Nambaseking01 wrote:

Support.

I mean, there isn't much to say on this one, illegal is illegal and it needs to be fixed…

Until this gets changed, everyone please only link pages from the Scratch Wiki and Wikipedia - don't just take pieces of writing from there. We don't want the Scratch Team to get sued.

Unless the Scratch Team clears this up as incorrect information (which I am not sure about) or they change the existing license, everyone be cautious lol

When has Scratch been sued?

-Rex- wrote:

Could you not just claim fair use?

Also, (I am not even close to being a lawyer), the first few paragraphs of the CC BY-SA 3.0 license state that a “Collection” is not considered an “Adaptation”. What even is an adaptation? If an asset is only a minor part of a project, is the project still considered an adaptation of that asset? (I guess this still doesn’t change the fact that the unmodified asset would have a different and incompatible license)

I feel a better solution would be to only license user-generated assets and code. All other assets may be included in a project but using their original licenses (if that is even possible?).

eXactly

bump. If WMF or the Scratch Wiki (but more likely some other source) wanted to sue Scratch for CC incompatibility (CC-BY-SA 2.0 contents can be used under 3.0 and 4.0, but not the other way around) they probably could.
Edit: 4.0 might be a better choice, since the Scratch Wiki uses that, not 3.0

dhuls wrote:

If the Scratch Wiki wanted to sue Scratch for CC incompatibility

im not sure, but i think Scratch owns the Scratch Wiki, so I dont think they would want to sue themselves

The Scratch Team does not own the Scratch Wiki, but they link to it.

dhuls wrote:

bump. If WMF or the Scratch Wiki (but more likely some other source) wanted to sue Scratch for CC incompatibility (CC-BY-SA 2.0 contents can be used under 3.0 and 4.0, but not the other way around) they probably could.
Edit: 4.0 might be a better choice, since the Scratch Wiki uses that, not 3.0

Doubtless neither they nor any Scratch Wiki contributor would really mind, but it's still not really right. (One could just look at the article history and ask the responsible contributors before copying, but better would be if the ST implemented the suggestion.)

Bump

bump

I didn't even know about the license compatibility problem. Updating the license seems to make a lot of sense to me now.

Perhaps the existing projects could keep the 2.0 version of the license unless they contain content that has a higher version of the license, in which case… it would be updated somehow? The ST would probably try to avoid changing the licenses on us unless it needed to be updated.

D-ScratchNinja wrote:

Perhaps the existing projects could keep the 2.0 version of the license unless they contain content that has a higher version of the license, in which case… it would be updated somehow? The ST would probably try to avoid changing the licenses on us unless it needed to be updated.

Why not just update every project to the new license? The old license has provisions which allow upgrading to the new version.

Maximouse wrote:

Support, this would solve some licensing issues. I don't think they can change the license for existing projects, but for new ones it's OK.

That might cause confusion. I don't know how many Scratchers are aware that licenses can have versions that might not work with each other, so what will happen when somebody tries to reuse something in a project licensed under a newer CC-BY-SA version, but their project was using an older license? Scratchers would be confused as to why they couldn't just remix and adapt everything, plus the Scratch Team would probably find it unfair that you can't properly reuse anything from newer projects in older projects. Or it might be possible to automatically update the license, but then you'd have to update the license of remixes and anything else that uses stuff from your project, which is difficult for reasons.


I think the people behind the Scratch Team have known about this problem since back when CC-BY-SA 3.0 first came out (I believe after we were able to share the first Scratch projects, which is why they probably had to start with version 2.0), but has this been noticed less nowadays? I mean, it's not ideal for there to still be projects with CC-BY-SA 4.0-licensed content on a website with CC-BY-SA 2.0-licensed projects, and to not know if someone is noticing that something's not working out right.

