Slashdot Mirror
e-Scrabble gets Cease and Desist Order from Hasbro
Matthew Dull writes "Home-brewed e-Scrabble.com recently received a cease-and-desist order from Hasbro Inc., owners of the famous board game Scrabble. E-scrabble, home to over 100,000 active players, has been hosting up online versions of the game to happily addicted players for over a year now (maybe more), and only now does Hasbro come forth with a lawsuit. The creator of the site, known only as Jared, has posted the letter he received from Hasbro's lawyers. However common it may be, it always seems a tragedy when a big corporation stomps its heavy foot on a fledgling but very successful piece of web software that is close to many people's heart." (It's also the best online Scrabble game I've seen; Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue him.)
There's a great way to enforce a cease-and-desist order. Slashdot the site.
Okay, so... they took the trademarked name and one would assume copyrighted game design that hasbro sells in stores and... gave away without permission a video game that replicated it perfectly. ...
You know there's a lot of reasons I'm not crazy about Hasbro but I really just can't see anything unreasonable about this. If there's anything copyright laws were meant to prevent it's exactly this.
That said Hasbro is really foolish to not just buy these people outright, illegal or no. Literati just isn't as good as real scrabble and I don't like hanging around yahoo.com. I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way.
e-scrabble is sort of RETARDED. It would be like starting up a new websoftware company called eMicrosoft. OO i wonder who would sue me then!
It may be a good piece of software and i doubt they could sue for the game idea. Rename it possibly?
When I started up www.e-slashdot.org, over 100,00 people came and read my geek news. Then some lawyers from some Open Source Lab place got all pissy and sent me a letter. Once more a large corporation slams the little guy!
I was posting good news from independent sources. Heck, they should have paid me!
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
It's also the best online scrabble game I've seen; Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue him.
If you can't innovate, litigate.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
If they were to pay him then everyone would have to use those rediculous buisness practices.
Well transfer the name to me and I will host it until Hasbro sues me. Then I will grant them thier wish but only after I transfer it to one of the other 100,000 players. I think we should be able to do this for at least a couple of years. :)
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
What if they all have copies of the game at home? Fair use? Probably not.
I am not a lawyer, but I have followed the similar Tetris issue.
Change the name from e-scrabble to something else, and the trademark claim is pretty much out the window. True, the rule sheet packaged with the game is copyrighted, but given Copyright Office publication FL108, I'm not so positive that copyright applies to the elements of a game itself.
I mean you can't argue that scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro. You can't argue that it is abandonware (last time I checked scrabble is still sold in stores).
It is clear that Hasbro has every right to ask him to cease and desist - and should not have to pay him a thing, it is THEIR product unequivocally.
Wow! After reading that letter, it seems like they want to take over from him. They demand the site and the code to it.
Oh, and obligatory
1. Let fan make game
2 Sue fan and steal game
3. ??? ( can be omitted)
4. Profit
This sig is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
It's proabally because of the name they used not because of the game because look at places like www.isc.ro
Who didn't see this coming? I can't see the site (Slashdotted already?), but if I make a site called e-BurgerKing.com to sell hamburgers online, I think I'd get sued too. I don't see the difference.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
So they can lose weight on the Subway diet?
I for one think an IT version of Monopoly should be created. Forget about Real Estate. Patent and Trademark portfolios are where it's at. "Boardwalk" should be replaced with "one-click shopping". "Park Place" should be replaced with the "Stacker" compression program.
" However common it may be, it always seems a tragedy when a big corporation stomps its heavy foot on a fledgling but very successful piece of web software that is close to many people's heart."
Tragedy? Um, no. He really should have known he was going to get a C&D over that. If Scabble were some obscure game that nobody heard of, I could call this tragic.
"Derp de derp."
You've got it backwards. They'll sue him. Then they'll get the List of Names (TM). And then they'll either put up a site of their own and (3. Profit!) or they will give them a deal to license Scrabble Online for only 6.99 (and thus, 3. Profit!)
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Why would Hasbro pay Jared? What are they getting out of it exactly?
Well, his amazing diet experience has helped market their sandwiches like crazy!
http://www.isc.ro/ is an alternative site. You can't play on the website itself but it has Java clients which you can download and then connect to the isc.ro server.
It's definitely reduced my sleeping hours!
Then you're free to go, just remember to yell Elb Barcs when you win and not Scrabble.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
Unfortunately, to have a snowball's chance in hell of being near the top, I don't have time to do research. But, I seem to remember that Scrabble has gone to court, and (aside from the trademarked name), IP laws don't really help it much.
Can Hasbro spell p-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-o-n? Wait... how many points was that?
It's ridiculous that Hasbro is trying to take down this little guy running this little site. After all, have they not heard of "Yahoo" and "Yahoo Games"? Literati is a game that you can play on Yahoo! Games, and everyone knows and thinks of it as Scrabble. What a bunch of hooey.
Scrabble is a trademark. Everyone knows that.
They could have called it anything else, and still had the same game with the same rules, and not had a problem.
By calling the site Scrabble.com they were asking for it.
They could have called it WordFun.com, or something else. But then, without the scrabble name, they'd have a hard time getting hits and membership, (and ad revenue) without piggybacking on Hasbro's success, wouldn't they?
My heart is not bleeding.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
http://isc.ro is the best on-line scrabble site anyway.
I haven't been there, nor have I played e-scrabble, but is this guy Jared paying for the server, bandwidth, whatever else without making a dime in return? Is there some sort of advertising that is on there to recoup his costs?
How long until this guy has a bunch of people addicted, asks for a few dollars, then starts making money off of Hasbro's game? Why can't I start e-monopoly, e-settler's of catan, or e-crack addicted whore quest and then the company should "pay me" because I did such a job without getting their approval?
Jared should pay Hasbro.
I am sure that the 100,000+ e-Scrabble players will now rush out to replace their aging Scrabble boards.
that has happened to at least two actual slashdot-based sites.
Ummm. He doesn't charge people anything and the "distribution" is limited to people coming to his website. Heck, the site even has a disclaimer at the bottom. Really, is this any different than hosting a big 24/7 get together in some public park where people can come play Scrabble all they want?
it's played thru email no less... omg come on corporate america stop shooting yourself in the foot, embrace things like this!! imitation is the best form of flattery after all.
They have shuffled a little guy up and spread him on a board for a sweet score Got nothing
Hasbro should pay this guy and host his site on thier servers, It would then be "offically" endorsed and they could serve up thier ads on it. I don't know why they'd want to shut this down, it only spreads scrabble and people playing online would have bought the game anyway; This would encourage people to get out the real life game more and play with friends.
What about Internet Scrabble Club? Are they safe because they're outside the US, licensed, or are they next?
Why pay if you can send an army of lawyers and get it for "free" (except attorney fees and a PR nightmare)?
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't trademark holders required to defend their trademarks or risk losing them? (like what happened with "Aspirin")
I didn't know Jared the Subway guy was a Scrabble fanatic. Guess you learn new things everyday.
Frankly, Hasbro is basically right with regards to the name -- it might be possible to show that the name is generic, but it'd be difficult and seems somewhat unlikely.
They're also probably right with regards to the game board and the description of the rules.
However, game rules -- i.e. the system by which a game is played -- are not copyrightable. They're patentable, but any patent on scrabble probably expired long ago. Only a particular written expression of game rules are. And even the expressions aren't particularly strong, given the merger doctrine.
It might be a good idea to come up with a completely new board graphic that still functionally was the same, and to rewrite the rules from scratch, making sure that they didn't match the language in the official rules, and to come up with a completely unrelated name. Just as scrabble is a made up word, just make up a totally new word.
Of course, past infringements may still be litigable, but there's nothing to be done about them other than to a) wait out the statute of limitations, or b) get Hasbro to agree not to sue.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That's not the point. The point is that it can get expensive defending against such lawsuits. It's not uncommon for large companies filing meritless lawsuits knowing full well their targets are likely to settle since they can't afford the legal fees involved.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Hasbro has a pretty open-and-shut case. Why pay for e-scrabble, when they can acquire it as part of a settlement?
The answer to your relief is to simply move the domain to another country other than the US or Canada. Are you reading your letter or not?
Copy the game. Copy the name. Get the blame. Seems like a solid case for Hasbro, that is unless Jared employs the Chewbacca defence.
i otnd ownk bouat uoy, tbu htis skcus orf htat ocpmnay.
