Microsoft: Go ahead, party on our game IP

OK, that's a bit of an overstatement, but our esteemed legal eagle and blogger DonkeyXote points us to Microsoft's recently released game content usage rules that are cool because (a) they let the gamer community use game assets for things like fan art, machinema, etc, and (b) because they are written in English, not legalese.

Snip:

We know that people like you love our games and sometimes want to use things like gameplay footage, screenshots, music, and other elements of our games (“Game Content”) to make things like machinima, videos, and and other cool things (your “Item” or “Items”). We’d like to make that easier for you. So long as you can respect these rules, you can use our Game Content to make your Items.

Yes, there are rules, but this is still pretty progressive for a large company. Pretty cool.