Hey everyone,

Scratch is a place for learning, creating, and sharing creative works made by Scratchers. Recently, we have noticed a lot of projects on Scratch being used to share music created by someone else. Projects like this do not express the creativity of the Scratcher and are not fair to the original musical artist. Scratchers are welcome to use music created by others in their projects, but they should be sure to use the music to support their own creativity - not as the main focus of the project.

Gotcha

gotcha

Thank you.

Good to know! Just to clarify, are you guys just discouraging them or banning them completely?

Alrighty, sounds good…

We can of course make projects with music that we made as the main focus, correct?

Thanks for clarifying!

pianogirl84 wrote:

Good to know! Just to clarify, are you guys just discouraging them or banning them completely?

I'd assume they're completely banning them; the majority of these are just straight-up copyright infringement, and can't be marked under fair use as just playing a song is not usually educational. An animation meme should be OK, and an AMV should also be OK. As long as you're not just making a project for just playing the song and that's it.

awsome_guy_360 wrote:

Alrighty, sounds good…

We can of course make projects with music that we made as the main focus, correct?

Of course! This is just for copyrighted songs where their owner doesn't want it distributed without permission. However, using a song in an animated music video or video game project can usually be marked as fair use by the Scratch Team, as the person making it is learning with it, but if it's just for the point of reproducing a copyrighted song and sharing it with people… That's just straight-up copyright infringement. If it's your own song, you can choose what you do with it. Simple as that.

What about a project that actually works with the music Guitar Hero style? I'm making a project right now that is similar, music by real bands is played but it's a game where you have to hit notes to the beat of the song.

speakvisually wrote:

Hey everyone,

Scratch is a place for learning, creating, and sharing creative works made by Scratchers. Recently, we have noticed a lot of projects on Scratch being used to share music created by someone else. Projects like this do not express the creativity of the Scratcher and are not fair to the original musical artist. Scratchers are welcome to use music created by others in their projects, but they should be sure to use the music to support their own creativity - not as the main focus of the project.

Okay, that's fine. What if it's your own music that you recorded? Is that okay?

pig9992005 wrote:

speakvisually wrote:

Hey everyone,

Scratch is a place for learning, creating, and sharing creative works made by Scratchers. Recently, we have noticed a lot of projects on Scratch being used to share music created by someone else. Projects like this do not express the creativity of the Scratcher and are not fair to the original musical artist. Scratchers are welcome to use music created by others in their projects, but they should be sure to use the music to support their own creativity - not as the main focus of the project.

Okay, that's fine. What if it's your own music that you recorded? Is that okay?

Of course.

What r u gonna do???

And also how do you get promoted to the “Scratch Team”

ThePalmTree_ wrote:

And also how do you get promoted to the “Scratch Team”

You must be 18 years and above, and you must be hired, as it is a paying job.


Hope this helped. ;D

when green flag clicked
forever

end

WolfCat67 wrote:

pianogirl84 wrote:

Good to know! Just to clarify, are you guys just discouraging them or banning them completely?

I'd assume they're completely banning them; the majority of these are just straight-up copyright infringement, and can't be marked under fair use as just playing a song is not usually educational. An animation meme should be OK, and an AMV should also be OK. As long as you're not just making a project for just playing the song and that's it.

awsome_guy_360 wrote:

Alrighty, sounds good…

We can of course make projects with music that we made as the main focus, correct?

Of course! This is just for copyrighted songs where their owner doesn't want it distributed without permission. However, using a song in an animated music video or video game project can usually be marked as fair use by the Scratch Team, as the person making it is learning with it, but if it's just for the point of reproducing a copyrighted song and sharing it with people… That's just straight-up copyright infringement. If it's your own song, you can choose what you do with it. Simple as that.

Thanks but I'm still a little panicky about getting an alert, any further information?

Programfair wrote:

ThePalmTree_ wrote:

And also how do you get promoted to the “Scratch Team”

You must be 18 years and above, and you must be hired, as it is a paying job.


Hope this helped. ;D

when green flag clicked
forever

end

WOW!

canarycat2000 wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

pianogirl84 wrote:

Good to know! Just to clarify, are you guys just discouraging them or banning them completely?

