Cease and Desist is a short animated film about the way that trademark law screws up video games like City of Heroes. City of Heroes is a superhero roleplaying game where players design costumed alter-egos for themselves and fight crime; in 2004 the game became embroiled in lawsuits from comic-book publishers who charged that the company violated trademark law by failing to police its players' costume choices, because some players' costumes were similar to those worn by Marvel's characters.
Cease and Desist was made using machinima, an animation technique in which video-game characters are stepped through a script, and the resulting screen-movies edited together with sound effects and voice-over. This is a particularly fine example of the form, with great production values.
(via Lawgeek)
