Earlier this week, a blog in Business Week reported that someone had created a Master Chief model for Unreal Tournament III, available on the PC and PS3. This raised immediate concerns of copyright infringement and other issues with Microsoft. John Porcaro of Gamerscore Blog responded by pinging one of the Xbox lawyers and found out there was nothing wrong with such usage.
"Many people are talking about the Master Chief mod for Unreal Tournament 3, that allows you to play in the character of the Master Chief on the PS3. Many people are surprised Microsoft is "allowing" this," said a post by blogging lawyer 'DonkeyXote.' "Actually it's nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules ( http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm) in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them. The developers aren't selling the mod, they're not monetizing Microsoft's IP, they're just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform. It's a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community."