The Red vs. Blue team from Rooster Teeth’s machinima series take a look at the “normal soldiers” of Halo 3: ODST.

Their reaction was pretty much the same reaction I have to a new Halo game. I think, “Hooray! I shall be at the same skill level as many other people for a short period of time!” Unfortunately that short period of time is around 15 minutes, give or take, so the elation generally doesn’t last long. After a half hour, the advanced players have already found out how to teleport directly into the game’s code to attack the AI programming, while I am still trying to not sticky grenade myself.

Today kicks off Stanford University’s Play Machinima Law Conference with panels of machinima artists, copyright lawyers and legal representatives from Blizzard, EA and Microsoft.

Machinima is one of those hazy areas of artistic expression not quite covered by copyright law and not quite insignificant given how many people have jumped on the bandwagon. Kotaku first covered the topic back when the New York Times Magazine did a piece called “Xbox Auteurs” that loosely touched on successful ventures like Red vs. Blue and Strangerhood. Since then, we’ve seen everything from filmmakers to Family Guy writers getting in on the machinima scene.

Stanford’s gathering of legal people, law professors, game studies students and machinima artists aims to address some of the grey areas in this emerging art form. It’s also an opportunity to screen some bitchin’ machinima. And, for me, it’s a chance to earn some extra credit in my Game Studies: Issues in Design, Technology, and Player Creativity class since I’m ditching next week to make the Namco Bandai Gamers Day event.

Here’s what I learned:

Machinima is more than just Red vs. Blue
For the longest time, I thought “machinima” was limited to fan made videos people posted to YouTube. I didn’t realise that the word also includes serious documentaries like HBO’s My Second Life: The video diaries of Molotov Alta and licensed advertisements like the World of Warcraft SlimJim commercial. Pretty much any endeavor that uses in-game content to create original narratives or otherwise creative works counts as machinima – even if it’s dumb music videos.

It’s Not Always Fair Use
Parody law in the United States gets kicked around a lot, especially when something offensive but funny hits the Internet. However, because most games require users to sign terms of use agreements, parody law doesn’t protect Red vs. Blue from Microsoft (that, and Red vs. Blue is satire, not parody). There are some exceptions to this, though, depending on the developer. For example, Second Life “owner” Linden Lab didn’t feel the need to sign a release for the HBO documentary because to them, their game should replicate real life conditions for documentary filmmaking. You wouldn’t have the mayor of New York City sign a release before filming the streets of New York, right?

Blizzard and Microsoft Actually Aren’t Opposed To Machinima
You’d think the two biggest playgrounds for machinima artists would be annoyed at all these artists cashing in on their product; but actually, both publishers have reached out to machinima communities. They’ve set up (and revised) guidelines for machinima creators to allow would-be artists some control over their creations and some freedom to distribute them. Here’s Microsoft’s and here’s Blizzard’s. Compare and contrast.

The Big Question: Can You Make Money On It?
One of the main torts of copyright law and the defining issue for machinima to address (at least in this conference) is whether or not these productions are for profit. Both agreements from Microsoft and Sony draw a definite distinction between noncommercial and commercial use of their games to create machinima.

This is kind of a problem for machinima artists because many of them would certainly like to profit from their hard work (and some of them definitely do). There are ways to do it without provoking a lawyer-storm from publishers, such as securing licensing agreements or even just asking permission to submit a machinima film to a contest that’s not affiliated with the game before actually doing it. But many machinima artists are under the impression that if they just stay off the radar, they can get away with selling t-shirts, DVDs and other items that tie into their work and (sort of) trade on the game’s popularity. Or, they think, they can play the Fair Use card if they satisfy at least one aspect of copyright law and escape litigation.

The lawyers here at the conference today say that this is not the way to go. Fair Use is ambiguous even outside video game land – and even if the “actual damages” threat doesn’t sound so scary, it is still a serious legal problem, especially if you’re just a gamer who wanted to make a fan video of Master Chief rocking out to Jesse McCartney’s “Right Where You Want Me.” The legal rights for machinima haven’t been spelled out yet, even with the few case laws on the books for Second Life – so do not assume anything, or at least try not to act surprised when the lawyers call you up.

The Stanford Machinima Law conference is going on now at Stanford University. You can check out the agenda here at this website that really seems to hate Firefox. Audio and video of the event will probably be posted at some point, too – but because it’s Stanford, I wouldn’t bet on it happening for another month or so.

The creators of the Red vs. Blue series take on City of Heroes, in a series of live-action shorts featuring the greatest superhero of all time, Captain Dynamic.

