Scratch

GravityCatisalie wrote:

scratch_yoshi wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

Better example:

Do you snatch a little kid's drawing of pac-man away when he's showing it to his friends?

Even BETTER example:

If you see someone has copied or forged something of yours, do you snatch it? YES.

Says the person who created several Ace Atorney related projects.

Says the person who doesn't pay attention at all.

At least I didn't copy a game.

Last edited by scratch_yoshi (2011-06-20 22:36:51)

GravityCatisalie wrote:

scratch_yoshi wrote:

GravityCatisalie wrote:

Says the person who created several Ace Atorney related projects.

Says the person who doesn't pay attention at all.

At least I didn't copy a game.

"If you see someone who has copied or forged something of yours"
You DO realise that they did make the characters too, right?
kids these days, man

We are talking about a GAME here. And CAPCOM doesn't even seem to care. So what, if Namco is overprotective. So are some parents. And do you absolutely hate them? No. So why are people hating on Namco? Seriously. Kids these days man.

How do you do that wierd font?

Anyways I'm against NAMCO (its not nomco everyone!) deleting pacmans. What about the one that is an example project? 

martianshark wrote:

Aidan wrote:

Aidan wrote:

Can someone direct me to an official Scratch page which specifically states that Scratch projects are protected under Fair Use?

Because, unless I'm mistaken, Scratch projects are only protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

In addition, even if Scratch projects are protected under Fair Use, has anyone actually read what Fair Use actually covers?

Uh... yeah. On the first, page, someone looked it up and found where it actually said we're protected.

I said "direct me to" it. That means I need a link.

I had no idea how I got the font like that, and I've answered that question about three times.

Star_the_fox wrote:

calebxy wrote:

wiimaster wrote:

I'm actually on the fence now...

No! Don't do that! It was a child! Just a little child! A Namco had no right! Fair use! FAIR USE I TELL YOU! They are evil! Just like Sony! Don't listen to them! Don't do it!

You sound like you're having a seizure, or if you're just raving.

Max, I support your petition, after reading the rant that you posted on that other topic.


People, Max's netbook is being spazzy. Don't blame him for having a demented font...

You, of all people, support this?

SeptimusHeap wrote:

He has total right to use copyrighted stuff, because Scratch has some educational thing that allows it.

By that logic, he can recreate Star Wars entirely, but it's okay, because it's educational.

MaxtheWeirdo wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

He has total right to use copyrighted stuff, because Scratch has some educational thing that allows it.

By that logic, he can recreate Star Wars entirely, but it's okay, because it's educational.

No. If it was the EXACT same you couldn't, but if you made a similar version using scratch and published it without any commercial gain, it would not be illegal because of Fair Use. The project itself CAN be educational, both for the maker, and for viewers looking at the coding.

I rest my case.

somelia wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

MaxtheWeirdo wrote:

By that logic, he can recreate Star Wars entirely, but it's okay, because it's educational.

No. If it was the EXACT same you couldn't, but if you made a similar version using scratch and published it without any commercial gain, it would not be illegal because of Fair Use. The project itself CAN be educational, both for the maker, and for viewers looking at the coding.

I rest my case.

Hmmm....you DO have a point. And I do doubt the Scratch code was even SIMILAR to Pac-man's original code.

Hey, did Google get permission from Namco to make pacman playable that one time? I'm not sure...I think they did, but I don't know...

They did, but that was an almost exact recreation and not for educational value, so it needed permission.

somelia wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

MaxtheWeirdo wrote:

By that logic, he can recreate Star Wars entirely, but it's okay, because it's educational.

No. If it was the EXACT same you couldn't, but if you made a similar version using scratch and published it without any commercial gain, it would not be illegal because of Fair Use. The project itself CAN be educational, both for the maker, and for viewers looking at the coding.

I rest my case.

Hmmm....you DO have a point. And I do doubt the Scratch code was even SIMILAR to Pac-man's original code.

Hey, did Google get permission from Namco to make pacman playable that one time? I'm not sure...I think they did, but I don't know...

You can actually still play it. http://www.google.com/pacman/

Another reason why they shouldn't have a problem with 124SCratch's stuff. It's already playable online anyway.

Last edited by martianshark (2011-06-21 18:53:00)

scratch_yoshi wrote:

sanddude wrote:

scratch_yoshi wrote:

http://www.uplolit.com/media/201111/4fb … 282be8.jpg
We are talking about a GAME here. And CAPCOM doesn't even seem to care. So what, if Namco is overprotective. So are some parents. And do you absolutely hate them? No. So why are people hating on Namco? Seriously. Kids these days man.

If Namco's being overprotective we're going to put a stop to it. Our side is winning pretty much everything.

Correction:

If my parents are being overprotective we're going to put a stop to it. Our side is winning pretty much everything.

Can't you just submit to defeat? We have proof that what Namco did is NOT LEGAL.

