the machinima world this week has been Microsoft’s new “Game Content Usage Rules,” which is a license that explicitly authorizes the creation of machinima (and other derivative works) using Microsoft game content. As far as I know, this is the first time a major commercial game vendor has created a “machinima license” to facilitate this exciting new genre.
Some machinima creators have been critical of the new license. Lets leave the detailed discussion of the pros and cons of the license to Hugh Hancock, noted machinima creator and author, but while the license is not perfect, I think it actually does a great deal of good, without doing any harm.
[UPDATE: Hugh has now posted some additional thoughts, as well.]
The new license appears to give you permission to do things that would otherwise be forbidden by copyright law. These permissions are in addition to any fair use rights you might otherwise enjoy (according to Microsoft’s lawyers, Xbox games do not include any contractual terms intended to strip you of those rights). So machinima creators who use Microsoft games now have two choices — they can follow the rules set out in the new license, or they can fall back on their fair use rights.
Full Story: eff.org
what does this do??
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