The series revolves around the new Mission Architect being released in City of Heroes, with Captain Dynamic, whose superpowers include “super stuff”, hiring a writing team to spice up his adventures. His demands are relatively simple. He just wants missions that level him up incredibly quick, with as little effort as possible. I don’t see why saving a kitten from a tree isn’t worthy of a crystal fortress.

Not Rooster Teeth’s best work, but there are a few laughs to be had. Things pick up a little in episode 2, when we discover Captain Dynamic’s amazing ability to make letters with his arms.

If you’d like to talk to Burns about his work, or machinima in general, he’s scheduled to host a Q&A session on June 18 at 7:30PM at the Telstra Experience Lab. The lab can be found at Level 2, 400 George St, Sydney.

The SFF 2008 is host to two other machinima-related talks – one on June 18 at 5:30PM with Frank Dellario (Electric Sheep) and another on June 19 at 5:30PM with Chris Burke (This Spartan Life). These sessions will also take place at the Telstra Experience Lab, and all three are free of charge.

Be sure to hit up the SFF website for more info.

Digital Innovators [Sydney Film Festival]

Now, clearly, these are production values in the upper 1 percentile, and we’d expect no less of Rooster Teeth, and I’m not gonna hate on it. But can I ask a question? How come any elected-office character in a military-genre movie has to have a condescending Southern accent?

It’s like a British friend of mine once said about the stereotype of his accent: “If I am in a Star Wars movie, then I command the Death Star.”

That said, I can’t wait to see (and hear) where this is headed.

RVB: Reconstruction [Rooster Teeth, embedded video courtesy of Slackerchan at Gametrailers]

Mission Australia will be represented by the colour red, while Make-A-Wish are to be attired in blue. As you can see from the website snap here, Mission are owning Make-A-Wish something severe. We can only pray they do better in the weeks to come.

Except you can do more than pray. MS has 30 custom-painted Xbox 360s (half red, half blue), signed by a swag of both local and international celebs, to auction off, with the proceeds going to the appropriately-coloured charity.

The full press release after the jump.

Halo 3 presents Red v Blue [Official site]

SYDNEY 27 September 2007 – To celebrate the launch of the record breaking game “Halo® 3” on Xbox 360, Microsoft today announced “Red v Blue” to raise funds for two worthy Australian charities: Mission Australia and Make-A-Wish Australia.

Inspired by the game “Halo 3”, the Red v Blue charity campaign features a number of challenges between high profile sports, TV, music, and fashion celebrities. Every challenge will feature a Red team representing Mission Australia and a Blue team representing Make-A-Wish Australia, with Xbox 360 donating prize money to the winning team.

The campaign kicked off last night with a performance of FACE IT, the latest single by Phrase featuring Ian Kenny (Karnivool/Birds of Tokyo). The track was inspired by Halo 3, and will be used in aspects of Halo 3’s marketing campaign. For more information on Phrase and to check out video for the Halo 3 track FACE IT go to www.getmusic.com.au/phrase.

Starting 2 October 2007, 15 Red and 15 Blue one-of-a-kind airbrushed Xbox 360’s individually signed by celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Rhianna, Pussycat Dolls, Matchbox 20, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West will be auctioned off with all monies raised going to the red or blue charity. Each Xbox 360 has been uniquely sprayed with one of the faces of the mega stars. Pictures of the collectable consoles and a full list of all the stars involved with the dates their consoles are up for auction can be found at www.redvblue.com.au.

In addition, the first sporting challenge kicks off today on www.redvblue.com.au where sporting greats battle out for a good cause. Sports stars include Matthew Lloyd, Rick Kelly, Willie Mason and Anthony Mundine to name but a few.

Fans can not only follow all of this and more action on the website but can also take part in the epic battle by playing the online flash game. Xbox will be donating $15,000 towards the two charities but the fans involvement will determine which colour and therefore which charity will ultimately benefit.

David McLean, Director of Xbox, says, “Xbox Australia is proud to support the Red Vs Blue charity campaign. There will be a lot of great content on the Red v Blue website from today, and I am especially looking forward to seeing the Blue Team’s Lote Tuqiri battle out the Red Team’s George Smith on ‘Hand Wars.’”

Sandy Brattstrom, CEO of Make-A-Wish Australia, says, “Make-A-Wish Australia is proud to be associated with Xbox 360 & “Halo 3” and their Red v Blue charity campaign. The money raised will go a long way towards making many more spectacular wishes come true for children with life threatening illnesses.”

Toby Hall, CEO of Mission Australia, says, “Not only is this a great fun campaign to be involved with, but it enables us to help the nation’s most disadvantaged individuals and communities get back on their feet.”

For more information about “Red v Blue” go to www.redvblue.com.au.