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As I've been monitoring the reaction to the new machinima rules Microsoft put out last week, I'm seeing far more negative doom and gloom reactions than I had anticipated. As such, I thought it might be an opportune time to address a few of the more common reactions I've seen to hopefully put the rules in perspective.

1. It was legal before, and now they're punishing us?

Surprisingly enough, what you were doing before was actually illegal. Specifically, it was copyright infringement. This isn't nearly as nebulous as re-skinning an engine, an issue I plan to go further into in the third part of my copyright discussion. You are using the game, exactly as it was, to create a new work. This new work is a derivative work, and creating a derivative work without a license is, in fact, copyright infringement. Microsoft was simply not enforcing their rights to that point in most cases. Simply because something happened does not mean it was legal.

2. This is the end of machinima.

This is by no means the end of machinima. In fact, it makes the whole operation far more clear cut for people who use those Microsoft games in their series. It just means that more creativity will have to go into the series to avoid the "expanding the universe" rule, and more audio production will be involved to make up for the sound effects. Moreover, these rules only apply to the Microsoft games on the list. If this is really an issue, use a different engine. Much like I noted in the SouthPaw Manifesto, if you don't like something, don't buy/use it. Of course, I think you will be hard pressed to find a game developer, at this point in time, who has said "Please use my game to make as many videos as you like, and feel free to profit on them as much as you can."


3. No wonder Rooster Teeth ended Red vs. Blue. They must have had advance notice!

I really can't speak to whether Burnie and crew had advance notice, but I am fairly certain Rooster Teeth has a commercial license. You might have noticed a little one sentence reference to "commercial license" in the guidelines. A license like this will give you the freedom to do whatever you like within the scope of that license. However, there are two caveats: 1. You have
to get a commercial license for your production group; and 2. Microsoft doesn't exactly hand them out like candy. In fact, the only license that has been granted which I know of is the Rooster Teeth license. This does not mean that other licenses won't be granted, but they are not a simple thing to get your hands on. So, if you think you can get one, you need to ask Microsoft, and then negotiate the terms accordingly. Otherwise, you need to follow the new rules.

4. It is impossible to produce anything under these rules, especially without accepting donations.

If this were 2003, I would probably agree with you that the donation requirement essentially negates the concept of online machinima as the distribution costs will likely bankrupt you. However, YouTube at least makes it possible to get your content out there. I think many machinimators need to ask themselves: Am I in this to produce something, or am I in this for the money? If you really want to get your material out there, it can certainly be done. Yes, you have to pony up the money for the hard materials of your hobby: PC upgrades, games, systems. However, the distribution can now be done for free. And the fan community? Free message boards are a dime a dozen.

If you can produce something truly great, the rest will fall into place. I would imagine if Microsoft found some starving machinimist who had a brilliant series running on YouTube or GameTrailers or some other free site, they would be far more likely to grant a commercial license based on the existing content than they would be to just another face in the crowd. Actors, musicians, writers, and other artists don't just become instantly wealthy. They have to work at their art. Just keep that in mind as you're working on your next project, without the donations.

5. This is a huge step backward for machinima.

Actually, this is just the opposite. A game company is finally saying "You can make machinima. You just have to follow some rules." Most developers have remained totally silent on the issue, and there may come a time when they choose to respond with a lawsuit rather than the conditional permission Microsoft chose.



So, the big M has spoken, and the world hasn't ended. Machinima still exists, it's just not as straightforward as it was when it wasn't legal. And once everyone has time to adjust, I'm sure we'll see some great new work. For those of you who had a series that violated the rules, I'm sorry you had to kill off your project. But look at this as an opportunity to make your own work even better, not as a big corporation squashing your dream. In the end, compromises like this are more than likely going to be the future of the medium. I'm personally glad they didn't decide to end machinima with their games altogether.

Microsoft has set forth an interesting new content policy, found here, that seems to be giving the non-profit machinimist a break. In fact, I would go as far as to say this is really what needed to be done, but only addresses half of the issue.

The rules boil down to this: You can use the following games:
-Age of Empires (all versions)
-Flight Simulator (all versions)
-Forza Motorsport (all versions)
-Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 (when released)
-Kameo
-Perfect Dark Zero
-Project Gotham Racing (all versions)
-Rise of Nations (all versions)
-Shadowrun
-Viva Piñata

to make machinima, provided you put the following disclaimer on it:

[The title of your Item] was created under Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules” using assets from GAMENAME, © Microsoft Corporation.

AND it follows these rules:


"1. You can’t reverse engineer our games to access the assets or otherwise do things that the games don’t normally permit in order to create your Items.
2. You can’t use Game Content to create pornographic or obscene Items, or anything that contains vulgar, racist, hateful, or otherwise objectionable content.
3. You can’t sell or otherwise earn anything from your Items. We will let you have advertising on the page with the Item on it, but that’s it. That means you can’t sell it, post it on a site that requires subscription or other fees, solicit donations of any kind (even by PayPal), use it to enter a contest or sweepstakes, or post it on a page you use to sell other items (even if those other items have nothing to do with Game Content or Microsoft).
4. You can’t use the soundtracks or audio effects from the original game. We often license those from third parties and don’t have the rights to pass them on to you.
5. You can’t infringe anyone’s IP rights in your Item, even if the IP rights being infringed don’t belong to Microsoft. Among other things that means you can’t use any of Microsoft’s trademarked logos or names except in the ways described in the pages linked from www.microsoft.com/trademarks.
6. You can’t add to the game universe or expand on the story told in the game with “lost chapters” or back story or anything like that.
7. You can’t grant anyone the right to build on your creations. We don’t mind if other people help you out, but you have to be clear with them that it’s not you giving permission, it’s us. (That’s how we make sure everyone plays by the same rules.)"

Consider these the 7 Deadly Sins of Microsoft Machinima. In short, they are:
1. Hacking
2. Obscenity
3. Profit
4. Audio
5. Other IP
6. Fanfiction
7. Piggybacking

Presuming you play by these rules, Microsoft will leave you alone. There are, of course, still a few particular issues with this scheme.

1. You essentially have to overwrite the entire audio track. While this is understandable to the extent of background music, many machinimists do use the sound effects. Moreover, dedicated players will know that the effect is different for, say, the ghost in Halo. I estimate that many people may hear from Microsoft on the sound effect issue, if the plan to enforce it.
2. Of course, you're not allowed to make any money, at all, whatsoever. Since many machinimists do have a "donate via paypal" link on their site, the link will need to be removed to comply with the new rules.
3. There's also no stated method for contact for obtaining a commercial license, although they do mention the commercial license. I assume this means that still, for the most part, the answer is "no" on that particular front, unless you happen to be Rooster Teeth Productions.

All in all, I think this is a good move for Microsoft and it would not surprise me to see other companies follow suit. This license generates a positive reaction from the fans and really doesn't hurt the owner of the IP license. Additionally, it retains control over the assets, so issues of the items becoming "public domain" due to use by the consumer should be mitigated. It, unfortunately, doesn't really offer anything for the aspiring professional machinimist.

[Thanks to Overman for the tip.]