How Fair Use Brought Pac-Man to the Streets of Seattle

Maybe we are going to jinx the city of Seattle by bringing it up, but not everything has to be expensive and litigious.

1 minute read

February 11, 2017, 7:00 AM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


The price to license the use of Pac-Man's likeness to makeover a Seattle street: $0. "Turns out, a municipality can (probably) use all sorts of characters in its civic investments," according to a post on the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

According to a statement by the Seattle Department of Transportation shared on the post, the use of imagery from the popular Pac-Man game was all made possible by fair use. The SDOT even says that the city attorney's office signed off on the idea.

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