NAMCO Takes Down Student Pac-man Project 218
An anonymous reader writes "The core of how people first learn to do stuff — programming, music, writing, etc. — is to imitate others. It's one of the best ways to learn. Apparently a bunch of students using MIT's educational Scratch programming language understand this. But not everyone else does. NAMCO Bandai sent a takedown notice to MIT because some kids had recreated Pac-man with Scratch. The NAMCO letter is pretty condescending as well, noting that it understands the educational purpose of Scratch, but 'part of their education should include concern for the intellectual property of others.'"
Re:Play for free? (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the source of the page:
"PAC-MAN's 30th Birthday! Doodle with PAC-MAN & ©1980 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc."
Perhaps Google actually worked with NAMCO?
More information! (Score:5, Informative)
This page is a detailed history of Pac Man, including history and information on the different ghosts move algorithms and speed changes... I find it interesting... Read it while you can, its hosted on comcast.....
http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html [comcast.net]
Re:No, they don't make a good point. (Score:4, Informative)
AFAIK, what you're describing happens only with trademarks, not copyrights, so I think you may be confusing the two. At most, people that the copyright holder does not take rightful action against might be construed as having been given implicit permission to copy the work, but that should not remotely affect future cases against other people.
Re:O'RLY (Score:3, Informative)
Being lawyers, they should look at precedents to realize that "look and feel" isn't "intellectual property".
Namco would rely on Atari v. Philips [wikipedia.org], a lawsuit over a Pac-Man clone that Atari (Namco's console licensee at the time) won. The difference between that and other look-and-feel cases you're thinking of (Apple v. Microsoft, Capcom v. Data East, and Lotus v. Borland) is that Pac-Man is an identifiable character, and identifiable characters have stronger copyright protection than elements whose form is dictated by function or by stereotype. One could replace Pac-Man and the ghost-monsters with original characters, like Nintendo did in one of the levels of WarioWare for Game Boy Advance, and have less of a chance of breaking copyright law.
But talk this over with your lawyer before acting on it.
Re:Play for free? (Score:5, Informative)