In case anyone hasn't seen my reply on one of the other threads yet:

cheddargirl 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.

Konami, a pretty big video game industry, owns the rights to the Yu-Gi-Oh! online gaming platform (a program that allowed people to play card game fights online). To a certain degree, you had to pay in order to gain full access to using the platform. Someone decided to make their own platform and released it online as a free alternative. Hundreds of thousands of users started using it, and Konami took action to have the alternative platform taken down because they [Konami] felt that they lost a lot of potential customers who used the alternative platform.

Now let's compare that case to the Namco-Bandai case.

In a Fair Use case, the victim has to prove that there has been an actual loss. Konami had enough proof to show that they lost money because of the alternative gaming platform since thousands of people started downloading it and using it. On Scratch, though, very rarely will a project get hundreds of views and downloads in a short amount of time; Namco has to actually prove that the company lost money because of a single Scratch-based Pac-Man game, and I doubt they have proof of that.

If the Namco-Bandai case was ever brought to court, it is very unlikely that Namco-Bandai would win regarding the circumstances. There are, however, hundreds of clones out there that are very similar to Pac-Man (if not exact copies), in which Namco is more likely to hold a case.

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.

A while back, someone in a Photoshop class used a couple of copyrighted images to make an image, she then uploaded it to a popular art website where she was accused of art theft. She argued on the case of Fair Use, but lost because she released it for entertainment purposes, and there was no educational value from simply posting it.

Certainly, the "entertainment purposes" reason works well if it the game was uploaded just for entertainment purposes, but, whenever you release a project on Scratch, the general idea is that you upload it so others can see your code and learn from it.

The Scratch website is also used by many classroom environments - teachers look to the Scratch website as a resource as well as a means for sharing projects. The website has been well integrated into many classroom environments, you probably only need to ask around on the ScratchED website to find examples.

Now if the Scratch website locked downloads and blocked remixing, the educational value of the website is removed. But since there's no way that's ever going to happen, it's still going to be very hard to say that releasing a Pac-Man project on a website will have no "educational value" 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.

True, but some admins on the Scratch Team (such as andresmh) do not agree with Namco-Bandai's actions. And we also believe that Namco-Bandai's actions hampers and discourages (if not threatens) learning to make projects simply because we may not necessarily own the characters used in them. A lot of learning comes from imitation - for example, an artist may look at a well known painting and try to imitate it to learn more about the original artists style. Similarly, a programmer may want to try and imitate a Pac-Man game to gain an idea of how a Pac-Man program works - and even, better, releasing it on Scratch allows us to better see the code, maybe even improve on it if possible.

If we're not allowed to at least attempt and gain feedback on a Scratch-based recreation of Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, or Portal simply because we we're not the first ones to come up with Pac-man, Super Mario Bros and Portal, then what next, we can't create fan art or fan fiction because we don't own the characters used in the images and stories? People can't do a play because someone else wrote it and it's being performed somewhere else? Someone can't release a summary of a book only because others can read it and it threatens the book's writer? That I find to be a much more scary scenario from this case than the annoyance of Scratch projects being taken down.

Now that I have finished my typing, I go to bed. Hopefully sleep deprivation hasn't prevented me from saying what I needed to say. 

Please don't tl;dr the post. I think it's worth reading that wall of text even if it takes some time to digest.

Last edited by cheddargirl (2011-06-21 19:28:43)

gbear605 wrote:

fire219 wrote:

scratch_yoshi wrote:

Correction:

Can't you just submit to defeat? We have proof that what Namco did is NOT LEGAL.

FALSE.

Scratch Copyright notice wrote:

The Lifelong Kindergarten Group will promptly process and investigate notices of alleged infringement and will take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and other applicable intellectual property laws. Upon receipt of notices complying or substantially complying with the DMCA, the Lifelong Kindergarten Group may act expeditiously to remove or disable access to any material claimed to be infringing. Repeat infringers of third-party copyrights are subject to termination in appropriate circumstances.

In assessing whether or not a Scratch user has violated your copyrights, please keep in mind that Scratch is an educational and not-for-profit initiative, seeking to aid children’s learning by providing the tools for them to learn and express themselves using digital technology. Please also keep in mind the “Fair Use” doctrine incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107.

We hope you also see Scratch not only as a good way of popularizing your creations/website but also as an opportunity to do something good for children’s education.

If you choose to make a copyright infringement complaint, please note that we may post your notification, with personally identifiable information redacted, to a clearinghouse such as chillingeffects.org. Please also note that you may be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that an activity is infringing your copyright.

Don't forget the underlined portion, that deals with the whole crux of the Namco-Bandai debate, and most of us believe that this is what Namco-Bandai has otherwise ignored when they decided to push with the DMCA notice.

Last edited by cheddargirl (2011-06-21 19:32:47)