If you’ve missed them, there is an excellent series of posts up over at Law of the Game on recent changes to the machinima policies from Microsoft (publisher of Halo, Perfect Dark, Shadowrun, etc.) and Blizzard (publisher of World of Warcraft). In sum, both companies, though particularly Blizzard, have clarified how and when they will license images and sounds from their games to users who want to use the game engines to make movies. Law of the Game’s coverage is informative, and the analysis is insightful. Well worth your click.

Though World of Warcraft is the only one of these games that VB regularly covers, free-form virtual worlds are about to penetrate the traditional game market (one is rumored to launch for the PlayStation 3 on October 11). And with HBO paying “a six-figure sum” for a movie shot in Second Life, machinima in virtual worlds is quickly becoming big business. The policies companies like Microsoft and Blizzard set now for games are likely to have a big impact on future policies in virtual worlds as well.

New to all of this, and wondering what machinima is? Watch the first episode of the popular Halo machinima Red vs. Blue (screenshot above). It is only about two and a half minutes long, and it is incredibly funny. Fair warning — there’s some cursing, in case you’re at work.

From a press release from Seton Hall Law:

Newark, NJ – Seton Hall School of Law will be partnering with the developer of a Second Life platform on September 17 to provide a virtual environment for people to join in on its Constitution Day program on “Interrogation and Intelligence Gathering.”

The program, developed by Professor Mark Denbeaux, will be webcast in a virtual Guantanamo Bay detention center on Second Life. The session is part of a Seton Hall Law pilot to provide an online platform for the discussion of constitutional, political and international issues.

The virtual detention center was developed with funding from the MacArthur Foundation and Bay Area Video Coalition by Nonny de la Peña, producer and director of the documentary “Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties,” and Peggy Weil, professor of interactive media at the University of Southern California.

If you are interested in attending on September 17, or visiting the build in advance, here’s a SLURL provided by Seton Hall. Note that the build appears to be very much a work in progress right now, assuming that the link is right. If anyone has a better link, please post it in comments.

Brief note today to direct readers to this article by ‘Gwyneth Llewelyn’ on age verification in Second Life, and what it really means to the long-term health of Linden Lab, Second Life, and the grid generally. I usually don’t just run pointers to articles, but this is the clearest and most sensible explanation I’ve seen regarding this rather controversial topic and I recommend it. ‘Llewelyn’ makes the key point that third-party age verification, essentially, amounts to Linden Lab buying part of a third-party company’s liability insurance.

‘Llewelyn’ also has a more philosophical article about identity verification up on her blog, which has more detail and is worth reading as well.

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be attending the Virtual Worlds Fall 2007 Conference and Expo in San Jose, Oct. 10-11. It looks like a great conference, and I’m really fired up about it. By way of disclosure, Virtually Blind is a media partner with the conference (you’ll notice a spot in the sidebar), but I’d be telling you about this one anyway as it will definitely appeal to a lot of readers; there are presentations that touch on virtual law in nearly every time slot.

Several sessions will be particularly interesting to attorneys and other professionals working in virtual spaces, including “Economics of Virtual Worlds” presented by Edward Catronova, “IP Wealth and Pitfalls of Synthetic Worlds,” presented by attorney Sean Kane (one of the people with whom I co-chair the Virtual Worlds and Multiplayer Online Games Committee of the ABA’s Section of Science and Technology Law), and two seperate panel discussions on virtual currency and virtual goods featuring some of the names that make regular appearances on VB, including, among others, John Zdanowski (CFO of Linden Lab), Craig Sherman (CEO of Gaia Online), Eric Bethke (CEO of GoPets), and Guntram Graef (CEO of Anshe Chung Studios).

I plan to attend the conference both days; let me know if you are planning to be there too and would like to meet up.