Yes, Hasbro holds a copyright in the design and layout of the Scrabble board, but they DO NOT hold copyright in the rules, no matter what they say.
Copyright only protects expression. And functional elements of expression are not protected by copyright. This is why things like ingredients are not copyrightable, because they only serve to tell you how to do something.
The Copyright Office (See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html) makes it clear that "Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game." Accordingly, game rules generally are not copyrightable.
Granted, Hasbro may own copyright in the rules as written. But this copyright is thin, essentially only precluding exact reproduction. Even then, the descriptions of the steps to play the game are functional, and not protected. There is nothing they can do to prevent another from redescribing the steps in their own words and publishing that.
Too bad this guy is out of luck on the trademark stuff....
Jared helped me lose over 45 pounds on the subway diet.
...usually I'm against it when it comes to big corp crushing the little guy - but e-scrabble? Seriously, "Company who has spent years building up a brand name and mindhare of a game sending C&D to cheap ripoff" sounds more like it.
Hell, if you even try using that similar a *name*, they get you. Look at Lindows. From what I can gather they made a clone which was deliberately using their trademark. How much more clear cut can it get? Sorry, find your own name and image. This one is fully justified.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
He could have called it iScrabble and had Apple on their ass too.
Now i do agree this probably isn't the best way to deal with it, by sending a cease and desist letter, Hasbro does have the right. I'm pretty sure that it's clearly marked on the box, and in the instruction manual that scarbble, it's name and idea are owned by hasboro.
It's not like they just patented the game, and now are on a manhunt to raise revenue by suing people who have created anything similar to their game.
If another game company created a game that is pretty much the same thing, and used "scrabble" in the name, would they not be fair game also? If so, then why is the internet and software any different?
And to top it all off, I'm sure with 100,000+ users, he has to be making a few dollars off of it, which gives hasboro even more reason to go after him.
But like it says in the summary, Hasboro should have offered him some sort of a deal, I'm sure there's more to gain from it.
Usually that's not how it works when Jared is using Hasbro's registered mark.
From TFA:
Today I received the letter below via e-mail. It is not clear if I will have to take the site down or not. I am consulting with a lawyer. Please stay tuned.
IANAL, but, you're screwed pal. AFAICT, you used their board layout and their layout. You shouldn't be worried about if you will have to take the site down. You should be worried about whether your setttlement with them is going to bankrupt you.
Translation: You give Us the rope to hang you with.
Advice: I'd immediately refuse that "offer" on the basis of my Constitutional rights against self-incrimination.
Thought: Does Hasbro have the same lawyers as SCO?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Scrabble is like Chess or checkers, no one should own it any more. It's as much in the public domin as fresh air and penguins! This is ridiclous..
I like muppets.
>Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue him
Actually Jared should lease the name Scrable from Hasbro then charge his users to cover that fee...at least that's how the real world works.
Having the domain name e-scrabble.com was just asking for trouble...
Yeah, right. Maybe in a reasonable world.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Compare Hasbro's behavior on this matter to what german boardgame companies do about online boardgames. Websites likeBSWlet you play dozens of boardgames, using the original rules and art, at no cost and without any ads. Why? playing boardgames online is a poor subsitute to playing face to face. Many people, me included, like to visit websites like this to try the games out. If the game is any good, I buy the game to play at social gatherings with my friends. Who is not going to buy a scrabble board because you can play online?
Some companies, like Days of Wonder, let you play their games for free in their own website!. Hasbro should learn from this, and enter into a license agreement with eScrabble. For example, let the site use the trademark in exchange of having eScrabble link promintently to the Hasbro online store, where users could by a RL version of Scrabble. This kind of agreements are not unheard of, and only help both parties.
For copyright infringement, yes that's the case. However, you have to actually do trade with a trademark to maintain your claim to it.
Why would Hasbro pay Jared? What are they getting out of it exactly?
He ate the Scrabble chips and lost weight.
As long as he mentions on his site that he is clearly not affiliated, isn't that enough?
Alternatively, introduce a scheme where all "official" logos must have a large visible Trade Mark symbol. Fans can copy away but people know a site is not official by noticing the lack of TM anywhere on the main page or on the title.
Does reading something like this make anyone else here sick to the stomach? The basic premis here is that Hasbro assumes people are too stupid to tell the difference between a knock-off and the original. And for that reason, this person's work has to be destroyed. Furthermore, the part that really felt like a kick to me, this somehow makes the domain useless to the original owner and he must therefore hand it over to Hasbro. Meanwhile, this is all as if nobody ever thought of crossword puzzles before.
This nonsense will be the end of all progress in society as we know it. The only proper response to this travesty is for 100 similar scabble games to pop-up to replace this one. For each of those that get taken down, 100 more.
Why bother.
Only now? A year?
Give me a break. A year is not a long time for a site to be running and gain enough of a following to prompt the attention of the corporation to the point where they realize "This is signficantly infringing on the rights we have to the game we invested in, and thus have a continued interest in protecting the value of," consider their options, and then organize a lawful approach to the situation.
Authors of the "e-Microsoft" and "e-Slashdot" comments above hit the nail right on the head, and as much as they deserve their "+5 Insightful", it makes me wish there was a "+5 Commonsense".
If you would like to see legal action like this stop, why not drop some change to someone who might fight back? Perhaps if enough financial support appears, the site's maintainer might actually be willing to challenge this.
Remember: we will always lose to the corporations if we fail to put our words into action. In most of these situations, action means money.
Why bother.
I don't get it!
Seriously. Back in 1995 I had a website up on my schools computer that was for Connect Four. I got calls from Hasbro's lawyers. Of course, once they found out that I didn't make any money on it they stopped returning my calls.
1000 games played per day in 1995/1996 was pretty good web traffic. The site got its URL published in a kids magazine, complete with a sticker. Great fun.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
how bout someone change their name to scrabble so they have a legit use for the site and say it's a his personal site... although the game itself can't be on there... that's another copyright issue... man... y'know, the owner of that site shoulda consulted a lawyer BEFORE doing something stupid... not after...
The real Jeopardy folks came along, and sooner than you can say "I'll take `Frivolous Lawsuits` for $100, Alex" they ordered #jeopardy to stop.
The #jeopardy folks changed a few names, called it #Risky Business (or #riskybus ?) and kept going for a while longer. You can see it here. The screen on the page looks rather Jeopardy-like. So far, I think they have avoided frivolous lawsuits from Tom Cruise.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Of course it really should have 2 t's
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Is everyone else done with the Subway jokes?
Having never used eScrabble myself, I cannot attest to how good it is. But as to Why would Hasbro pay Jared? What are they getting out of it exactly?:
Well, they get an online version of their *really good* board game, without having to hire coders to write it. This online version shows people who've never played the game how much fun it is. It tells them it exists because of the ads that would be splotched all over the page "Like this version? Buy the board game and play with your technophobic friends!"
He not only copied Hasbro's game, but he also used a name trademarked by the copyright holders of the game, and made money off their hard work. Hasbro should sue Jared, they should not allow a settlement out of court, they should go ALL THE WAY, and go for a judgment in the tens of millions of dollars. That way, Jared can never get out of the hole, the little fucktard should have thought of what he was doing instead of just doing it, so now he should pay the consequences for the rest of his miserable life by giving his whole god-damned paycheck over to Hasbro until he fucking dies.
So we can make the lawyers rich? No thanks. He's in a better position without the money. Then Hasbro has nothing to gain by suing him.
It amazes me how otherwise-intelligent people can be so incapable of grokking a few basic legal principles. "Scrabble" is a trademark; only the holder of that trademark gets to use it. Sure there are some nuances to deal with, but at its heart it's a pretty simple and obvious rule. This Jared fella's an idiot to violate it, apparently not even trying to find an imaginative way around it. And the submitter of this article's an idiot for not understanding that.
I know it's cool to complain about how the law always sticks it to the little guy, but trademark law isn't just there to benefit corporations. It may not mean much in this case, but usually it benefits consumers too: it's how you know that "iPod" you bought is really going to live up to Apple's rep for good engineering. Be careful what you whine.
