Namco Shuts Down Student's Pac-Man Project
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
I have to disagree. While I don't necessarily approve of what Namco did in this specific situation, they must be able to do it if they so choose in order for copyright laws to work at all. Someone created an intentional copy of their intellectual property and placed it on the internet where it could be accessed by anyone. It may have been for educational purposes, but they have to be able to protect themselves from things like that.Nimbus said:
I'll say. There have been Pac-Man clones and rip-offs for decades. I find it hard to believe that all those shareware games paid some sort of royalty or something.Tom Goldman said:
Exactly. I can do a very quick Google search for "Pac Man flash game" and bring up dozens upon dozens of pages with replications of the game, some of them exceptionally faithful with identical sounds, stage setups, etc. Why hasn't Namco pulled anything on them?BlindMessiah94 said:
I'm not going to rag on Namco, but it does seem rather funny that they'd pick on this when there are literally dozens of free flash versions of Pac-Man all over the net.
Damn straight.blakfayt said:
I whole heartedly support our right to benefit from the hard work of others whilst providing them with zero compensation.
Now if you're just talking about old games/out of print games/unsupported games then I'd agree that they should be legal to download until/unless they are re-released. However it seems like you're implying that we shouldn't look down upon people who think its okay to have all their games/movies/music/software for free simply because of their digital nature. Needless to say, I disagree.
I was reading a letter to Norman Rockwell from Campbell Soup co. about the famous panting of his. It was a letter full of praise for the man, and promise of a thoughtful gift of tomato soup to him after he expressed a fondness for it.
There was a joke in the comments about how in this day the letter would have been a cease and desist order. I had a laugh and didn't think much of it. Reading this reminded me and I have to wonder exactly how much of that statement was a joke, and how much was truth.
There was a joke in the comments about how in this day the letter would have been a cease and desist order. I had a laugh and didn't think much of it. Reading this reminded me and I have to wonder exactly how much of that statement was a joke, and how much was truth.
Copyright laws are a *****, eh?
kinda makes you want to embrace the whole communist vibe...
kinda makes you want to embrace the whole communist vibe...
Yeah, pretty much.blakfayt said:
When Namco is losing money quicker than a gambling addict at the craps table of the Bellagio, I can't really say I blame them for targeting every little little piss-ant pirate. This guy's game probably takes away something like half their remaining profits.
the trouble is though, in a society where lawyers can use other cases as evidence of what has been done in the past. If namco turned and said "yeah its cool you can rip off pacman, because you have done it for educational purposes" a nice gesture would last 5seconds and then someone else would try and rip off their latest game claiming the same thing. I dont know why they went banzai on this instead of all the flash games that are out there. But i can see why they'd want to protect their investments, however old.
I can see what you're getting at, and I can agree to an extent.blakfayt said:
Problem is that you're using mario as an example. Nintendo could release Super Mario World, without changing it one bit. They could do this tomorrow or in a years time, and I'd be willing to bet they'd make a good deal of money off it. In fact now that I think of it, they have done so on Wii's virtual console.
I agree with you entirely when it comes to games (IPs) that have gone untouched for a quarter of a decade, and I would support you in downloading them as there is often no other way to play them. However massive IPs that are still being supported and regularly re-released don't really qualify. Companies have the right to earn money off of their creations and that includes re-releasing the same creation every few years, even if that earns them your contempt.
Tom Goldman said:Namco Shuts Down Student's Pac-Man Project
Budding programmers beware: Do not recreate Pac-Man or Namco will find you.
MIT developed the Pac-Man [http://info.scratch.mit.edu/About_Scratch], asking for it to be removed.
The notice says that the user's game "infringes Namco's rights by offering visitors the unauthorized use of infringing copies of the Pac-Man game product which is protected by copyright and trademark law." It also reads: "While we appreciate the educational nature of your enterprise and look forward to the contributions of the future programmers you are training, part of their education should include concern for the intellectual property of others."
Namco has every right to protect their intellectual property, but this seems extreme and pointless. 124scratch's game has been taken down so I wasn't able to play it, but I seriously doubt that Namco had anything to worry about from a programming student's free version of Pac-Man hidden in the depths of the Scratch website. Is it possible that it was so accurate that Namco had to get a lawyer to shut it down?
Oddly enough, the same user has plenty of other projects that use art from Pac-Man, including sprites of ghosts and level layouts. Some of 124scratch's later Pac-Man-inspired projects don't seem to touch the real game, so I'm confused what made Namco go medieval on one specific project. I'm not going to say that Namco shouldn't protect itself, I'm just not sure what they were protecting themselves from here. All I see was someone trying to learn.
Via: Slashdot [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/cvlxm/why_johny_cant_program_namco_sends_dmca_takedown/]
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For all that I feel intellectual properties and patents and such should be protected and respected, in this paticular case I think it shows why there needs to be some safeguards installed since this is just pure stupidity, and pretty much forms a solid arguement for anyone who wants to argue against IP rights due to corperate bullying.
I say this because "Pac Man" has been being cloned and duplicated for many years now since it's arrival, and NAMCO has done absolutly nothing to defend or even try and defend it's IP. Years ago companies like "Keypunch Software" tended to release collections of fairly shoddy remakes of simple arcade games where they would say release "Pac Man" as "Snack Man" and similar things. Things like this were going on above board and people were making money on it, and what's more it wasn't just isolated cases that might have gone under the radar.
At any rate, NAMCO coming out of the blue and deciding to go after a student for an IP they have showed next to no interest in protecting for... wow, it must be decades now, should pretty much be considered an abuse of the laws. What's more, I think it's ridiculous when they get up on a high horse and want to lecture a school about teaching students to better respect intellectual property laws under these circumstances.
There is such a thing as reasonable defense of an IP, and such a thing as ridiculous bullying, and this is a case of the latter.
Of course I suspect a lot of this has to do with the rumor that they want to try and re-launch some of their classic properties and were considering making another attempt at a "Pac Man" TV show which would cover issues like racism. Even so, this is both heavy handed and stupid. I think NAMCO should apologize to be entirely honest.
