Scratch

martianshark wrote:

brettman98 wrote:

agscratcher wrote:

For once, I agree.


But they DID break international law.

well then why doesn't international law arrest them?

That doesn't make sense.

problem, officer?

Yes. Yes!
YES!!!!

Yeah!

Has anyone made Pac-Man projects? Add them here.

bump

...
   Why does taking down a project that could be considered infringement of intellectual property mean that they hate Scratch? They have a perfectly good reason to. Granted, it may not come off as nice, but they thought of it as a threat. Why buy Pac-Man when you can play a dozen clones for free?
   Besides, reuploading it isn't the best idea. If one project just gets a C&D letter, what about 500 projects? Trolling Namco doesn't solve the problem, it strengthens it.

Okay, got me there, now explain how else I'm wrong.

TornFusion wrote:

Lol. Look at this: Nomco sucks

*Namco
Also, why are you saying they suck? Trolling them doesn't give you the moral high ground.

fire219 wrote:

How many times do we have to say this:

ScRATCH PROJECTS ARE PROTECTED BY FAIR USE.

Actually, only Scratch itself, the platform, could be considered as being protected under Fair Use. The projects themselves are not.
Scratch is a foundation that we build upon. Regardless, Scratch still has a Terms of Use we're expected to abide by.

I spoke to an expert about this, who recommended you read Title 17, Section 107 of US Copyright Law. That spells out what is and is not Fair Use. (You can read it here: http://1.usa.gov/namcofairuse) Look at point (4). Something cannot be considered fair use if it affects the original creator's ability to market their property.
In this case, why would a customer purchase Pac-Man from Namco, if they could play a dozen clones here on Scratch? That negatively impacts Namco's market.

You might say, well, this is protected under Fair Use because Scratch is educational. It's not the same because our efforts aren't confined to a classroom. You're releasing a game for others to play for entertainment purposes. Therefore, Fair Use for Educational Purposes does not apply in this case.

By constantly uploading the same Pac-Man games, you think you're annoying Namco, but you're not. You're hurting Scratch and the people who volunteer to help us out. Namco isn't the one who has to keep taking it down; Scratch is.
You're creating more work, more frustration, and most importantly, more legal liability for Scratch by behaving this way. Causing all this frustration and opening MIT up to so much legal liability threatens the survival of Scratch.

The bottom line is this. Try to think about it from Namco's perspective - if you spent years creating the universe of Pac-Man, wouldn't you want to be able to make a living off of it? Wouldn't you be mad if someone else copied your work in a way that kept you from being able to provide for your families?

You keep saying that 'Nomco' broke Fair Use laws. Please, tell me, how did they break Fair Use as laid out in US Copyright law? I gave you a direct link to the actual law. Tell me, how did they break it? Just saying 'they broke Fair Use' doesn't actually mean they did.

Legally speaking, it doesn't matter whether there are other clones out there on the Internet that are still available. That doesn't have any effect whatsoever on Namco's claim against Scratch. You can't possibly know, for instance, which of those clones Namco is currently pursuing. Pointing to other currently existing infringements of Namco's intellectual property wouldn't mean squat all in a court of law.

You said, why does it matter that one little project buried in Scratch exists, what harm does it do? Well, there are complicated legal implications if Namco became aware of that specific Scratch project and  did nothing to stop it. That would signify, in a court, that by not acting, they condoned infringement of their property. That would then limit any future claim they would wish to make against anyone else who might infringe their copyright in the future. So as soon as Namco becomes aware of an infringement, they have to act on it, or it may harm them later on in another more severe case. The only instances excused from this are the ones laid out in Title 17, Section 107.

But the point still remains, tell me, how did Namco violate Fair Use laws? Please, by all means, be specific. Make your argument. But just saying "they violated Fair Use" isn't a full, reasoned argument. Without a full, reasoned argument based in actual law, you aren't going to do yourselves or your cause any good at all.

(Written with help from my Aunt Heather, who has actual legal experience fighting these things in court.)

Apparently your aunt is a lawyer. I'm having a hard time keeping up with you. The link you gave is extremely lengthy and hard to understand. It would be nice if you could post a link to a summary of fair use law, so that it will make sense.

As far as I know, Nomco broke fair use law because educational stuff is protected by fair use. Scratch had to take the project down - probably because they wanted to avoid a lawsuit mess, not because Nomco was right.

Yes, technically it doesn't matter if they chose to attack one person's project where almost nobody would see it, but I'm not talking about what's "legally" okay. It just seems wrong to attack a single person's project when there are so many other exact copies of the game that Nomco apparently doesn't care about.

And really, one small project isn't going to effect Nomco at all. They probably actually lost customers by taking it down, and I'm sure if they're losing any money at all from online Pacman copies, it's from anything but this project.

martianshark wrote:

Yes, technically it doesn't matter if they chose to attack one person's project where almost nobody would see it, but I'm not talking about what's "legally" okay. It just seems wrong to attack a single person's project when there are so many other exact copies of the game that Nomco apparently doesn't care about.

And really, one small project isn't going to effect Nomco at all. They probably actually lost customers by taking it down, and I'm sure if they're losing any money at all from online Pacman copies, it's from anything but this project.

I completely agree with those.

majormax wrote:

fire219 wrote:

MaxtheWeirdo wrote:

Actually, only Scratch itself, the platform, could be considered as being protected under Fair Use. The projects themselves are not.
Scratch is a foundation that we build upon. Regardless, Scratch still has a Terms of Use we're expected to abide by.

I spoke to an expert about this, who recommended you read Title 17, Section 107 of US Copyright Law. That spells out what is and is not Fair Use. (You can read it here: http://1.usa.gov/namcofairuse) Look at point (4). Something cannot be considered fair use if it affects the original creator's ability to market their property.
In this case, why would a customer purchase Pac-Man from Namco, if they could play a dozen clones here on Scratch? That negatively impacts Namco's market.

You might say, well, this is protected under Fair Use because Scratch is educational. It's not the same because our efforts aren't confined to a classroom. You're releasing a game for others to play for entertainment purposes. Therefore, Fair Use for Educational Purposes does not apply in this case.

By constantly uploading the same Pac-Man games, you think you're annoying Namco, but you're not. You're hurting Scratch and the people who volunteer to help us out. Namco isn't the one who has to keep taking it down; Scratch is.
You're creating more work, more frustration, and most importantly, more legal liability for Scratch by behaving this way. Causing all this frustration and opening MIT up to so much legal liability threatens the survival of Scratch.

The bottom line is this. Try to think about it from Namco's perspective - if you spent years creating the universe of Pac-Man, wouldn't you want to be able to make a living off of it? Wouldn't you be mad if someone else copied your work in a way that kept you from being able to provide for your families?

Very few people (relative to the total number of people on the internet) know Scratch exists, so they would not have access to the project. Also, if everyone did have access to it, then there is the fact that there are THOUSANDS of clones all over the net, that Namco have ignored, and instead focused on the one Scratch project. In that case, it would be legal (it is not in reality though), but it is ethically wrong.

[/topic]
I think we have kinda come to resolution here. Anybody agree?

Nah, we still need to plan what to do.