Scratch

Very good.

Great!

Last edited by MathWizz (2010-05-21 09:36:37)

nXIII wrote:

Um... you can put a ToS on non-copyrighted software.... Copyright just means that you have legal backing if anyone redistributes the media without your explicit permission.

I fixed it. 

henley wrote:

nXIII wrote:

Um... you can put a ToS on non-copyrighted software.... Copyright just means that you have legal backing if anyone redistributes the media without your explicit permission.

I fixed it. 

The problem is that making a ToS which inhibits the distribution in any way (even without credit!  ) is against the Scratch ToS, and so is itself illegal.

henley wrote:

nXIII wrote:

henley wrote:

I fixed it. 

The problem is that making a ToS which inhibits the distribution in any way (even without credit!  ) is against the Scratch ToS, and so is itself illegal.

Then that means you shouldn't make a ToS?

Well, the only reason to have a ToS is basically to force downloaders to agree to the Scratch one, or grant even MORE permissions than the Scratch one does.

henley wrote:

nXIII wrote:

henley wrote:

Then that means you shouldn't make a ToS?

Well, the only reason to have a ToS is basically to force downloaders to agree to the Scratch one, or grant even MORE permissions than the Scratch one does.

Oh... so should I edit the post? Or is it fine?

Basically, I'd say that if you make a ToS, it must comply to and not limit (to a further extent than is done by the Scratch ToS) any of the privileges granted by the Scratch ToS.

bharvey wrote:

nXIII wrote:

Um... you can put a ToS on non-copyrighted software.... Copyright just means that you have legal backing if anyone redistributes the media without your explicit permission.

Anything that anyone writes is protected automatically by copyright; you don't have to do anything special, although if you're planning on enforcing your copyright you should put a copyright notice in anything you publish, e.g. "Copyright © 2010 by nXIII."  If you are creating a derived work (e.g., a Scratch mod) and you publish it, you /must/ include any copyright notice and license agreement from the original in what you publish.

(The above is true in the USA.  Laws differ by country.  Ianal.  Ymmv.)

PS It's only relatively recently that this is the case in the US.  It used to be the law that you had to register your copyright, by sending a copy of your work to the Copyright Office, or else you lost it.  I'm saying this not because you need to know the details but just to make the point that there are details.

Wait.... copyrights are free?

But couldn't someone just make some random account called nXIII and say "That's mine!"?

sparks wrote:

nXIII wrote:

bharvey wrote:

Anything that anyone writes is protected automatically by copyright; you don't have to do anything special, although if you're planning on enforcing your copyright you should put a copyright notice in anything you publish, e.g. "Copyright © 2010 by nXIII."  If you are creating a derived work (e.g., a Scratch mod) and you publish it, you /must/ include any copyright notice and license agreement from the original in what you publish.

(The above is true in the USA.  Laws differ by country.  Ianal.  Ymmv.)

PS It's only relatively recently that this is the case in the US.  It used to be the law that you had to register your copyright, by sending a copy of your work to the Copyright Office, or else you lost it.  I'm saying this not because you need to know the details but just to make the point that there are details.

Wait.... copyrights are free?

But couldn't someone just make some random account called nXIII and say "That's mine!"?

When I took music I was taught that the cheapest method of copyrighting something is to take a copy of whatever it may be, file, program, music, disk etc and put it in an envelope. You can then take it to a post office and get them to put the date sticker over the opening and mail it to yourself. When it arrives, you have a sealed and dated copy of that thing on you. If someone then uses it, you can prove in a court that you have a copy that existed before they published/presented that thing.

LOL! My grandpa said that a while ago!

sparks wrote:

nXIII wrote:

Wait.... copyrights are free?

But couldn't someone just make some random account called nXIII and say "That's mine!"?

When I took music I was taught that the cheapest method of copyrighting something is to take a copy of whatever it may be, file, program, music, disk etc and put it in an envelope. You can then take it to a post office and get them to put the date sticker over the opening and mail it to yourself. When it arrives, you have a sealed and dated copy of that thing on you. If someone then uses it, you can prove in a court that you have a copy that existed before they published/presented that thing.

@nXIII: Yes, copyrights are free, but you'd have to prove to the court that you copyrighted it first    So really, nothing can truly be copyrighted unless the court thinks it was, because the whole reason of copyright is so that court can recognise that you copyrighted it during lawsuits.

@sparks: What you just described is called the "Poor Man's Copyright." I learned about it in grade 6 when somebody in my class invented some fish hook storage thing... (He made hundreds of dollars off it!)

Last edited by coolstuff (2010-05-24 17:23:42)

bharvey wrote:

nXIII wrote:

But couldn't someone just make some random account called nXIII and say "That's mine!"?

If you were seriously worried about asserting a copyright claim you'd probably put your actual legal name in the copyright notice.  But even then someone could fraudulently claim to be you.

The point is, you own the copyright in anything you create without having to do anything special.  The doing special things, such as mailing it to yourself, don't create a copyright; they just help you prove that (1) it was created by a particular date, which is the point of the postmark thing, and (2) that it's you who own it.

Most of the time, though, the issue isn't that someone pretends to be you.  Copyright claims arise because someone takes an excerpt of what you did and makes it part of a new work.  There are complicated rules about this.  For example, titles (e.g., "Panther") are not copyrightable -- but they can be trademarked, a whole different concept with very different rules.

Do you really want to know all this?  Copyright law is really (like most law) about money; you can bring a copyright suit if someone sells your work and you want to collect their profits.  Your issues aren't about money, but about attribution, a whole other category that in many countries (including the UK but not the US) has legal protection under the name "moral rights."  Look it up in Wikipedia if you really want the gory details!

I love the gory details of law!

bharvey wrote:

nXIII wrote:

I love the gory details of law!

Oh dear.  Ah, well, you'll probably outgrow it. 

Actually I take it back about using your real name in the copyright notice; lots of authors use pen names for all sorts of reasons.

But if you're going to be interested in law, why not focus on something constructive like First Amendment law or trade union law, instead of evil intellectual property law?

I agree with nXIII. It makes arguments with my friends so much easier.

Oh and by the way the red text that I made on your post describes me.


Evil and intellectual. If anyone wants to argue it's because I don't care if other people know or not, I just pretend to be "not smart" and "not evil"

BACK ON TOPIC:

Anyone else have suggestions?

Dazachi wrote:

Here is an idea.

Do I have to give credit for basic blocks such as show list, hide list and a few others?
No, you shouldn't have to unless you are copying the code from another mod.

I like your list. It is a much better way to approach the stealing blocks problem. 

Well, show/hide list is a bad example because I made it, no one else did, I made a tutorial on it. Still, I would LIKE to receive credit for it....

Last edited by nXIII (2010-05-26 17:04:23)