And that editorial comment about how Hasbro should pay this guy - for writing software and operating a site that's obviously designed to cut into the sales of their board sets! - is simply no-brain-engaged stupid. Yeah, maybe they should offer him a job. But maybe he should have had the sense to suggest that to them in the first place, and to take "no" for an answer and work around their legal rights, rather than instead painting a big "sue me" bulls-eye on his forehead.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Hasbro is a nasty nasty company when it comes to the web. Look at all the mess they made with clue computing at www.clue.com.
Hasbro is local company to us. It's just north of me in Beverly, MA. I live somewhere south. Anyways, why can't Hasbro just offer to buy out eScrabble. Keep the free users and then make a plus version that requires some $$? That seems much more smarter. Companies still dont seem to get the message. Don't stamp it out, join with it.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
Yeah, just ask Clue Computing!
Jory
that has happened to at least two actual slashdot-based sites.
:P )
Like that "slashpost" site hosted on geocities. It was funny.
Greatest quote: "I started this site because I got tired of my stories getting rejected on slashdot".
(No comments
I don't think it's possible to fit a 11-letter word on a scrabble board without hitting at least one premium spot.
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
Give me the Hasbro website having online scrabble, and I'll believe you.
The guy is clearly an inventor. He got a good idea and made it better. After all, the "e-" in "e-Scrabble" ain't for nothing!
Hasbro may have invented Scrabble. But Scrabble ONLINE...? I don't think so.
Lindows was found to be NOT infringing trademark. So, Microsoft sued them in Sweeden, on the grounds that Sweedish users could go to the site too. Microsoft lost, again. Then Microsoft sued them in Germany, over the same issue, and lost, again. Next microsoft sued them in the Netherlands and didn't even bother telling them about it, so they didn't turn up to the court and Microsoft won by default (apparently posting a notice in the local paper is sufficient in the Netherlands). Almost certainly it would be overturned on appeal.
But, how many countries does Microsoft have offices in? How much would it cost to win the same lawsuit again, and again, and again? So, they settled with Microsoft paying them around $20M to change their name.
Trademarks on generic words are extremely weak.
Whoever wrote the page at http://home.teleport.com/~stevena/scrabble/legal/i ssues.html seems to think that the quoted case shows that online gameplay should be allowed under US fair use laws (I don't think it would be allowed in UK law though).
s html.
... if you could find original documents and copy those instead of copying the later protected documents/works. Bit hard though!
P ublic_Domain.htm they suggest that it's possible that Scrabble is in fact in the public domain, you'd need to check the copyright renewal details. Otherwise it seems we have about 40 years to wait for Open Scrabble.
s no=71570633 (original number is 524505).
The infringement of the trademark would be a problem though so a domain name change (howabout the letters of scrabble, scrabbled??) would appear to be in order.
Some info on the history of scrabble is at http://www.seniorcenterinc.org/programs/scrabble.
This site is quite thorough on the history http://www.scrammble.com/historyscrabble.html.
It seems that Scrabble was actually invented in 1933 which could be a way around the patent and copyright issues
If you look at sites like http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_
I'd ask for details of how it is protected. No patent numbers are given for the applications. I think you should be allowed to use any details in the 1948 patent (? various sites say it was copyrighted and/or patented 1st December 1948) in accordance with whatever copyright notice it carries. But IANAL nor a US IP Judge.
Peace.
PS: The TRADEMARK details are here http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=tm&
If they did that, nobody would hit their site and generate ad revenue, when they pop onto Google and type in "Scrabble".
I can see it now:
"e-(something other than Scrabble).com: The Online Scrabble(R)[TM]-Compatbile Word Game."
I thought of a possibly good word(s) for (something other than Scrabble) in the domain name, but I decided not to put it here so it wouldn't be scarfed up [possibly by Hasbro]. Perhaps I'll send it to the e-scrabble.com guy, in case he wants or needs it.
My temporary tag for this thread: IANAL, and all applicable disclaimers apply.
Tag lost or not installed.
C&D does not mean you have to comply with 'random j laywer' - it just means you 'may' need to stop doing what you are doing. Nothing more, nothing less.
This guy would be wise to give nothing! Might also be wise to shut down the site, or at least change the name and a few graphics.
I'd wait for the lawyer to knock on my door, or send me the certified mail. I doubt they would email me a c/d order. Doesn't seem as if its too offical of a way to coresspond a legal matter. just my 2cents.
So I looked at my tiles and added three of them to a word already on the board. The result: HASBROKEN
From the TFA: "Because the e-Scrabble URL is of no use to you, it should be transferred to Hasbro." Well, that;s one way to do it.
Just for kicks I sent an e-mail to Hasbro asking them to consider a Win-Win situation. (Is that likely in a corportaion that makes Win-Lose games?) I would say, looking at their website, that Hasbro is big and impersonal.
I noticed that they didn't neglect to ask for all my personal information. I suppose I'll be receiving a ton of snail mail now.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Except that the law is entirely on Hasbro's side. No amount of money spent on this cause will change the outcome.
Would it be OK with you if Microsoft changed the name of Longhorn to MS Linux? Linus maintains a trademark on Linux so that people know what they're getting when they get something that calls itself "Linux". If you side with Jared, you believe that Linus does not have the right to protect the name Linux from this sort of dilution.
Really, I can understand people being upset with the over-the-top demands made by the lawyers, but Jared brought this on himself by knowingly infringing the Scrabble trademark. As so many have pointed out, if Hasbro doesn't defend their trademark against any infringement they are aware of, they will lose it forever.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm sure a slashdotter has the technical skills and foolhardy determination to decentralize the game among all the users. let hasbro sue that!
Scrabble is a dictionary English word. Apparently it's trademarkable regardless. Anyone know what other criteria the USPTO considers?
Look out, he's an an "abc's rebel"!
It would be like starting up a new websoftware company called eMicrosoft. OO i wonder who would sue me then!
Your being scared of MS would come from living in the US and hosting your site in the US.
If you were a Chinese hosting a site in China, things would be different. China barely recognizes patents, copyrights and trademarks; and you could imagine changing hosts, owner and country -- say... Russia or some random African state -- every so many years to make things even more complicated.
In such a setup, Hasbro would have gotten so much mockery and difficulty to come to their ends that they may have reconsidered their decision to sue in the first place. Just a thought.
Maybe you're right, maybe this site DOES increase sales of the Official Board Game.
But that's not known for sure, and the argument sounds like the same one for justifying free downloading of copyrighted music: it supposedly increases sales, and the record companies should be happy about it.
It looks like a weak argument for blatant (if perhaps not intentional or without any desire to cause harm) violation of trademark and copyright (of the board layout if not the rules). In such cases the ruling is for the letter of the law, not for the spirit (to push the metaphor, in this case the spirit is weak). If you consider these bad laws (and in this case I might even agree they're bad), then write your congresscritters to get them changed.
Tag lost or not installed.
Hasbro certianly has enough money to just buy eScrabble completely. It would avoid this negative press their getting here on slashdot which is quite widespread.
Plus they would get good coverage and possibly profits, if they bought the company rather than sue it. I'm even less of a fan of hasbro games.
THis is only a test.
For someone to sue companies for using polygons? It seems like there's so many brown-nosing scumbags out there that wait until something's great and popular before they strike. This just in, SCO sues everyone that has a '0' and a '1' in their coding.
I play Scrabble regularly over the web using the Internet Scrabble Club's Java client. I've used it under Windows, Linux, and Java. It's got some tics, but it's not bad. I wonder whether Hasbro will get on their ass about it as well.
It is these retroactive copyright laws that Eldred was arguing to the Supreme Court created perpetual copyrights, in variance with the U.S. Constitution that called for a "limited time".
He should offer to sell Hasbro the domain for some ungodly sum of money and offer to include the source for free. No fuss no muss.
Except that the law is entirely on Hasbro's side. No amount of money spent on this cause will change the outcome.
Sure it could. If the money was spent on lobbyists, working to get the law changed. Yes, it would take a $hit-load of $$$$, but we know from history that enough $$$ can buy ANYTHING from Congress.
Would it be OK with you if Microsoft changed the name of Longhorn to MS Linux? Linus maintains a trademark on Linux so that people know what they're getting when they get something that calls itself "Linux".
Honestly, anybody stupid enough to be confused by that deserves what they get. Consumers do have some obligation to study, research, investigate, etc. the products and services they buy. One can't expect to have somebody else protect you from every malady that could befall you.
If you side with Jared, you believe that Linus does not have the right to protect the name Linux from this sort of dilution.
