Machinima for Dummies: Category Discussion

Ramifications of the WoWGlider judgement for Machinima creators

Hugh "Nomad" Hancock — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:17:00 +0100

I’ve now had a chance to talk to Corynne McSherry at the Electronic Frontier Foundation about the recent WoWGlider judgement, and my fears that it could impact on Machinima creators appear to mostly be unfounded.

(Obviously, this is US-centric. Creators in the rest of the world, like myself, aren’t directly affected by this.)

My biggest worry was that, by making breaches of the EULA into a copyright infringement issue, US Machinima would lose its potential Transformative Use defence, as discussed in Machinima for Dummies the book.

Corynne responded that “in many cases of fair use (like most Machinima) I think you could still make an argument that because the use was fair, it was noninfringing (though it might still be a breach of contract). “. She did offer a note of caution that it was possible to sign away Fair Use rights in the EULA, so it’s still worth checking them for mention of “Transformative Use” or “Fair Use”.

As to the specific question of altering games in memory, which is an uncommon but not unheardof technique in Machinima, she said that any judgement would be very situational. “Remember–this is one ruling by one court, about one alleged breach of one EULA. A different court might come to a different conclusion in a different context. ”

Whilst it’s possible that the court would follow the same reasoning as the court in the WoWGlider case, it’s not certain - for starters, it’d probably be harder to prove damage or commercial intent in most Machinima cases (that’s my analysis, not Corynne’s).

Finally, the major downside of the case is the possibility that EULA breaches can be treated as copyright infringement, with significantly higher potential penalties arising from that. Corynne did say that was a risk for Machinima artists.

However, as we note in MfD the book, most game EULAs have the clause that the losing party in any judgement will be liable for the winning party’s legal costs - that’s already enough to make going to trial non-viable for most Machinima creators.

Finally, the good news is that usage agreements for Machinima like Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules or Blizzard’s Machinima rules would be taken into account if a company decided to sue for EULA breach. Corynne says “an external statement does help–a game maker will be hard-pressed to go after a Machinima maker if it has given permission for the use. ”

Of course, as she notes, some creators won’t want to stay within the guidelines, or will want to use games that don’t have published guidelines yet. We already don’t really recommend either of those routes if you are putting significant effort into your work, unless you trust both game developer and publisher (and, as we found out with BloodSpell, any future publisher too). By making work that is explicitly in violation of the EULA, as most Machinima is, and arguably a derivative work under copyright too, you’re either exposing yourself to the possibility of having to defend your right to make your work available in court, with all the associated costs, or you’re handing over total control of your work to the games company. It’s a useful route for some projects, but there are major risks attached, and it’s prudent to be aware of them.

Overall, whilst this judgement is a step back for copyright and ownership law in the US as a whole, the barrel of this one doesn’t seem to be pointed at Machinima creators. Hurrah.

Gamers meet Byron

Johnnie Ingram — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:05:00 +0100

What happens when you expose a bunch of hardcore video gamers to a 200-year-old poem? The reaction is very mixed. Strange Company’s latest machinima piece, When We Two Parted, is a visual interpretation of Byron’s famous poem of love, loss and regret. Hugh (the co-author of this blog and the director of the piece) released it onto YouTube recently, under the Machinima.com channel. The reaction and comments were not what he was expecting at all.

The Machinima.com You Tube channel collates and releases machinima videos by many different people, but it’s fair to say that a lot of the videos are made using games such as Halo 2. They’re often short comedy skits, set in the world of the game in which they’re produced. It’s not often that subscribers to that channel are exposed to something as unashamedly arty as When We Two Parted. So, what would the hordes of gamers and frag-video junkies think of Hugh’s Byron interpretation? Indifference? Confusion? Not a bit of it.

The reactions were extreme. Commentators either loved or loathed the piece. There was no in-between.

Warning: Strong language in a few of these.

The comments that were posted within just a few hours included (sic in almost all cases!):

I think you did a hellova jb on this. The poem was exelent and you oput it all together so beautifuly.

wtf u suck go kill yourself

boo you suck!! machinima dont put this stuff on here i know you guys are better than this

Very well done. An excellent poem presented beautifully ad with a style that is reflective of the poem itself. Great job!

This is fucking shitty. One star. I’d give less, but i can’t.

boo this stinks!. I can smell the doo doo coming out of my speakers

XD that was so awesome.

did u made this? nice!

just kill yourself plz

dude ur a awesome poet

And finally, the rather wonderful

who ever made this should stay in art NOT MACHINIMA

Aside from exposing a woeful lack of basic spelling and grammer skills amongst the Halo elite, this really does expose a larger fact. As Hugh, I and several other commentators have predicted, where once there were a few people making films in games, now Machinima (as it became known) is split into many sub-communities, usually based around a specific machinima engine or game.

The thing that’s of interest to me is that, in a lot of cases, these communities are not aware of each other’s existence. A lot of World Of Warcraft moviemakers think that machinima is “Warcraft movies”, and vice versa. Many Sims 2 moviemakers have never even encountered the word “machinima”. The same is true for many other groups.

Rather than bemoan the dilution and distortion of our precious artform, I’m actually going to give a virtual cheer. What it means – and I’m not sure that any of us have really grasped this yet – is that there are thousands upon thousands of people happily creating and releasing within their particular community. Not only are they not aware of us, crucially, we’re not aware of them either. It means that machinima is a much more widespread technique than we normally consider it to be. It also means that the “next stage” of machinima, that next big step that we’ve all been watching on the horizon for the past couple of years – where machinima spills over into everyday computer tasks and really does enable anyone to tell a story – is well and truly among us. We’re just not in the right position to notice.

The recent discussions on this blog and others as what should and should not be defined as “machinima” have only served to highlight just how different people’s experiences with this technique have been. The commentator who saw When We Two Parted and suggested that Strange Company “should stay in art NOT MACHINIMA” may seem ridiculous at first, but it’s actually a fair comment in the context. Whilst for some it was clearly a refreshing change, for this commentator, machinima is not art or interpretive visual storytelling. It’s Arby ‘n’ the Cheif. It’s Halo movies. What we all must realise, if machinima (and anymation) is to thrive, is that he or she is quite correct. So am I, and so are you. Welcome to the revolution: anyone can play.

Yes, but is it machinima?

Johnnie Ingram — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:57:00 +0100

Over at Gamers Theatre, mrdougan’s post (which he freely admits is a full-on rant) has triggered some interesting discussion as to what does and does not qualify as machinima.

This is a big question, which prompts strong opinons on all sides. Hugh and I have been predicting for some time now that this will be one of the Big Questions for machinima in the future. My own opinions on the subject are fairly well known: I couldn’t care less. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, I just mean that I’m not particularly interested in officially designating one creative piece as machinima and another as not. Machinima, as I’ve said before, is nothing more or less than a very useful tool for me. If I find a better tool, I’ll use that instead.

The waters are being muddied a little by the perenial inside-out vs outside-in debate. Many of the machinima community’s auteurs and storytellers get very upset at the idea of game-play and frag videos being included under the same banner as narrative-driven visual storytelling. Unfortunately, I don’t think they have a leg to stand on there – machinima’s origins lie with frag videos and clan-boast recaps. If you follow that through to its most extreme conclusion, then a video entitled How 2 draint@nk Onyxia is the purest form of machinima there is.

Of course I don’t think that my fictional WoW instruction video is the ideal form of machinima. The point I’m making is that there is no ideal form of machinima. There’s just lots of different, and (sorry Outside-in extremists) equally valid forms.

Edit: Phil Rice & Tom Jantol’s Anymation Manifesto (see comments).