Opportunity and Liability: The Two Sides of Machinima

Abstract

The author explores some key legal issues related to machinima production and distribution, specifically copyright infringement and tarnishment, suggesting that current copyright laws are inadequate for regulating a form of expression whose very existence is based upon remixing and re-circulating assets of intellectual properties owned by game companies. To overcome the ongoing ambiguities, the author suggests that machinima creators should choose either to license the original intellectual properties or opt for the non-profit path. The latter option appears to be the most feasible: in the last 20 years, thanks to the cooperation of developers, machinima makers have enjoyed a relatively large degree of freedom for the production and distribution of non-profit works.