A good product (like Linux) would prevail regardless of any "name dilution." Let Microsoft call their crap what they will. "A rose by any other name" and all that.
He goes and looses all that weight by eating those sandwiches, becomes a celebrety, gets a few commercials under his belt, and then gets his ass sued off.
Just when he was starting to turn things around!
... I'll add s-u-i-t to your word l-a-w, and on a triple word score, that gives me... All your money.
RLU 180035, get yourself counted at http://counter.li.org
if you can forfeit your turn to instead draw more letters to form the words "greedy fucking capitalist prick". hahaaa.. naw I'm kidding. Even communist lawyers are pricks. So the dude copied the game, the name, the rules and all. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a Scrabble Subscription Service on iTunes one of these days after they assimilate his ass. Maybe mikey can offer some help. http://www.mikerowesoft.com/
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
"e-Scrabble be back in 60 seconds.
A server upgrade is in progress."
I've hit reload a couple times in the last few minutes, so it's taking a bit longer than 60 sconds. I presume this is a protective measure, to prevent getting a serious slashdotting and some big bandwidth bills.
Good news (for all who want to read it), this link with the cease-and-desist letter still works:
http://www.e-scrabble.com/desist.html
Tag lost or not installed.
I almost posted this story earlier, but guess what? There was no Google cache of the C&D page. I decided to continue playing instead. Thanks for bringing the site to it's knees though.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
i hadn't heard of the website until slashdot mentioned it on their front page a week ago
3 4&tid=217
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/13/23132
way to go slashdot you killed it
We slashdotted e-slashdot!
Serves them right.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
The founders sure had a lot of clever ideas that have been completely forgotten along the way, and usually for the sake of making a buck. Actually, pretty pointless to worry about it, but I think if he were writing the Constitution now, Jefferson would have explicitly specified that "limited time" did not mean "forever or as long as we can milk two more cents out of the original creativity, whichever comes first." After careful reflection, he probably would have said that software patents should last about 6 months. Remember that the goal was to *ENCOURAGE* creativity, not to create an ironclad system to stifle it.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Class D: people who don't understand something but lecture other people about understanding.
Congrats, you're a class D.
"Because the e-Scrabble URL is of no use to you, it should be transferred to Hasbro."
Why didn't they just write:
"All your e-Scrabble are belong to us?"
That probably not trademarked.
Oh horseshit.
The game scrabble has a long history of legal defense. Hasbro's FAQ is very clear about the point. The guy just turned around and created a raw duplicate of a copywritten and patented game, and put it on the web in direct competition with Hasbro. I guarantee he never asked Hasbro permission. This isn't the first time Hasbro has said "cut it out." They haven't asked for any damages, they haven't asked for any of the money that this guy collected on their game, and they haven't asked for the registration data of any of the people which paid for a game that they own, all of which Hasbro has the rights to.
At what point does something become Jared's fault? What does he have to do to be in the wrong? Stealing a defended design and making money on it for a solid year doesn't make him a thief? I mean, so what if it took Hasbro some time to notice? That means they're supposed to just give things away? You think it's Hasbro's responsibility to scour the web every day looking for someone flaunting their right to retain their own materials?
So okay. I'm gonna put a monopoly game up. Doesn't matter that Hasbro says they won't allow that. Doesn't matter that I'm not going to ask them. I'm just going to copy their copyright without any pretense at all, and collect money and users on it, doing significant damage to Hasbro's trademarks and causing a minor blip (horseshit - hundreds of thousands of users) in their finances.
When it takes them six months to notice, and then they turn around and tell me no in the kindest and most forgiving possible legally enforcable way, I'm going to go crying to slashdot, and get an editor to tell the world that Hasbro should be paying me to steal their copyrights, their users, and their money.
It's like you guys aren't even trying to be honest anymore. Big corporation? THEIR FAULT. It doesn't matter that this guy didn't even bother to change any text on the board, that he's not even trying to hide the theft on which he's making assloads of money. No, Hasbro is daring to defend their trademark, which they have to do or else kenner and parker brothers can start making Scrabble too, and so when Hasbro says "hey cut it out" and doesn't ask for any of their money, somehow they're being bastards.
And when I bust into your house and take all your things while you're on vacation and it takes you a week to notice, and you go to the cops and ask me to stop stealing, but don't ask for your things back or for me to go to jail, I'll be sure to go to slashdot and tell them what a bastard you are that I was allowed to take the things in your home for an entire week and now they want me to start not being a thief.
Grow up.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
(It's also the best online Scrabble game I've seen; Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue him.)
That's a pretty stupid comment. Hasbro should sue his ass off. Hasbro has every right to stop people from ripping off their clients. You have no idea if they had a website in the wings, that suffered harm from the clone site.
In reality, Jared should have approached Hasbro when his product was fledging and asked for a business deal. But Jared got greedy.
Standard OSS attitude.
First Subway, now Scrabble .... This Jared kid has legs!
Free subs?
I think Hasbro are perfectly within their rights to shut down this site. The guy who runs it wasn't thinking straight when he decided to clone another companies product, use their trademark, copy their copyrighted board design, etc. That was just dumb.
HOWEVER, the fact that Hasbro left it so long without doing anything about it is pretty dubious.
There is no reason why a company who actually cares about protecting their copyrights, trademarks and patents shouldn't have one of their employees type each of their trademarked names into Google once a week and send cease & desist notices out promptly as soon as infringing sites appear.
What sucks here is that the site has been running for so long - so many people have invested time and effort into it (and others come to love it) - presumably on the basis of "Hasbro clearly approve of this or they'd have shut it down already".
There can be no morally sound reason not to protect your IP immediately. The reasons NOT to do so are purely sneaky business tactics like letting some guy build up a huge following for a web site - then taking it away and using it to advertise.
However, the law allows this kind of thing - so we get this kind of deliberately delayed reaction appearing all over the IP world. The law should not allow it - but then IP law is so unbelievably screwed up, this is one of the lesser evils.
www.sjbaker.org
Hasbro already has an online version of scrabble at play.games.com.
It has its pros and cons, but works fine for me.
And just in case the minimal text-only page at that site STILL gets slashdotted, I reproduce it here:
/. article you're reading].
-----
greetings, Slashdot readers.
Due to a huge number of visitors coming in from the site Slashdot.org, e-Scrabble games are temporarily unavailable.
The article in question is here [the
The cease-and-desist page is here.
-----
There's a few older "this site is offline for maintenance" messages in the source for that page that I've thoughtfully left out.
Tag lost or not installed.
From the law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, LLP I wonder if they're affiliated with Dewey Cheatum and Howe?
I understand the Trademark on Scrabble is probably still valid, and maybe that is all they are defending.
But shouldn't any copyright on the game be expired by now?
Never mind, I just checked the real site and see it has only been around since 1948. Not quite forever, yet.
Never mind.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I've never heard of e-scrabble before, but I've been playing scrabble on quadplex for the last couple of months.
http://quadplex.com/
As of yesterday, they've started charging people to play online. It sounds like Jared's answer may be to relocate the game to a country other than the U.S. and Canada.
That will keep them going for a while more.
They just went live too. Seriously, now that there is a place to go, they want eveyone to go THERE and pay instead of somewhere else. All for money:P
Not that the trademark isn't a valid issue, just posably the reason for doing it now, instead of then.
And only a year ago did e-Scrabble steal the property of Hasbro. Some guy stole my car a year ago and only now have the police broken up the theft ring -- that poor thief is being stomped on by the police.
it always seems a tragedy when a big corporation stomps its heavy foot on a fledgling but very successful piece of web software that is close to many people's heart
ya, i know ... every little guy should be able to steal stuff from any big guy. I don't know why ... it just seems like it should be a rule ... because it warms my heart.
's also the best online Scrabble game I've seen; Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue him
If Jared's so smart, then he should apply a little wisdom towards an effort that is all his own. It's easy to make money off somebody else's ideas, but to come up with your own is another story.
That's fairly apt. Since I started playing e-Scrabble with a friend last year, she's bought (us) a couple of Scrabble dictionaries, at least one book about scrabble, and a new scrabble game set. We're playing live and on-line, whereas I had not played in years, prior to this.
Like you could do hl2 in java
go on, bite !!! go on!!!
Dear Hasbro:
Fuck off.