But YouTube and Wikipedia use outdated licenses too. Maybe it's very difficult for any service to update a license they're using, and so Scratch is behind with its version as well. They could try to work a semi-update in by using the newer license for newer content, but again, everyone publishing would need to know what a license version is and means to avoid creating conflicts, which is not a topic that every child may understand.

But also, currently, it's kind of necessary for some of us to know about all of this already so that we don't accidentally reuse something (like music) from other sources with license versions higher than Scratch projects use. That's one thing a license update would really help with, but there are also reasons this change is hard.


So, staying on 2.0 could create confusion, updating to 3.0 or 4.0 for some projects could also create confusion, and updating to 3.0 or 4.0 for everything could be hard to do and take a lot of time for a community this big, and could cause problems for people already reusing something that updated to a newer license in another place. What should we prioritize?

Also, even if we found a way to always update the license of projects when needed, it'd be hard to make it clear to everyone when the newer license is used. It makes sense to us when we can have peace of mind that we can remix, reuse, and adapt anything and everything on Scratch without having to remember to check something extra or even knowing what copyright is first.


But… if somehow, we were able to figure out how to work it out and use the latest version, updating Scratch project licenses would give its benefits, so I think this is something that might be possible for the Scratch Team to research a little more, especially when so many things are CC-BY-SA 3.0+ and this is a coding community with kids as the target audience.

Hi, since the Scratch Wiki has come up a few times I wanted to clarify some things as a lead admin.

ResExsention wrote:

Eh, support. I have no idea why the Scratch Wiki admins haven't filed hundreds upon hundreds of copyright infringement lawsuits up to now. ShareAlike has – um – bugged me for some time.

First, filing a copyright infringement lawsuit requires

1. Time (which we would rather spend elsewhere)
   
2. Quite a bit of money (which we don't have)
   
3. You to be the owner of the copyright (from a legal perspective all the people who write the article collectively own the copyright)
   

The last item is quite important - even if we, the administrators, wanted to, we'd still have to ensure that we were doing so on behalf of the people who actually wrote the articles. If we tried on our own, the case would be easily dismissible for lack of standing. (Alternatives, like the DMCA, also require the sender of a takedown notice to hold copyright in the work. Wikipedia has a warning on that matter in their takedown notice template.) That doesn't stop the individual editors from suing or issuing DMCAs, though I can't imagine why anyone would want to.

Second, we'd hardly want to sue the platform that we document, especially since they aren't exactly drowning in wealth either. Doing so would be a death sentence for both of us.

Third, both Scratchers and the Scratch Team rarely copy our article content verbatim. Instead most people just link to it, which doesn't constitute copying in the first place and therefore would not be an infringement. There are probably a few cases of people copying data off the Wiki, but it wouldn't be “hundreds upon hundreds”. I know less about the state of Wikipedia copying though.

Leekalo wrote:

The Scratch Wiki is made by Scratch Moderators, so how come they'd sue themselves?!

SonicFanX123_321 wrote:

dhuls wrote:

If the Scratch Wiki wanted to sue Scratch for CC incompatibility

im not sure, but i think Scratch owns the Scratch Wiki, so I dont think they would want to sue themselves

Scratch, the Scratch Team, and the Scratch Foundation do not have any hand in running the wiki anymore since the transfer which happened in early 2018. We are run by a group of volunteers that could theoretically find cause and means to sue, but I don't see either appearing in the far future.

Anything Shared under 4.0 or 3.0 unfortunately are are unusable in scratch unless this gets changed. However, anything created in scratch can be shared under 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, or 4.0. That doesn't really make sense, but whatever.

Also, its important to note that anything shared in scratch pretty much has to follow 4.0 rules anyway, so there's no reason not to change it.

no support for 3.0 but yes for 4.0!

p.s. illegal in scratch to share info in the scratch wiki? WIKI WENDSDAY

Why not 4.0?

Bump

Surely it should be CC BY-SA4.0 now.
I don't see any downside to raising it, and I hope the Scratch Team sees it.