Page "Machinima" Paragraph 34

New machinima filmmakers often want to use game-provided digital assets, but doing so raises legal issues.

As derivative works, their films could violate copyright or be controlled by the assets ' copyright holder, an arrangement that can be complicated by separate publishing and licensing rights.

The software license agreement for The Movies stipulates that Activision, the game's publisher, owns " any and all content within ... Game Movies that was either supplied with the Program or otherwise made available ... by Activision or its licensors ..." Some game companies provide software to modify their own games, and machinima makers often cite fair use as a defense, but the issue has never been tested in court.

A potential problem with this defense is that many works, such as Red vs. Blue, focus more on satire, which is not protected by fair use, rather than on parody.

Berkeley adds that, even if machinima artists use their own assets, their works could be ruled derivative if filmed in a proprietary engine.

The risk inherent in a fair-use defense would cause most machinima artists simply to yield to a cease-and-desist order.

The AMAS has attempted to negotiate solutions with video game companies, arguing that an open-source or reasonably priced alternative would emerge from an unfavorable situation.

Unlike The Movies, some dedicated machinima software programs, such as Reallusion's iClone, have licenses that avoid claiming ownership of users ' films featuring bundled assets.