Regards,
e-scrabble.com
Hasbro's wrong, even if they're in the right legally. Jared isn't making any money running the eScrabble site, so there won't be any actual damages for Hasbro to claim. Hasbro used to have an e-scrabble game, but they stopped supporting it. They should offer Jared a license at a reasonable price, and all of us devoted users of the site should pony up a bit to help pay it.
If Hasbro aren't willing to set up some a good online Scrabble themselves, they should shut their piehole!
But since Hasbro owns the copyright, then Jared's game is derivative, and thus Hasbro already owns it (if their contention is correct, as it probably is). That be like me stealing your car, and then you paying me to use it.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Almost everyone takes the side of the big corporation against the coder...
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
There are some policy questions one might ask. Should game designs really be protected indefinitely? Should electronic versions of games infringe on their original versions?
But right now, Hasbro seems to be within its rights, and they could face problems if they don't stop this. So, I don't see why they are being criticized for this action.
Methinks the submitter of this story has no concept of what ownership means. Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble - period. But you can be damned sure the slashbots would be irate if the tables were turned and some corporation was claiming open source software belonged to them - oh, wait...
It made Disney look like a bunch of heartless bastards, and HB look like saviors.
Disney, if I recall correctly, was a major supporter of the copyright extension act. If I had kids, I would FORBID the purchase of anything that has Disney's name on it.
Dear inhumanly rude and obnoxious lackeys,
...
RE: YOUR SHRILL DEMANDS
I DEMAND that you go jump in a lake.
If you wish to correspond with me, you will do so in a civil and courteous manner. Any future correspondence from you which fails to be civil and polite will be immediately ignored and discarded without any further action.
yours sincerely,
J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, own the Scrabble copyright everywhere other than USA/Canada.
And Mattel own them. Maybe they're a benvolant bunch of e-scrabble fans.
.
.
.
.
Maidenhead, heh heh...
That's what's happening with City of Heroes. Marvel is suing on the basis that, with their generic engine, they can build and play Marvel characters.
(n/t)
Bullshit. I lived in Gainesville (FL) when that happened. The preschool was on the bacon strip out NE 16th Ave. And yes, it was massively bogus of the Mouse people. I prefer the HB characters anyway.
This was just a local nursery, and folks, there was no threat to Disney's trademarks. It was free advertising for the Mouse, something that Hanna Barbera apparently had the smarts to understand---and take advantage of.
The nursery did not use the Disney name, did not use the characters as advertising, etc. They simply had them painted on the outside walls to amuse the kiddies (and nauseate people like me).
Back to the main topic: Sounds as if Hasbro should do something about that case of recto-cranial inversion, make Jared a good offer for both the site, the software, and hire him at a good salary to keep running it. Then everyone can be happy!
Happy Hump Day,
Mal the Elder
Still suffering from
Post
Election
Stress
Trauma?
If Hasbro actually brings suit, it will come out in discovery anyway.
OTOH, it might be a good idea to disclose it now if it might satisfy Hasbro that Jared wasn't profiting from the site (assuming he wasn't, if he was it's a different story). They might decide that merely halting the site is enough, and not go through with a lawsuit.
This is why it's important to talk to a lawyer about these matters.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
But since Hasbro owns the copyright, then Jared's game is derivative, and thus Hasbro already owns it.
Ah, but Jarad's game is not *soley* a dervitive of Hasbro's IP. The actual source code that impliments the game is owned by Jared. Hasbro can't use it with Jared's permission. And because it impliments a game design owned by Hasbro, Jared can't use it without Hasbro's permission.
1. sigh.
2. morally, copying something is not the same as taking the original.
3. if modern ip laws had existed at the dawn of civilization, most of us would be illiterate and living in blank walled caves eating poisonous plants.
4. sigh.
I still don't understand that retroactive extension. Did Congress not even discuss it? Lessig makes a pretty good argument against it in Free Culture.
Actually.. I wonder.. Does the US Congress keep transcripts dating back to then? More usefully to me, does it keep them online? It might be an interesting read on a rainy weekend.
hasbro didnt even invent scrabble. they guy who did is probably dead and gone (or is one old son of a bitch) and they're still making money on it? if they're manufacturing and selling scrabble boards, fine. but why do they get to be the sole distibutor of scrabble? if i started making scrabble boards and selling them to people, why the fuck should they care? if i write a scrabble program that lets people play scrabble over the internet, why the fuck should they care, and why the fuck do they get to shut me down?
The copyright on Scrabble expired in 1959. If Hasbro's lawyers have a problem with that... they can just come over to my apartment and give me head.
Introducing Blescrab, the dylexic scrabble game. Immune from trademark disputes everywhere!
(thankyou Andrew Denton)
The copyright aspects are a bit harder to dodge. According to the letter, the rules and board are subject to copyright. According to Wikipedia, the current rules and board were created in 1948. While this means that Scrabble is copyrighted for a long while yet, however the rules are simple to memorise and the board and pieces are also very simple. How much different would a derivative need to be to pass muster?
I'd like to see the site promote a free and open word tile game that is remarkably like Scrabble, to the point that people play that rather than one person's proprietary version. The inceident and resulting potential for publicity could be a great opportinity for e-scrabble to promote and give away the new game (ala Lindows).
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Why would Hasbro pay Jared? What are they getting out of it exactly?
They could have bought the game from Jared for far less than it would have cost to develop using their in-house "professional" developers, and Jared could have made what would probably be a shit-load of money for himself. Pretty simple concept. What part of it are you having trouble with, exactly? Too many big words, maybe?
It's in my dictionary.
bullshittery n.
n. pl. bullshitteries
1. An establishment for the manufacture of manure. See bullshit.
n. Slang
1. A marketing agency
2. Fox News
Wow, a Your Rights Online issue that my mom cares about more than me!
Or she would if she knew about it.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Scrabble is a registered trademark owned in the United States and Canada by Hasbro, Inc., and in Great Britain and everywhere else in the world, by J.W. Spear & Sons PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel.
Selchow & Righter, listed as the US owner on many of your boards, was bought -- in good health -- in 1986 by Coleco, which shortly went into bankruptcy due to the collapse of the market for their Cabbage Patch dolls. Coleco also led itself to bankruptcy in 1987 by losing a fortune on the Adam home computer flop, and the unexpected (to them) slowdown in Trivial Pursuit sales. (Trivial Pursuit was marketed in the US by Selchow & Righter). Scrabble was sold off to Milton Bradley, which was in turn gobbled up by Hasbro. Hasbro since has transferred Scrabble to its Parker Brothers division, itself a fierce Milton Bradley competitor before its absorption.
In North America, Hasbro needs it to appear that the public thinks that the term Scrabble refers to any game or related product Hasbro cares to label that way, while the popular board game is "Scrabble Crossword Game." Most people -- including Hasbro's own publication before their lawyers clamped down -- use the term Scrabble to refer to the game itself. To most, it is "the crossword game Scrabble" (although the "crossword game" part is far from almost everyone's mind), rather than "the Scrabble Crossword Game."
The magazine Financial World (July 8, 1996, p. 65) estimated the value of the Scrabble brand to Hasbro as $76 million, and 1995 sales under that brand at $39 million.
The scrabble at the UK site PixiePit is fantastic and is actually hosted in a European country out of the reach of Hasbro's lawyers.
The unreasonable part is that Scrabble was developed in the 1920s and was first published in 1948. That's over 50 years ago. It has become a part of the western cultures, and should be in the public domain.
Granting copyright protection to the game does no longer help to "advance the progress of science and the useful arts to benefit the public".
How many points does the word "lawsuit" get in Scrabble?
Then, you turned stupid. DAMNED stupid.
Well... try to give kurnik.{org,pl} a slashdotting.
This site started from exactly the same thing this article is about. Marek Futrega (my roommate at the time) made an implementation of Scrabble in Java.
Soon, he received a cease-and-desist letter from Cronix (basically Hasbro Poland). What he did, was renaming the game from "Szkrable" to "Literaxx" and changing the copyrighted board to a similar version. This made him compliant with both trademark and copyright laws.
Now, his site is the biggest Central European (or perhaps even European) gaming site with a crapload of other games in 11 languages.
The cease-and-desist in Polish can be found close to the bottom of "Old news".
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
(presumably) - because he was not making money from it. No ads. No fees.
Have you played the official versions of scrabble available for the PC? The 2003 edition was horrid, playable yes but a good game with a easy and understandable interface its not. The 2005 edition looks to be much the same :/
Probably all this jumping down peoples throats when they try and write them which scares would be game developers off ever learning how to program board games properly.
