Ok, this might be a weird question but I was learning about copyright laws recently and I was wondering, how legal are many of the projects on scratch. remixing is fine in my opinion as long as you give credit (it's a great part of scratch that helps people make new projects) but what about all the things based of Nintendo or Atari or Sega or any other game company? There are tons of mario games on scratch (some better that others) but are they legal? even if they give credit, These companies are most likely unaware that people are (kind of) ripping off their games. so back to the real question, how legal are the projects based off of other games?

they're all legal

latin_gamerX wrote:

they're all legal

Nope, not correct.
A company has the right and some have exercised that right to take down any project that infringes on their intellectual property. That's why there is a way to take down projects that do so. While it may fall under Fair Use because of Scratch's educational matter, but there's no way to know unless you take it up to court.

Scratch projects are protected under an American law called Fair Use, which allows some use of copyrighted content in non-commercial settings. For more information please visit *insert .gov site here*

All scratch projects are under fair use

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

fdreerf wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

I think they all are. Scratch project are under the Creative Commons License it says that here https://scratch.mit.edu/terms_of_use/ also the point of scratch is coding so if ur still coding the game. I don't think there have been any legal actions on scratch like that that i know of Though if you don't give credit to something you will get your reported if someone find it probably

Any scratch projects you make are owned by scratch and all projects shared are under the creative commons license

“5.2 Scratch provides support materials, including images, sounds, video, and sample code, to help users build projects. Support materials are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. You may also use screenshots of Scratch under the same license. Please note that this does not apply to materials that are also trademarked by the Scratch Team or other parties as described in parts 5.4 and 5.5, below.
The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license requires you to attribute any material you use to the original author. When you use Scratch support materials, or screenshots of the Scratch website, please use the following attribution: ”Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. See http://scratch.mit.edu."
(quote from terms)

douhnutdavid wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

I think they all are. Scratch project are under the Creative Commons License it says that here https://scratch.mit.edu/terms_of_use/ also the point of scratch is coding so if ur still coding the game. I don't think there have been any legal actions on scratch like that that i know of Though if you don't give credit to something you will get your reported if someone find it probably

There actually has been an instance of this before…
But it rareky happens. From what I've heard, all that will happen is the project will get removed.
I'm not a copyright lawyer, so I don't actually know if it's legal or not, I'm just sharing what I know.

douhnutdavid wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

I think they all are. Scratch project are under the Creative Commons License it says that here https://scratch.mit.edu/terms_of_use/ also the point of scratch is coding so if ur still coding the game. I don't think there have been any legal actions on scratch like that that i know of Though if you don't give credit to something you will get your reported if someone find it probably

There was a Pac-Man game that Scratch got sued for and it got taken down.

Bluebatstar wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

I think they all are. Scratch project are under the Creative Commons License it says that here https://scratch.mit.edu/terms_of_use/ also the point of scratch is coding so if ur still coding the game. I don't think there have been any legal actions on scratch like that that i know of Though if you don't give credit to something you will get your reported if someone find it probably

There actually has been an instance of this before…
But it rareky happens. From what I've heard, all that will happen is the project will get removed.
I'm not a copyright lawyer, so I don't actually know if it's legal or not, I'm just sharing what I know.

Woah thats just like wow! So i guess you can sue for copyright??? Idk thought because it says there under the Creative Commons License? im so confused

douhnutdavid wrote:

Bluebatstar wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

I think they all are. Scratch project are under the Creative Commons License it says that here https://scratch.mit.edu/terms_of_use/ also the point of scratch is coding so if ur still coding the game. I don't think there have been any legal actions on scratch like that that i know of Though if you don't give credit to something you will get your reported if someone find it probably

There actually has been an instance of this before…
But it rareky happens. From what I've heard, all that will happen is the project will get removed.
I'm not a copyright lawyer, so I don't actually know if it's legal or not, I'm just sharing what I know.

Woah thats just like wow! So i guess you can sue for copyright??? Idk thought because it says there under the Creative Commons License? im so confused

I'm actually learning about Creative Commons in school at the moment…
To my knowledge, Creative Commons only falls under other things that are also under Creative Commons. Because Pac-Man is not under CC, therefore making a Pac-Man scratch project is technically copyright infringement. If it was under CC, then it wouldn't be, if that makes sense.
But then there's Fair Use, which I know nothing about and might sway the argument, but I'm putting it small because I don't know anything about it.

deleted

Bluebatstar wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

Bluebatstar wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

douhnutdavid wrote:

All scratch projects are under fair use

Not all. If were to make a 1:1 copy of a game like Pac-Man and release on Scratch for free, a company like Bandai-Namco will not take that lightly as I'm essentially stealing money from their pockets. After all, why but the 10000th Namco Museum when you can play it for free on Scratch?

