Scratch

Makes sense.

if you take the art itself it'd still be allowed?


like, if you made a drawing for art class, then posted it, someone has the right to say "it's mine" ?

littletonkslover wrote:

if you take the art itself it'd still be allowed?
like, if you made a drawing for art class, then posted it, someone has the right to say "it's mine" ?

No. Directly taking an image that was created by someone else and claiming it as your own would break the terms of the share-alike license. But reworking someone's art (even if it closely resembles the original) is not the same thing.

Well written, one of the better threads here IMO 

Hm... What if someone gets another person's picture and then adds a pixel? Do they have claiming rights?

kayybee wrote:

Hm... What if someone gets another person's picture and then adds a pixel? Do they have claiming rights?

I think we can use common sense here? ^^

Jonathanpb wrote:

kayybee wrote:

Hm... What if someone gets another person's picture and then adds a pixel? Do they have claiming rights?

I think we can use common sense here? ^^

Yeah, but...

It's still changed 

jbutts10 wrote:

I agree and disagree. Yes, people should be allowed to REMIX, but what about if they take a sprite or background, save it to their computer, close the Scratch program, reopen it, slap the picture there and upload it saying "I DID DIS ALL BAI MAI SELF!!!!!!111!!!"?
What should the real artist do about that?

I've seen several cases where someone will flag a project with stolen work and all the Scratch Team does is say, "hi! This is a nice remix, but you need to be sure to give credit to the original creator." the user says okay, and their very next project is someone else's art with the "I DRAWED DIS!!!!!!!!1111!!!" in the description.

Cases where nothing has been done to the original image and the uploader falsely claims that the image is original to him or her usually get notifications, the project notes also might get removed. More severe cases of where this has been done multiple times may get the projects removed or the account may be blocked (whichever is the best course of action depending on the situation at hand).

I agree that no one owns a background or a pose, but what if you have a character with a completely unique design and someone, after commenting on the design, uploads a picture that looks exactly the same with no credit? And maybe they changed the name from "Rob" to "Bob" or something. Most people wouldn't care, as long as they at least say, "I got the idea from -whoever- for the character", but people will be immature and say "I MADE UPP DIS DESIGNZ! U USE ITT AND I'LL KEEL CHU!!!!111!!!" and the original creator will be under the impression that their character has been stolen, not remixed.

For the most part, if project notes are intentionally misleading then they could be removed, the person given notifications (or whatever is the best course of action depending on the situation since every situation is different).

However, keep in mind that sometimes people use other people's sprites for their own characters, and while they may use the same image design, the concept/character design (aka. the personality/characteristics of that character) may change. For example, let's say I have a design for a character called Mr. FluffyCake, a cat who is awesome at baking, and that I imagine Mr. FluffyCake to be an orange cat. Let's also assume I'm terrible at drawing my own cats, so I decide to use the Scratch Cat image for my Mr. FluffyCake character and make a bunch of projects with Mr. FluffyCake being a master of baking desserts instead of the symbol of Scratch programming. I don't own image of the Scratch Cat but since I came up with the idea of Mr. FluffyCake, I might be able to argue that I made up the concept/character design of Mr. FluffyCake, so even if I changed the name from "Scratch" to "Mr. FluffyCake" it's not truly stealing.

(One more thing: statements like "U USE ITT AND I'LL KEEL CHU!!!!111!!!" in project notes in general is just a big no-no, since Scratch allows for idea sharing).

I do, however, like the new policy better than the old one. It has it's pros and cons, but I think the artists of Scratch will be happier with this one. Good job. 

Actually, that's always been the policy. The Scratch Team has decided to just to make it more public so it's more clear to those who might jump the gun to claim a case of copying when it might not really be so. 

That makes a lot sense.

cheddargirl wrote:

I do, however, like the new policy better than the old one. It has it's pros and cons, but I think the artists of Scratch will be happier with this one. Good job. 

Actually, that's always been the policy. The Scratch Team has decided to just to make it more public so it's more clear to those who might jump the gun to claim a case of copying when it might not really be so. 

Yes, when I saw this thread, I could tell it was new, however what was being stated seemed to be obvious to me. I was just wondering why the Scratch Team decided to re-state it to make it more public. Has there been an increase of copying flaming/accusations recently?

EDIT: I think a nice feature would be a user-friendly way to see what parts of the project the remixer added/removed or just plainly decided to re-use in the project by just hovering over the "Based on Scratcher's project" message. Or something similar. I know that there has been a statistical way to do this (ex. there was 2 scripts added, 7 images removed, etc.) but nothing very useful.

Last edited by Lucario621 (2011-12-12 19:50:12)

Venazard wrote:

Same for music too, I assume? For my games I've started making, I've created my own music. I'd like it if people could notify me before using my music on Scratch. If Scratcher A used Scratcher B's music that Scratcher B created himself, what does Scratcher B do?

The idea behind sharing art can also be applied to sharing music. Whenever you put something original on the Scratch site (such as an image or a sound), you have to be aware that it's under a license that allows sharing and adaptation (which means changes may also be applied); in your case, people can use your music in their projects, they may also be allowed to edit the file as well prior to putting it in their project (for example, they can cut the sound to make it short or add their own clips to the original track).

One thing about licenses that allow sharing: generally, there is no need to ask for permission from the original owner (only credit is required) for use of the material, so if you're wary about your stuff being used without permission, then maybe uploading your music to Scratch is not a good option (the same can also be said of other sites such as Newgrounds which also applies a similar sharing license).

cheddargirl wrote:

LS97 wrote:

Glad this was made clear.
I think maybe you should touch on art and sounds taken from actual copyrighted material, as that also is making a tremendous amount of confusion and even I am not sure where Scratch stands.

Good job, team 

For the most part, use of copyrighted material usually falls under the the Fair Use doctrine since Scratch projects can be considered to be an educational tool for kids and beginner programmers and no profit is made off the projects uploaded to the site.

Note though: this issue has been a tricky one, though, as some may not recognize the Fair Use doctrine, or feel that usage of a certain copyrighted material might not fall under Fair Use (remember the Namco-Bandai case where the company wanted a Pac-Man project removed?), and the Scratch Team does have to process and investigate whenever a DMCA notice comes in.

You can read more about the approach to copyrighted material in projects and how the Scratch Team handles copyright infringement notices here.

I see -- maybe a link to that DMCA in the first post?