So, the guy should invent a new game; I think a version of JumpNBump could be described as 'scrabbling about'; and post that to his web site instead. I might help with design, coding, or test skills.
Fortunately you cannot patent 'method of teaching the English Language'. I think.
The rest of us should take a copy of the Hasbro letter and frame it; and keep it as a reminder of what happens when you spend yout ten bucks (or whatever it is) on products from that company.
There's plenty of alternatives.
Very good AC. The law hangs sometines on fine distinctions, and it's no wonder the majority get it wrong here.
"The reason that you're having difficulty is that you're not being pointed at the law, just a snippet of the law."
A similiar tactic is used when quoting religious texts.
Hasbro has a long history of being evil.
A friend of mine registered a particular domain name that happened to also be a Hasbro game.
It came as no surprise that Hasbro contacted him and he never really wanted to screw with them. Yet, their attitude was 100% "fuck you, fuck you entirely, we will eat you alive, we don't give a shit" regardless of the fact that there had been zero attempt at diluting the value of their IP [the domain was never live for a reason].
There was zero attempt to be polite or civil. We even contacted Hasbro's corporate office and talked with an executive who basically said-- very politely-- that they have zero interest in trying to work with any external parties, regardless of the quality of the ideas, and that they would rather destroy than acquire or partner with "offenders". Corporate policy.
We are counsel for Hasbro, Inc. (Hasbro), the owner of the copyrights and trademarks in the United States and Canada
There are some web hosting possibilities here in Europe...
the name of the game is "Scrabble" not "eScrabble".
If it was in the corporate font, there may be a stronger case, but not by much.
Hasbro has the trademark on scrabble.
This bloke has a game called e-scrabble. eTunes is not a trademark of Apple, iTunes is.
e-scrabble is fine.
Lets try this:
mikerowesoft.com trademarked to MS?!?!
The "Shredded Wheat" case stands for the principle that a name used to identify the invention in an expired patent is generic i.e. cannot support a trademark. If Scrabble was named in a patent that is now expired, then e-scrabble should be able to use the name freely, since the name is part of the invention that reverted to the public after the patent term. IAAL, but this is recollection from IP class 20 years ago. But the theory should be checked out.
If they did patent Scrabble originally, then the name fell into the public domain when the patent expired. It is also GENERIC for trademark purposes, so it can never be taken from the public domain. The "Shredded Wheat" case established this in about 1923. A patent is a bargain with the public ... a limited monopoly, and in exchange the public gets FULL RIGHTS when the patent expires. An important right is the right to the name.
The above is quoted from the Scrabble FAQ, which also has some discussion of legal issues related to Scrabble.
Seems to me that if e-Scrabble just buys a few Scrabble sets, one for every concurrent virtual board in play, they would be perfectly entitled to run their remote playing service.
Just take the rules, add "over internet" to it and sue hasbro.
We had a similar incident in Sweden a couple of years ago, with a privately created online Scrabble(tm) game. He also got a C&D letter (from Mattel, I think they own the UK rights?) but in his case I think it was enough to change the name. The bad news is he started charging people to play it :/ Fortunately, a few months later the free version surfaced and now I'm happily wasting lots of time juggling letters.
It's a very foolish business decision.
The website is the best free advert anyone could hope for.
Personally I would have subverted the site or changed the letter to say `include adverts or decist`.
Then again, they got publicity by doing this. If they were to back down now they could have the best of both worlds.
A blog I run for the wealth
See the filing at http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&e ntry=76370539 It states first use was on 19th August 1997. If you look at http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/c/index6.html there was a game using the name in 1995.
:).
Sounds like "Prior Art" to me
Al Sutton
Well, since you mention Pepsi Cola vs Coca Cola - I always wondered why Pepsi got away with using a similar name - I guess there must have been variants of "Cola" out there when Coca Cola entered the business.
Imagine chess had been invented in our times, and trademarked, then no-one could use the word "chess" to sell a chess set. It is kind of worrying that common culturals stock can become 0wn3d by big business this way. Just consider that the workaround would be to privately rename every game: "Uh, chess? We call it 'wuyallix' here."
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
The page says 1985, guess it's very prior art :).
Al Sutton
Fpenooyr!
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Let's say I set up a lemonade stand in your front yard. And I'm doing really good business because it is great lemonade. Shouldn't you pay me to leave? After all, you were not selling any lemonade and you were not using the grass, it was just sitting there empty. Why shouldn't I be able to use your corner lot? It's a great location and you were not using it! Just think of the positive effect I'm having on the economy.
I don't know, I don't really see a possibility of confusion between the names "Coca Cola" and "Pepsi Cola". I mean, really, can you imagine someone ordering a Pepsi by mistake instead of a Coke? (That is, if they really wanted a Coke.)
And it's not that unusual that one word is common between two trademarks. E.g., "International Business Machines" and "Commodore Business Machines". Those have two words out of 3 in common, and AFAIK neither sued the other about it.
And likewise, I'd imagine "Kraft Foods" doesn't have a trademark problem with the hundreds of companies having "foods" in their name.
As for the "but what if someone trademarked 'chess'", then it wouldn't really be common cultural stock. It wouldn't be chess. It would be maybe a game with the same rules, but not _the_ game that had millenia to become common cultural stock in the first place.
We probably wouldn't have international chess tournaments, or wouldn't take them seriously, if it was a game invented in 1948. (You don't see much press about, say, Monopoly championships, do you? Or you don't see IBM making a fuss that their super-computers won a pokemon tournament. In fact, I doubt that they'd even consider entering their computer in one.)
I also see no problem with "workarounds", as you call them, to avoid infringing on someone's property. I'll stick to games for these examples, since we are talking about Scrabble.
I don't see any irreversible damage done, for example, by the fact that the couple hundreds RPG systems aren't called "D&D". Au contraire, if anything, I see that it just proves my point that progress and innovation are in the exact opposite direction than whining about how one should be allowed to steal the others' work. Those people didn't just think of a new name, but actually sat down and made a different RPG system. Some good, some awful, most in between, but on the whole it did help more than if everyone was free to clone D&D and write "D&D" on their box.
Or I see no fundamental damage done by the fact that MTG was trademarked and copyrighted. Again, whoever wanted to cash in on the collectible card game madness, just sat down and designed their own game. And so we got Pokemon, which in turn spawned Digimon and a bunch of other near-clones. Is there any fundamental problem there? Not really. Everyone has no problem understanding that they're (A) collectible stuff games, but (B) different games. And if you're into that kind of games, you have a lot more choice than if everyone just copied the MTG cards.
So the problem is...?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Patents only last for 14 years
Are you in the states? Our patents last for 20 years, ever since, like, about some 15 years ago. The first 20-year patents haven't expired yet, I think.
Don't tell Coke I told you their secrets!!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I'm not sure where this story starts with the stupid, but it certainly does wallow in it. Let's see, for over a year you have blatantly used copyrighted material. You get caught, and instead of just taking down the material, you get indignant about it, and Slashdot backs you up. Huh. Let's count the ways you could have NOT ended up here in the first place.
1. Not used the word Scrabble in reference to your game. (even better, not used a 1 letter difference in the name.)
2. Made a word game with very similar rules that does not use very obvious imitations of the commercial game.
3. Made an ORIGINAL word game
Geez, talk about an easy fix. But NOOOOOOOoo, we better all get self-rightious about this and piss all over Hasbro for not wanting you to copy their game. You do all know that it is in fact, THEIR GAME, right? nobody forgot that did they? of course not, that would be stupid.
grow up.
If only these companies had to prove economic loss before they could bring a case to trial.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Holy Christ on a Crutch! Am i not the only guy that just about shit himself when he read a lawyer actually come right out and tell a private individual "Give my titanic corporation your domain for free."
I mean really. Copyright violation, yeah, sure. I can see that. Maybe. Stupid move on their part, definately. but telling him he's got no use for something he purchasaed... no. no fucking way.
Ol' Jared should reply as such:
For fun and adding fuel to the fire, make sure to email Hasbro and tell them what giant penises they're being at this moment:
Hasbro Toy Media Inquiries Only: 401-727-5318 - gcarvelli@hasbro.com
Hasbro Games Media Inquiries Only: Phone: 413-526-2309 hvantassel@hasbro.com
For Consumer Inquiries: http://www.hasbro.com/pl/page.customer_care/dn/de
Phone: 800-327-8264 (I think it would be nice to call them and let them konw that you'll no longer be a Hasbro customer.)