I think they all are. Scratch project are under the Creative Commons License it says that here https://scratch.mit.edu/terms_of_use/ also the point of scratch is coding so if ur still coding the game. I don't think there have been any legal actions on scratch like that that i know of Though if you don't give credit to something you will get your reported if someone find it probably

There actually has been an instance of this before…
But it rareky happens. From what I've heard, all that will happen is the project will get removed.
I'm not a copyright lawyer, so I don't actually know if it's legal or not, I'm just sharing what I know.

Woah thats just like wow! So i guess you can sue for copyright??? Idk thought because it says there under the Creative Commons License? im so confused

I'm actually learning about Creative Commons in school at the moment…
To my knowledge, Creative Commons only falls under other things that are also under Creative Commons. Because Pac-Man is not under CC, therefore making a Pac-Man scratch project is technically copyright infringement. If it was under CC, then it wouldn't be, if that makes sense.
But then there's Fair Use, which I know nothing about and might sway the argument, but I'm putting it small because I don't know anything about it.

Ok

Bluebatstar wrote:

-snip-
To my knowledge, Creative Commons only falls under other things that are also under Creative Commons. Because Pac-Man is not under CC, therefore making a Pac-Man scratch project is technically copyright infringement. If it was under CC, then it wouldn't be, if that makes sense.
But then there's Fair Use, which I know nothing about and might sway the argument, but I'm putting it small because I don't know anything about it.

Mario most definitly isn't under Creative Commons, but you can still make a mario project without getting sued because it isn't for profit.
idk though

You want to know about copyright? I suggest you read this. (Beware, it's a wall of text.)

I believe that all information in that post was true and correct at the time of posting, but I am not a copyright lawyer. You should ask one if you have copyright questions - especially if it has anything to do with money.

Also, note that the post I linked says nothing about trademarks. Copyright != trademarks, and it's a very important distinction. Even if something is fair use, you may not be able to make it legally because you're using the trademark (e.g. logo, brand name) in a way that the law does not allow. I'd have to do a bit more looking into trademark law before I can say much more on the matter, though.

If the post I linked leaves questions, let me know and I may be able to answer them.

mtech22 wrote:

Bluebatstar wrote:

-snip-
To my knowledge, Creative Commons only falls under other things that are also under Creative Commons. Because Pac-Man is not under CC, therefore making a Pac-Man scratch project is technically copyright infringement. If it was under CC, then it wouldn't be, if that makes sense.
But then there's Fair Use, which I know nothing about and might sway the argument, but I'm putting it small because I don't know anything about it.

Mario most definitly isn't under Creative Commons, but you can still make a mario project without getting sued because it isn't for profit.
idk though

You still can get sued because you didn't get express permission from Nintendo to use their characters. Practically though, it never happens as the cost of suing some child halfway across the globe is way greater than the benefit they'll get, and that's not even taking into account the PR catastrophe that would be.

Flowermanvista wrote:

You want to know about copyright? I suggest you read this. (Beware, it's a wall of text.)

I believe that all information in that post was true and correct at the time of posting, but I am not a copyright lawyer. You should ask one if you have copyright questions - especially if it has anything to do with money.

Also, note that the post I linked says nothing about trademarks. Copyright != trademarks, and it's a very important distinction. Even if something is fair use, you may not be able to make it legally because you're using the trademark (e.g. logo, brand name) in a way that the law does not allow. I'd have to do a bit more looking into trademark law before I can say much more on the matter, though.

If the post I linked leaves questions, let me know and I may be able to answer them.

I just read it lol very large

All Scratch Projects are created under the Creative Commons License. (When that project was made, Scratch didn't use CCL and that person didn't give credit to Bandai-Namco). Since then, all Scratch used that and that's why when you remix a project it shows credit for the user who created it. Just so you know, since all projects are created under CCL if Scratch were to remove it, they'd be sued by a bunch of companies.

Companies can take down your projects by asking the ST. Be careful around making a game with Nintendo or Namaco assets, they check often.