Scratch

But this violated the fair use thingamajig, so it is illegal.

Nope, it's legit - not a hoax. I'll write a little statement and post it later.

Btw - if you are interested, you can find more resources about issues surrounding copyright on these sites:

http://questioncopyright.org/
http://www.teachingcopyright.org/

Last edited by Lightnin (2010-08-04 10:31:14)

0. Disclaimer.
Let me start by saying that while I have a read a bunch about copyright law, I am not a lawyer, therefore you should read this with some skepticism. I do know copyright lawyers who might be interested in talking to you about your rights and responsibilities as Scratch creators. If there is enough interest I can try to get them to join the discussion and answer your questions.

1. Do not be scared.
The person creating the Pac-Man project is NOT in trouble for creating that project. Do not be scared, you can continue uploading projects as you normally do.

2. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
We as administrators of the Scratch website, are required, under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to delete any copyrighted content when the copyright owner sends us a well-formed takedown notice. We do this to comply with the law even though we might think people are abusing  it.

3. Fair Use is your friend.
The Pac-Man project that we had to delete could possibly be restored if the creator is willing to argue for the use of her or his rights to share it under the Fair Use doctrine. I might be wrong, but I do think that Namco is abusing the law and that 124Scratcher is legally allowed to share the game under Fair Use.  However, the legal burden to defend Fair Use is on the creator of the project... but there might be lawyers we could find that would be interested in helping out for free. You as creators of Scratch projects, should be very familiar with Fair Use because it lets you to use copyrighted content under specific circumstances that I think apply to a lot Scratch projects. For example, for educational purposes and as long as there is no profit involved (among many other things).

4. Changing the law.
There are a lot of people who are not happy with the current state of copyright law, including some lawyers and foundations.  A lot of people think the current law is doing more harm than good. Changing it is difficult because large corporations with a lot of money are able to use the current copyright law for their own benefit in an abusive way (like the case of Namco).  But there is hope, it seems to me that the law in the US is often changed by specific cases that change the course of history. Who knows, maybe one of you could have a very compelling case that can help change copyright law!

In summary, read about Fair Use and be aware of your rights and responsibilities as a creator. BTW, Someone who replied to my post in reddit.com had an interesting suggestion of some text you could put in your projects to fence off abusive lawyers. Not sure it works, but it might be worth trying.

Last edited by andresmh (2010-08-04 13:31:52)

ScratchReallyROCKS wrote:

Why would a Namco be on a kids programming website anyway? I mean, they're a hugh company, and this is just a little website that one only stumbles upon if one googles 'scratch.' And who would go to google just to type that in?


___________________________

ThePCKid wrote:

Also, did you know that "whatchamacallit" is a real US English word? 

Heh...

mah dictionary wrote:

what-cha-ma-call-it |ˈ(h)wə ch əməˌkôlit; ˈ(h)wä-|
noun informal
used to refer to a person or thing whose name one cannot recall, does not know, or does not wish to specify

It is a real english word!

when our teacher told us to google scratch...it wasn't even the first link.

Last edited by cooljj100 (2010-08-04 12:38:35)

cheddargirl wrote:

Let's boycott Namco Bandai products while were at it. 

Lolz who uses them in the first place??

JeanTheFox wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Let's boycott Namco Bandai products while were at it. 

Lolz who uses them in the first place??

Unfortunately, there are many products which Namco Bandai produces. Those who love Digimon, Dragon Ball, Power Rangers, and Naruto (among many other things, Namco makes a lot of toy and game products) will have to give up buying toys and games from those series for a while.

Terible...

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

JeanTheFox wrote:

Lolz who uses them in the first place??

Unfortunately, there are many products which Namco Bandai produces. Those who love Digimon, Dragon Ball, Power Rangers, and Naruto (among many other things, Namco makes a lot of toy and game products) will have to give up buying toys and games from those series for a while.

More recent toys they've made are Bakugan and Beyblades (the new ones)

I dont use very much namco products, so im not too affected. By teh boycott 

Last edited by Survivorduck (2010-08-05 13:03:32)

That's also what viacom is doing to youtube. Copyright+lawyers=NOOOO!!!

andresmh wrote:

0. Disclaimer.
Let me start by saying that while I have a read a bunch about copyright law, I am not a lawyer, therefore you should read this with some skepticism. I do know copyright lawyers who might be interested in talking to you about your rights and responsibilities as Scratch creators. If there is enough interest I can try to get them to join the discussion and answer your questions.

1. Do not be scared.
The person creating the Pac-Man project is NOT in trouble for creating that project. Do not be scared, you can continue uploading projects as you normally do.

2. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
We as administrators of the Scratch website, are required, under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to delete any copyrighted content when the copyright owner sends us a well-formed takedown notice. We do this to comply with the law even though we might think people are abusing  it.

3. Fair Use is your friend.
The Pac-Man project that we had to delete could possibly be restored if the creator is willing to argue for the use of her or his rights to share it under the Fair Use doctrine. I might be wrong, but I do think that Namco is abusing the law and that 124Scratcher is legally allowed to share the game under Fair Use.  However, the legal burden to defend Fair Use is on the creator of the project... but there might be lawyers we could find that would be interested in helping out for free. You as creators of Scratch projects, should be very familiar with Fair Use because it lets you to use copyrighted content under specific circumstances that I think apply to a lot Scratch projects. For example, for educational purposes and as long as there is no profit involved (among many other things).

4. Changing the law.
There are a lot of people who are not happy with the current state of copyright law, including some lawyers and foundations.  A lot of people think the current law is doing more harm than good. Changing it is difficult because large corporations with a lot of money are able to use the current copyright law for their own benefit in an abusive way (like the case of Namco).  But there is hope, it seems to me that the law in the US is often changed by specific cases that change the course of history. Who knows, maybe one of you could have a very compelling case that can help change copyright law!

In summary, read about Fair Use and be aware of your rights and responsibilities as a creator. BTW, Someone who replied to my post in reddit.com had an interesting suggestion of some text you could put in your projects to fence off abusive lawyers. Not sure it works, but it might be worth trying.

Thanks for posting this! And the post in Reddit works! 

124Scratcher has multiple pacman like project that were all fair use.
124Scratcher has really cool projects!

If we all post pacman games, Namco can't remove em' all!!! they can search "pacman, but rename em. And dont tag.


http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=485613#req_message

http://scratch.mit.ehttp://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=485613#req_messagedu/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=485613#req_message




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