I'd assume they're completely banning them; the majority of these are just straight-up copyright infringement, and can't be marked under fair use as just playing a song is not usually educational. An animation meme should be OK, and an AMV should also be OK. As long as you're not just making a project for just playing the song and that's it.

awsome_guy_360 wrote:

Alrighty, sounds good…

We can of course make projects with music that we made as the main focus, correct?

Of course! This is just for copyrighted songs where their owner doesn't want it distributed without permission. However, using a song in an animated music video or video game project can usually be marked as fair use by the Scratch Team, as the person making it is learning with it, but if it's just for the point of reproducing a copyrighted song and sharing it with people… That's just straight-up copyright infringement. If it's your own song, you can choose what you do with it. Simple as that.

Thanks but I'm still a little panicky about getting an alert, any further information?

Don't use copyrighted music. Try getting all of your music from a trustworthy site online or from other Scratch projects.

Also, it's not the end of the world if you get an alert. It's just a warning.

XenoCoding wrote:

canarycat2000 wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

pianogirl84 wrote:

Good to know! Just to clarify, are you guys just discouraging them or banning them completely?

I'd assume they're completely banning them; the majority of these are just straight-up copyright infringement, and can't be marked under fair use as just playing a song is not usually educational. An animation meme should be OK, and an AMV should also be OK. As long as you're not just making a project for just playing the song and that's it.

awsome_guy_360 wrote:

Alrighty, sounds good…

We can of course make projects with music that we made as the main focus, correct?

Of course! This is just for copyrighted songs where their owner doesn't want it distributed without permission. However, using a song in an animated music video or video game project can usually be marked as fair use by the Scratch Team, as the person making it is learning with it, but if it's just for the point of reproducing a copyrighted song and sharing it with people… That's just straight-up copyright infringement. If it's your own song, you can choose what you do with it. Simple as that.

Thanks but I'm still a little panicky about getting an alert, any further information?

Don't use copyrighted music. Try getting all of your music from a trustworthy site online or from other Scratch projects.

Also, it's not the end of the world if you get an alert. It's just a warning.

But don't I need copyrighted music to make an AMV?(I'm planning to make one)

canarycat2000 wrote:

XenoCoding wrote:

canarycat2000 wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

pianogirl84 wrote:

Good to know! Just to clarify, are you guys just discouraging them or banning them completely?

I'd assume they're completely banning them; the majority of these are just straight-up copyright infringement, and can't be marked under fair use as just playing a song is not usually educational. An animation meme should be OK, and an AMV should also be OK. As long as you're not just making a project for just playing the song and that's it.

awsome_guy_360 wrote:

Alrighty, sounds good…

We can of course make projects with music that we made as the main focus, correct?

Of course! This is just for copyrighted songs where their owner doesn't want it distributed without permission. However, using a song in an animated music video or video game project can usually be marked as fair use by the Scratch Team, as the person making it is learning with it, but if it's just for the point of reproducing a copyrighted song and sharing it with people… That's just straight-up copyright infringement. If it's your own song, you can choose what you do with it. Simple as that.

Thanks but I'm still a little panicky about getting an alert, any further information?

Don't use copyrighted music. Try getting all of your music from a trustworthy site online or from other Scratch projects.

Also, it's not the end of the world if you get an alert. It's just a warning.

But don't I need copyrighted music to make an AMV?(I'm planning to make one)

You can if you want. The only actual time it'll be taken down is if it's a project that's just the song, with no animation or slideshow to go with it. After all, with an animation, you're learning while making it, right? So, it can be usually marked under fair use (unless the owner of the song finds it and doesn't want it, which is rare, but in that case it'll just be unshared without an alert) without any problem. If it's just the song and nothing else, you didn't learn anything from it. Just a quick tip.

turkey3 wrote:

pig9992005 wrote:

Okay, that's fine. What if it's your own music that you recorded? Is that okay?

Of course.

Thanks!

canarycat2000 wrote:

-snip-
But don't I need copyrighted music to make an AMV?(I'm planning to make one)

It's only music-based projects that are being unshared. AMVs are fine.