Machinima is the use of a video game engine to create original videos, sometimes with music soundtracks. Those soundtracks are a problem for the RIAA, which believes that nobody other than its member labels should ever promote or celebrate music. Presumably, the best way to promote music is by means of corrupt and illegal payola; anything less righteous should be shut down. Anyway, the RIAA shut down a Machinima site. Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing thinks Machinima could be declared fair use, and says the RIAA is commiting "slow, spectacular suicide."
1. strange - since mtv was just starting to embrace machinima - showing them on their show mtv video mods http://www.mtv2.com/#series/13696 .
i was curious as to how this would pan out - i recently posted a question to paul marino, author of "the art of machinima" about this very subject. he produced a machinima piece using the half-life 2 engine and a some tune by a modern band called "breaking benjamin." my question to him was, "who is clearning the rights to use the music? is mtv doing it?" it turns out he had to clear them himself. for anyone wanting to learn more about the subject, i suggest monitoring paul's blog: http://blog.machinima.org/ - he's the one carrying the torch for machinima :)
i suggest that people make machinima music videos using independent music. there's millions of artists on the web who think the riaa is a joke - who would love to allow you to use their music - they might even compose a song just for your project. forget about commercial music - it's a bust! :)
machinima should not be slowed down - it's an artform that should be seen as a new market - people want to make their own movies - people want to share their creations - and, if they want to make a video for their favorite band... then what's the problem? the only real issue here, is the potential for someone to harm anothers 'image' - that a band and label may not like how a fan portrayed them. but is that really a problem? don't these people know what free promotion is? do they not realize that this is a new form of 'social marketing' - where people market your product or service for you - simply because they like it.
the riaa certainly comes across as a room of people that get up each day and ask, "who can we mess with now!"
meanwhile... the machinima.com site is getting slammed...
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Gideon Marken