Correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point in the past all projects uploaded to the scratch site were licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

But now I see no mention of specific licenses, although the “copyleft” logo is still in use next to the share date under each project.

What license(s) are current scratch projects available under?

What license(s) are old scratch projects available under?

If it changed over time, when?

The old Terms of Use document (as of late 2025) explicitly states:

4.3: All user-generated content you submit to Scratch is licensed to and through Scratch under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

(fetched via https://web.archive.org/web/20251111172859/https://mitscratch.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/4000219182-scratch-terms-of-use )

Whereas the current Terms of Service states:

8.2: Limited License Grant. By Posting User Content to or via the Service, to the maximum extent of your rights to do so, including under applicable law, you hereby grant: (a) other users of the Service a non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, and create derivative works of such User Content solely for personal use within the Service and subject to these Terms;

Latter emphasis mine. These restrictive licensing terms are incompatible with the rights previously granted by the CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

(fetched via https://web.archive.org/web/20260122162504/https://mitscratch.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/4000219182-scratch-terms-of-service )

Based on my notes above, it's clear that the licensing terms have changed over time, likely on January 22nd, 2026.

I urge the scratch team to:

• Revert these restrictive licensing changes, since they contradict the “remix culture” Scratch was founded on.

• Clearly denote that projects uploaded prior to January 22nd, 2026 are still available under the terms of the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. (As required by the terms of the license itself)

• Remove the misleading copyleft icon from any projects that are not available under a recognized copyleft license.

Furthermore, by failing to indicate that old projects are licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, Scratch is violating the terms of said license.

+1 clarification would be appreciated.

bump

Oh, I've seen this license before. Rather than CC BY-SA which allows for public and commercial use including unauthorized resales, they replaced it with an additionally restricted CC BY-NC-SA, which only allows for private use. (No selling other people's projects)

type_3_python wrote:

, they replaced it with an additionally restricted CC BY-NC-SA, which only allows for private use….

There’s nothing in the new Terms of service about our user content being licensed by a Creative Commons license.

Section 8.1 now says

You retain any copyright and other proprietary rights that you may hold in the User Content that you Post to the Service, subject to the licenses granted in these Terms.

Section 8.2.a is quoted above that talks about the rights we grant to other users of the service

Section 8.2.b says the Scratch Team is allowed to do a large list of things with our user content both internal and external to the service.

novice27b wrote:

Based on my notes above, it's clear that the licensing terms have changed over time, likely on January 22nd, 2026.

I urge the scratch team to:

• Revert these restrictive licensing changes, since they contradict the “remix culture” Scratch was founded on.

• Clearly denote that projects uploaded prior to January 22nd, 2026 are still available under the terms of the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. (As required by the terms of the license itself)

• Remove the misleading copyleft icon from any projects that are not available under a recognized copyleft license.

Furthermore, by failing to indicate that old projects are licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, Scratch is violating the terms of said license.

Bump. I don't really want to have to pursue legal avenues here but that will be my next step if polite asking doesn't work.

novice27b wrote:

Based on my notes above, it's clear that the licensing terms have changed over time, likely on January 22nd, 2026.

I urge the scratch team to:

• Revert these restrictive licensing changes, since they contradict the “remix culture” Scratch was founded on.

• Clearly denote that projects uploaded prior to January 22nd, 2026 are still available under the terms of the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. (As required by the terms of the license itself)

• Remove the misleading copyleft icon from any projects that are not available under a recognized copyleft license.

Furthermore, by failing to indicate that old projects are licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, Scratch is violating the terms of said license.

It literally only says it ONCE in the Tos.

Support Materials. The Service includes images, sounds, video, and sample code to help users build projects, including screenshots or other depictions of your use of the Service incorporating such materials (“Support Materials”). Notwithstanding any other license granted to you herein, your use of any Support Materials will be governed by the applicable license for such materials (e.g., AGPLv3, CC BY-SA, or other license(s) as reasonably indicated by Scratch), and you are required to comply with your obligations thereunder. For attributing authorship to the Scratch Foundation, please use the following: “Scratch is developed by the Scratch Foundation and its partners and affiliates. See https://scratchfoundation.org.”

cookedasparagus8 wrote:

novice27b wrote:

Based on my notes above, it's clear that the licensing terms have changed over time, likely on January 22nd, 2026.

I urge the scratch team to:

• Revert these restrictive licensing changes, since they contradict the “remix culture” Scratch was founded on.

• Clearly denote that projects uploaded prior to January 22nd, 2026 are still available under the terms of the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. (As required by the terms of the license itself)

• Remove the misleading copyleft icon from any projects that are not available under a recognized copyleft license.

Furthermore, by failing to indicate that old projects are licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, Scratch is violating the terms of said license.

It literally only says it ONCE in the Tos.

Support Materials. The Service includes images, sounds, video, and sample code to help users build projects, including screenshots or other depictions of your use of the Service incorporating such materials (“Support Materials”). Notwithstanding any other license granted to you herein, your use of any Support Materials will be governed by the applicable license for such materials (e.g., AGPLv3, CC BY-SA, or other license(s) as reasonably indicated by Scratch), and you are required to comply with your obligations thereunder. For attributing authorship to the Scratch Foundation, please use the following: “Scratch is developed by the Scratch Foundation and its partners and affiliates. See https://scratchfoundation.org.”

I'm not talking about support materials, I'm only interested in the projects themselves.

I don't think Scratch can change the license of old projects (especially the projects of inactive users who didn't aggree to the new ToS)
About the old projects of active users, because it says the new license is added “By Posting” so if I don't post my old project anymore because it's already shared that might doesn't count but idk

But if some projects are CC-BY-SA then there is a problem with remixing because according to this post the new license isn't compatible

Thisandagain pls explain

This is very disappointing. I have my thoughts about scratch as a tool for learning programming, but if nothing else, it was a great repository of media that was explicitly licensed freely (as in freedom).