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NAMCO Takes Down Student Pac-man Project

Posted by Soulskill on from the chasing-ghosts dept.

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.'"

6 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. MIT just needs to make it a parody by Anarchduke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Say, have NAMCOman eat the developing brains of college students while being chased by the ghosts of creativity. Then NAMCOman can eat a copy of the DMCA and kill off the creative spirits one by one.

    --
    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  2. what about the business majors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why aren't they being taught to respect the rights of others (fair use, etc)? why aren't they being taught that they can't have an indefinite free lunch in a free market? why aren't they being taught that broken business models propped up by government do everyone a disservice?

  3. Re:Play for free? by Anonymous Coward · · 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?

  4. Standing on the shoulders of giants. by WoollyMittens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A vital part of human culture is that every generation of people can build upon the innovations of the previous. This is how we got from living in caves to reaching for the stars. Greedy corporations are systematically destroying this mechanism for their own personal gain. This must be stopped or our civilization will have no future. Lawrence Lessig dat a much better job at explaining this than I do: http://remix.lessig.org/

  5. More information! by acomj · · 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

  6. Re:Do not see that as condescending by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's really true that part of an education is in fact realizing that some people have IP that they will vigorously defend, and that you need to perhaps think more about creating something truly original in order to avoid this issue.

    Except of course that the true purpose of all the "intellectual property", as the mega-corps and their paid-for politicos envision it, is to prevent exactly that and to ensure that no innovation is possible without it "belonging" to one of the "gate keepers" of all future progress who are busily jockeying for the position in this aristocracy.

    And it is already nearly so since every thing ever invented or created always builds on the cumulative knowledge of all the discoveries and developments of the past and the recent past is nearly completely patented, copyrighted and locked down. Locked down forever - for all practical purposes from the point of view of a person living less then 100 years.