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Namco shuts down student Pac-Man project

Namco works in mysterious ways

Namco shuts down student Pac-Man project
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A student using MIT's Scratch programming language (a language created to help young people create their own games) was served a DMCA notice for creating his own version of Pac-Man, asking him to remove the offending game.

The notice said that user 124scratch'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."

The statement goes on: "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 its IP, but this move seems rather strange when you consider that Ms. Pac-Man was created by hackers before coming under Namco's wing.

Ben Jones
Ben Jones
Our summer intern, Ben, is currently studying at university. When he isn't knee-deep in law journals, he writes anything and everything he can. But only if you ask nicely.