For those of you that are into serious pencil and paper geekery, be aware that Hasbro is connected with Wizards of the Coast, so you might wanna not buy from them, either.
Also,heres the contact information of that Law Firm:
Their site: http://www.pbwt.com/Contact/index.html
we should proceed to let them know via massively bumped weblogs that we're watching. Go on in and roll around a bit.
Firm Address and Contacts:
Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP
1133 Avenue of the Americas (between 43rd and 44th Streets)
New York, NY 10036-6710
212-336-2000
Fax: 212-336-2222
To contact a specific lawyer, please look them up in the attorney directory. Our administrative directors are listed below:
Marvin J. Brittman - Executive Director - 212-336-2950 - mjbrittman@pbwt.com
Donna M. Abramo - Director of Human Resources and Operations - 212-336-2867 - dmabramo@pbwt.com
Michael J. Greis - Director of Finance - 212-336-2122 - mjgreis@pbwt.com
Lisa Smith - Director of Marketing - 212-336-2995 - lsmith@pbwt.com
Patricia L. Hartnett - Legal Assistant Manager - 212-336-2583 - plhartnett@pbwt.com
Christina Belanger - Managing Clerk - 212-336-2747 - cbelanger@pbwt.com
Michael Gasparino - Director of Information Services - 212-336-2665 - mgasparino@pbwt.com
Robin L. Klum - Director of Professional Development - 212-336-2733 - rlklum@pbwt.com
Christina M. Senezak - Head Librarian - 212-336-2930 - cmsenezak@pbwt.com
s'wut i sed.
If he was after $$$, what he could do is:
1. Incorporate ASAP and transfer whatever assets he has to the corporation;
2. Hire a lawyer with some % of the assets;
3. Hire himself as CEO and pay the rest of the assets to himself as salary;
4. Wait for the money to end, then declare the corporation bankrupt;
5. Start a new corporation with a slightly new name, board artwork, and the text of the rules;
6. THEN get slashdotted to transfer his old customer base.
7. At this point he's still got most of his cash, and hasbro has no way of getting their hands on any of it, and his business is still operating.
Thing is, would it have become even socially acceptable, much less common cultural stock, if it was invented in 1948?
Thing is, chess was supposed to be a modern (for that age) wargame. Same as, say, Warhammer 40k or Battletech nowadays.
(Purely for the sake of an unneeded tangent: originally a 4 player game. That's why you have even numbers of every piece, except the king and queen, which originally were two kings. Each of the 4 players started off one edge of the board, with half the pieces. Then eventually they figured out that, in that age before the Internet and online multiplayer, it was a pain to get 4 players together. So each side took two armies, and one king became a "grand vizier". Naming it Queen was a much later medieval invention: back there and then the queen had zero power or rights, but a grand vizier was a very powerful character.)
Look at it this way: if you go out to play Warhammer 40k, you're a "nerd". If you go out to play chess, you're some kind of social or cultural elite.
What's the fundamental difference? That chess wasn't invented in the 20th century, that's all. Chess was already accepted as a socially-acceptable conformist passtime.
So would it really be a problem if chess was invented in 1948 and trademarked? Probably not, because it would fall under the same heading as Warhammer 40k or Battletech: something only nerds do instead of going out and meeting people.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I don't see why they targeted e-scrabble. It's not like he was selling the game on the internet, like other companies are. Why him? If anything he is giving Hasbro free advertisement. I think Hasbro got jealous of how many user he had accumulated. It's kind of weird how Hasbro has singled out the only game on the internet that offers free play, when other websites are selling the software for home computer use and they are not being served with a lawsuit.
And another thing. It's not like Hasbro is going broke. They sell My Little Pony, Star Wars figures, GI JOE, Monopoly, Nerf, Playdoh, and even Disney. Not to mention games that have been aroud for years and years. I don't see the point in stopping the e-scrabble website with this.
I really dont believe that this is trully from hasbro. First lawyers do not use email to tranmit C&D, they use certified mail. Also using the works "Because of no use to you, it should ...." Doesn't sound like something a lawyer would say. They would say "Because scrablle is a copyrighted word by Hasbro, the escrabble will be transferred to hasbro by X date.
Your opinion of the quality of Hasbro CD's is irrelevant and doesn't have a thing to do with their right to sue.
Your silly notion that people ripping off Hasbro are doing it for love is also irrelevant. What they do counts, not why they do it.
Ditto your notion that seeking profit = greed.
Anyone who copies a product like Scrabble but expects not to be sued is naive beyond imagination. Get a clue. Copying someone else's business is just about the best way to be sued.
Sorry if you don't like all this, but most people who make your arguments just want free stuff. The others actually, and incorrectly, believe people operate out of love and altruism.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I support of the guy selling his own Scrabble software in defiance of Hasbro's copyrights, I will be selling a new OS software I call 'Linux'. Licences start at only $100 per workstation. For $200 dollars I will throw in Apache and PHP. For $400 extra I will throw in my software own software OpenOffice.
Yes, in fact, just go to Source Forge. I will sell you any of that software for only $100 per workstation.
You are 'right on' in all that you say. Instead of slash dotting the e-Scrabble site, why not inundate Hasbro with emails complaining about their heavy-handed tactics to ruin a terrific site. When you go to their site, they make you register, but afterwards you get a reply from hasbro@custhelp.com .
He threw out most of their clams, and called them a sham.
The "Cola" in Coca-Cola was named after the kola nut flavoring. Pepsi-Cola never had any real kola nut flavoring, but adopted the same name I guess since they tasted similar. I'm not sure of the legalities, though.
Of course, rather than pay him a shit-load of money for the game, they are probably better off suing him and shutting down his business, and then offering him a tenth of a shit-load for whatever part of the rights to his code the courts don't give them. While his site was operational, he had no incentive to sell for a low price. If they shut it down, they can get a much better deal.
Yes, the game materials are copyrightable.
The U.S. Copyright Office disagrees with you in publication FL108.
Yes, they are copywritten.
Please use the term "copyrighted" rather than "copywritten" because many Slashdot users have a rule of thumb: anybody who uses "copywrite" to mean "copyright" probably knows little about copyright law.
Almost every major board game has been extensively defended [through patent law] ... more recently in the electronic world Tetris, Archon, Bandit Kings of Ancient China and so forth.
Interesting. What is the U.S. patent number on Tetris? All I see when searching the USPTO is a trademark assigned to Elorg.
There. Done. End of Story.
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
Last I heard it was only two. Sweden.
Hang on a mo. I have a scrabble game. You have a scrabble game. Everyone that wants a scrabble game has one. From the Hasbro site: one in three households in the US has a scrabble game.
Any patents on rules and gameplay will have expired eons ago.
Is Jared making loads of cash from this? He is? Well Done Jared! The Hasbro site sucks. The official Scrabble Site sucks. Hasbro have no chance making cash from online scrabble. The word 'Scrabble' is not owned by Hasbro.
I say let Jared be. Jared in innocent! Jared should patent the idea of playing scrabble online and sue Hasbro. Hasbro only have the game coz they got it for a pittnace when the previous owner went bust. All they've managed to do to bring it up to date is release a cpuple of (pretty crummy) CD games. Oh and try to cream the luxury end by reducing the quality of the normal version and bringing out a 'Deluxe' version.
If Jared has 100k players, then changing the possibly copyrighted elements such as colours and logo's should retain the He can tell Hasbro to go blow.
If I want to play scrabble and I own a real game then I should be allowed to play it how I like. Online. Over the phone. By Post. By projecting the board onto Effing Pluto if I want to.
e-Scrabble players UNITE! You can complain by emailing hasbro@custhelp.com Let's inundate them with complaints!
Hasbro does not own worldwide Scrabble rights. Competitor Mattel is the owner in many countries, most notably England.
/. appear and complain it'll be rewritten. (Won't, but a fantatic Tangleworder can dream.)
There are many free online not-quite-Scrabble games. Just far enough off the copyright infringement to mostly avoid the lawyers. There are two problems.
