Machinima, Microsoft, and YouTube's Partner system

[papillon]

I would be on the side of the machinima makers if they were being banned from *displaying* their videos, because they did a lot of hard work to make cool stuff. But it's not right to make money off that when you're not giving a share back to the creators of the contents you're helping yourself to without permission.

It's the fanfic thing all over again. I am totally in favor of fanfic. I don't even object to people selling fanfic... AFTER removing all the names and turning it into their own custom setting. You don't sell works with someone else's content in them without permission.

Yes, of course the publicity can be good for the original creators, that's one of the reasons I am in favor of people being able to make and display such altered content. But NOT sell it.

[HumbertTheHorse]

It is, as you all know, impossible to create certain works without using assets or programs of some sort. In our current copyright setup, which is unnatural to the extreme, those individuals with money may create and those without money may not. Pseudo sciences calls it "cost of entry" and I find the idea morally repulsive.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

It is, as you all know, impossible to create certain works without using assets or programs of some sort. In our current copyright setup, which is unnatural to the extreme, those individuals with money may create and those without money may not. Pseudo sciences calls it "cost of entry" and I find the idea morally repulsive.

"Cost of entry" my ass. Programs like Blender and Gimp are free, and can produce AAA assets just like you see in the latest games from big publishers. All it requires is time and hard work. Poor students and artists living off ramen are making their own movies, videos, and assets all the time.

Yes, it requires assets to create works of art or machinima - so create your own if you want to profit from it! No one has said machinima can't be made or shown, only if you are using someone else's work, you can't profit from it.

Making machinima, writing fan fiction, drawing fan art, etc. is all fine and good, but if you then turn around and try to profit from the popularity and name recognition of someone else's property, THAT is what I find morally repulsive. It is lazy, and indicative of a borrower culture that believes it is fine to lift things wholesale for their own purposes. I despise those kinds of "artists", like Roy Lichtenstein, who would repaint a comic book panel to be the size of a wall and change the woman's hair color, then call it an original piece of art.

There are plenty of artists who have their own original flash shows, animated movies, comic books, etc. who are making their own art with their own ideas and making money off it, and most of them work out of their house with no big company money behind them, just hard work.

[Sapphi]

Making machinima, writing fan fiction, drawing fan art, etc. is all fine and good, but if you then turn around and try to profit from the popularity and name recognition of someone else's property, THAT is what I find morally repulsive. It is lazy, and indicative of a borrower culture that believes it is fine to lift things wholesale for their own purposes.

QFT.

Does the copyright system need to be re-thought? Yes.
Are things unfairly skewed in favor of the upper class? Yes, of course.
But, IMO, the bizarre sense of entitlement to other people's property in this (and in other areas) of our society is almost more appalling than economic unfairness and bad copyright laws.

[kkffoo]

It is possible, some might say preferable, to make machinima using assets which allow for reuse in whatever way you like. It is only using *game* assets, with eulas which forbid their use commercially, which causes a problem.
So yes you can use someone else's assets, and profit from it, if the license allows.
Creating all your assets from scratch to make a machinima piece would be so time consuming that you might as well make the whole thing in blender.
You don't invent a new language to write a novel, or construct Clint Eastwood from discarded body parts to make a cowboy movie, so reuse, repurposing is absolutely fine, and quite sensible, if you are making something by yourself.

[DaFool]

It is, as you all know, impossible to create certain works without using assets or programs of some sort. In our current copyright setup, which is unnatural to the extreme, those individuals with money may create and those without money may not. Pseudo sciences calls it "cost of entry" and I find the idea morally repulsive.

Everyone wants to be the director, but nobody wants to be the grunt who creates crate #239 or tree #157. Youtube provided a means for anyone with a webcam to film their kitten doing cute things, as well as amateur directors to do their best efforts.

I wanted to be an anime director, but couldn't really draw, that's why I ended up in this fandom, the easiest way to direct a visual story without drawing that much compared to animation or manga. In a way, machinima is in a similar state as visual novels in that it relies mostly on scripting to tell a story.

Unfortunately it's becoming harder to gain traction for your work unless you have "production quality", which costs blood and sweat if you're an artist, and lots of moolah if you're not. That's a reason why fewer projects here are "free as in free forever" as opposed to "free for now, we might go commercial in our next installment". You can also blame Kickstarter in making the situation more precarious in that it shows people are more than willing to throw money at an incomplete product or a project that's just in the conceptual phase. So now money is forever part of the creative media equation. But when money is involved, the compensation should be fair and go towards those who worked the hardest. In today's high definition era, that means the modelers and painters.

So in my opinion, using After Effects does not automatically entitle someone to profit as a director.