Scratch

cheddargirl wrote:

JuiceyBox wrote:

Seeing how I can name quite a few people on Scratch who have no problem downloading and stealing art or music from others' projects, I think it would be nice to have the option to allow downloading on a project or not when we post it to the website. That way, sprites or music that we wanted to keep for ourselves wouldn't be taken by others, and projects we wanted to share could be.

But wouldn't the option to refuse download be against Scratch's motto to imagine, program, and share? Honestly, if I didn't want other people taking the art and music form my projects, I would post my projects on my own personal site and set my own Creative Commons/copyright license or not upload my project to the Scratch website at all.

It's not to say I don't understand: I've been the victim of art theft a couple of times, and getting art and music thieves to stop can be stressful. But refusing download isn't really the way to go if one doesn't want people ripping art and music from Scratch projects.

Perhaps a better option will be a way to embed some kind of signature or identifier in images and music from other projects: that way, someone can still track down the original project a sprite image or music came from.

I was just about to say that, and another identifier of the original author of the project (just in case someone remixes one of your projects and says they made it, happened to me once...)

They must give credit to the arts, musics or another things that aren't made by them. If you don't give credit to the original artist, that means you're stealing things.<hide>

You can tell this to the forums as much as you want.. but sadly.. this will NEVER happen. If it did happen.. it wouldn't be Scratch anymore... am I right? I don't mean to be rude or anything.. but yeah.

MyRedNeptune wrote:

Actually, Scratch projects are all licensed under a Creative Commons license, which allows copying, sharing and distribution of the licensed work. If we disable dowloading, it'll kinda break the law. 

You mean I can copy stuff without a care in the world? That's awesome.

JuiceyBox wrote:

MyRedNeptune wrote:

Actually, Scratch projects are all licensed under a Creative Commons license, which allows copying, sharing and distribution of the licensed work. If we disable dowloading, it'll kinda break the law. 

According to the Creative Commons Website, "Creative Commons licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights—such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work." Meaning that the user should be able to choose whether or not others can COPY YOUR WORK AND MAKE DERIVATIVE WORKS OR ADAPTIONS OF YOUR WORK.

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

Creative Commons can permit people to make derivative works. It cannot restrict downloading and copying your work without any change.
Therefore, if Scratch permits downloading projects, it will not be (cc), but (C).

JuicyBox wrote:

New Idea: How about an option that lets you change things a bit so that, when people downloaded your project, they could view it, but couldn't alter any scripting or sprites in it? Like a lock kind of thing.

yea but some people can look at the scripts and open another window, and copy it!!!!

When I got to this page, my initial reaction was, STOP THE THEIVES, BLOCK ALL DOWNLOADS!!!  (After all, there is an exact copy of almost all of my games under someone else's name.)  But, as I think about it, as JuiceyBox said, for those without Java, there is no way to view projects.  I see more problems than this however.  What if someone has a slow connection, and faces the dreaded full-loading-bar-and-no-project issue?  Without downloading as an option, those unfortunate souls could not view the project.

Therefore, I support the ability for each scratcher to allow or not allow downloading individually for all of their projects.  If this would be implemented, every project would be set to "open" by default; that way those who are no longer on scratch, or are not very active on scratch wouldn't have their projects thrown in a safe without their knowing.  This solution would especially benefit me, in my situation.  I certainly would prevent the downloading of all of my projects immediately, but I also would not leave my fans out in the cold.  Since I self-host my projects on NitezProductions.com, those who unfortunately could not view the project on Scratch, most likely can on my website, where servers aren't busy.

To sum it up, the point of Scratch is to learn from one another and create better projects right?  Then why do we allow others to claim credit for all of our work?  It must be admitted however (despite how much everyone seems to want to deny it) that it is all but impossible to learn how to program something simply by looking at someone else's code.  Everyone codes differently, and especially with Scratch, which is very forgiving when it comes to messy and null code, it is even harder to learn from someone else's code.  Plus, now with the Flash, and Experimental viewers, those without Java, those who can't load projects successfully in the Java player, and those who insist on looking at other's code, all have options.  The age of downloading to a file are over, and the age of viewing what you want through the browser are in.  In order to stop thieves, and have Scratch evolve is to prevent downloading as an option for creators.

Nitezscratch wrote:

mariobrosrule wrote:

JuicyBox wrote:

New Idea: How about an option that lets you change things a bit so that, when people downloaded your project, they could view it, but couldn't alter any scripting or sprites in it? Like a lock kind of thing.

yea but some people can look at the scripts and open another window, and copy it!!!!

If they want to go to the trouble of coding an entire project block-by-block, let them.  I highly doubt anyone would go to all that trouble.  And even if they did, they still wouldn't have your sprites or backgrounds.

Screenshots.

So, Imagine, Program? Sharing does mean putting them up and leaving them there. -_-

Or if this is specifically removing the ability to copying images, songs, etc. How about an option to block the ability to export songs and images with a password or something.

Magnie wrote:

Or if this is specifically removing the ability to copying images, songs, etc. How about an option to block the ability to export songs and images with a password or something.

Is the stealing of Images and Music really that big of an issue?  Everyone that has ever remixed (stolen) my projects change the pictures and music, leaving the code the same.  Maybe not everyone experiences this, but in my situation, it's the code that is getting stolen.  Besides, don't must users originally "steal" their Images and Music from YouTube and the Spriter's Resource?

Personally, trying to make a beta test that has a password, and you need to buy the code, I REALLY want this to happen. I said strictly in a project I made to NOT download it, but the next day, guess what. I saw 2 downloads. I thought that people on scratch would be honest enough to not download it, but I took it off when I found that they weren't.    I'm sorry to the ones on my website that wanted to see Cube Network...

MrEditor wrote:

Personally, trying to make a beta test that has a password, and you need to buy the code, I REALLY want this to happen. I said strictly in a project I made to NOT download it, but the next day, guess what. I saw 2 downloads. I thought that people on scratch would be honest enough to not download it, but I took it off when I found that they weren't.    I'm sorry to the ones on my website that wanted to see Cube Network...

Well, you can't quite prevent people from downloading... If you put it on Scratch, you HAVE to let people download it... So I guess you aren't uploading Cube Network because of "ignorant people" that are just being normal... (Just a hint, if you don't want people to download, don't say "DON'T DOWNLOAD!!!1!!" because that will make people want to download even more.)