Hi everyone,

We have seen a lot of discussion about “art theft” recently, so we wanted to address our remixing policy.

Every project shared to the Scratch website can be remixed. A remix is valid as long as it adds something new to the project and credit is given to the original project creator and others who made significant contributions to the remix.

We also consider the remix attribution tag (pictured below), which thanks the person who made the original project and appears above the ‘Instructions’ field in remix chains, to be sufficient credit.



Remixing other people’s projects is a great way to create interesting projects. Through remixing, creative ideas spread through the Scratch community, and everyone benefits. All projects shared on the Scratch website are covered by the “Creative Commons Share Alike” license, which means that you can remix any project you see on the Scratch website – and everyone else can remix any of the projects that you share on the website.

We also wanted to answer some questions you may have:

If I see that someone has backpacked art from another Scratcher or downloaded art from the internet without providing credit, what should I do?

Click the “Report” button on the project, choose “Uses Images/Music Without Credit” (or “Exact Copy of Project”), and provide a link to the original content in your report. It’s better to report a Scratcher’s individual projects rather than their entire profile.

What if I know the artwork was taken from the internet or another Scratcher, but I’m not sure where the original is?

It’s hard for the Scratch Team to take action on reports when you can’t find the original content (or say something like “stolen from Google Images”). If you’re pretty sure you’ve seen the artwork somewhere before, we ask that you try to find the original before you report it.

Can I comment on someone’s project/profile asking them to provide credit or telling them that I know they stole artwork?

No. It’s against the Community Guidelines to publicly accuse someone of stealing, encourage other Scratchers to gang up on someone, or otherwise harass them, no matter what you think they’ve done. This method leads to hurt feelings and does not always result in the copied content being removed or properly credited. Just report the project. The Scratch Team will investigate and take the proper action.

What is a valid remix?

When deciding if something is or isn’t a valid remix, we consider if the changes made added something new to the project and were not clearly made to get around our guidelines on remixing. If someone has done something like only changing the title of a project, deleting the original creator’s username from the title page, or scribbling on top of someone else’s art, that is not considered valid. But if they did something like changing the sprite in a platformer or creating a new background for a pong game, that is a valid remix.

Are recolors or traced art considered valid remixes?

Yes. By recoloring the art from another project or tracing art, Scratchers have made a change to the project, so recolors and traced art are valid remixes as long as credit is provided to the original creator.

Can I add a note to my project telling people not to remix or recolor?

No. Everything on Scratch is remixable, so by adding this type of note to your project, you’re imposing false restrictions on other Scratchers. If you don’t want others to remix your creations, you can still create projects on the Scratch website, but don’t share them on the website.