There are quite a few official Scrabble dictionaries. US 2nd, US 3rd (expurgated), US 3rd tournament (no defs, unexpurgated), and goes on from there. There are words valid in UK play (Chambers and otherwise) but not US and vice versa. There are combined dictionaries. A poor dictionary **BREAKS** a word game. Most online word games have truly lousy free or licensed dictionaries. For a competent player it's infuriating playing "cete", "ai", or "qat" and having the word bounce. Some free games like the (Boggle-like) Tangleword(1) at www.playsite.com have solid dictionaries.
More subtle is the balance of the Scrabble board itself, which must be messed with to pass legal muster. Millions of human and computer hours have been spent analyzing ideal play on that board and with Scrabble's letter scores and distribution. It's akin to changing the movement of the rook or the spacing of bases on the diamond. Might get a good game as a result but it'll sure play differently.
(1) Tangleword's round timer requires Microsoft Java. The game is otherwise playable with proper Java. Maybe if a zillion
Feeling so good natured I could drool
I don't know why he didn't just call it e-xwords or something like that.
There actually is a great SCRABBLE game out there, unlike the cdrom versions. I've seen it on various game sites but you can get it right from the developer at http://www.funkitron.com/ Might as well help the developer rather than the game sites.
It has the MAVEN AI that the cdroms have, but has a much better and simpler interface.
So who's got a torrent of the game?
I don't know why he didn't just call it e-xwords or something like that.
If you look at the bark letter from Hasbro, you'll see that the board layout itself is copyrighted. I suppose if e-xwords used a different board layout, it might be okay--but only if Hasbro's laywers don't claim to have a copyright on methods and concepts a la SCO. (Patents can cover methods and concepts, but any patent on Scrabble would have expired decades ago.)
Because of the posting on Slashdot, the escrabble website is all clogged up and us Scrabble junkies can't finish our games before the cease and desist takes place!
(not a coward, just on company time and don't have time to log in. But clearly time to play scrabble!)
Look up "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act"
_ Term_Extension_Act
;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright
95 years and 2019 is not forever but we all know that Senator Orin Hatch is always for sale.
serves Hasbro right. They dragged their feet for years on coming out with a decent Scrabble game. Their first one was horrible, now they have Scrabble online which I don't trust after my bad experiences with previous hasbro software.
What they really ought to do is make him a business proposition. They hire him to maintain and further develop the site, since there is obviously a market for it, and for their cash they get a community of 100.000 players, a system that apparently works already and someone who can drive it on.
You'd have to be pretty daft to not see an opportunity here, but then again, where do you think all the people in the financial sector come from :-).
A company that has exclusive legal rights to a board game is asking somebody else to stop profiting by it.
Jesus H tapdancing Keeeerist, is there _ANY_ legitimate way to protect your property on Slashdot?
At first I looked at this & thought that Hasbro had a pretty good case. The C&D itself certainly presents a prima facie argument. Certainly they do own copyrights on the physical game board and the printed rules that come with every Scrabble game. But then I thought about damages. Here's the thing: It would be absolutely illegal for someone to start making his own scrabble box sets with the name Scrabble on the box and a photocopy of the original rules in the box. So obviously illegal that I'm sure nobody has ever seriously considered trying it. And if Hasbro could successfully argue that they suffered a loss of sales due to this guy's efforts, the case would be closed pretty dern quickly. I think they would fail to prove this charge. Here's why: it would be extremely unlikely that anyone playing online Scrabble DOES NOT also own a physical Scrabble box set. Perhaps they should take a (real, scientific, not online) survey of those 10,000 online users. I bet there would be about 10 who do not currently own a copy of the game. And 3 more who never have. The benefit of playing online, I would argue, is clearly NOT to avoid having to buy the box set. The benefit is that you could be more flexible in when to play, and whom. It's a chat room for people who love the game (I have not seen the pre-Slashdot site). Scrabble players could accomplish the same thing by talking on the phone, on two identical Hasbro-approved boards, like "I placed QUUX vertically connected to your XRAY, Triple Word Score!!". But obviously such game play would suck. He may end up losing this battle, but it's not like he couldn't put up a fight. And just to be a dick I think he should give up the domain name. He PAID for that (I assume). Last thought: it's a damn good thing that Chess is in the public domain. I own a $3 plastic chess set, a ~$20 wooden set, and a $150+ marble set, all from different places. I can legally write my own online chess game with no worries at all. These are Good Things.
We must drive a sword through any hypothesis that is not strictly necessary.
Hasbro(TM)(R)(C)(YMMV) should've just posted the story to /. and let nature run its course.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:LTHUaSakSz8J: www.e-scrabble.com/+e-scrabble&hl=en&client=firefo x-a Google cache of the site in question.
I hadn't seen it posted.
They are getting a product that people like and are willing to pay for. Kind of goes against all you coporatists idea that coporations only exist to make a profit huh?
They would get a product that people liked and are willing to pay for. If the guy was charging to play, then Hasbro is well within their rights to deduct anything he made from what they would pay him. I think if Hasbro does anything else the stockholder should raise holy hell. They are passing up a potential profit stream, isnt this illegal in a publicly traded company? This is why accountants and lawyers should not run companies, they are irrational and unreasonable.
Maybe some of you should consider playing an alternative to Scrabble which is more interesting anyway. http://www.wildwords.us
Exactly; trademarks which become generics because they were not defended lose their protection under trademark law.
If Jared's lawyer has enough chutzpah, he might try claiming that the wretched quality of the electronic versions of Scrabble that Hasbro has produced constitutes de facto neglect of their trademark. Not that I think any judge would consider this arguement for as much as a minute, but it might be worth the try-- at least Hasbro might think about improving their software.
Scrabble is trademarked. While I am not a lawyer, even a layman of modest understanding can see that by having used the variation on the trademark, Jared has placed his legal fight and any prospects for continuing his site's operations in a deep hole. Preventing this sort of thing is one of the primary purposes of trademark law. The fact that Jared has steadily lost money (with donations not even covering bandwidth bills) will probably keep Hasbro from having their lawyers crush him into a bloody pulp, but won't save him from a light flogging.
On the bright side for Jared, SlashDot seems to have unintentionally gotten him to temporarily comply with the takedown request....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
"happily addicted players for over a year now (maybe more)"
I'm fairly certain that over a year would include anything more than one year...
logging off now, maybe sooner.
It's a valid observation, though, and I suppose it does illustrate a few points. Thanks for bringing it up.
See, what I had in mind by "socially acceptable" was more along the lines of "acceptable for adults". As in, you won't see the CEO of a company (unless maybe if the company is Games Workshop itself) playing Warhammer 40k at the club, but chess might be socially acceptable.
High school is a more interesting case, at least in the wester world, because IMHO it's a massive cultural failure. Doing anything even remotely intellectual-like, or god forbid actually being any good at using your brains, is more likely than not to get you ridiculed, ostracized or downright bullied.
(And in more pathological cases even arrested or questioned. Dangerous people those ostracized nerds, apparently. You never know when they'll shoot up the school;)
It doesn't even matter if it's chess or anything else that requires more than one braincell awake. Being a mindless lemming with a cool t-shirt and the latest Brittney Spears is good, using your brains is bad. It's way uncool to have a brain.
Also, well, chess happens to fall under the heading of "stuff that adults do". You won't catch a cool teenager touching that stuff with a 10 ft pole.
Though that kind of age preconception isn't exclusive to teenagers. It works both ways. A lot of adults won't touch a lot of games with a 10 ft pole (board, table-top and/or video games) if they seem to fall under the heading "stuff for kids."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The funny thing is, the Coca-Cola Company officially insists that the name "Coca-Cola" is just a whimsical piece of alliteration and has (and NEVER had) any relation to the ingredients. This is expediency. The name came from two main ingredients--the coca leaf and the kola nut, which provided cocaine and caffeine, respectively. Both of these are still used in Coca-Cola today; the coca leaf is "decocainized", using a process I'm not familiar with. (They had to change it in the early 20th century because otherwise they would have had to label Coke as a patent medicine, and pay extra taxes. They started denying that cocaine was ever in it later, when it became bad press. If you take the tour of the plant in Atlanta, the tour guides will earnestly tell you that there was NEVER any cocaine in Coca-Cola.)
In Mark Pendergrast's excellent book, For God, Country, and Coca-Cola, he recounts an interview with a higher-up at Coca-Cola who told him that the whole strength of the company lies in the brand. I'm paraphrasing: "I could just tell you the formula, and you could make and sell Coke of your own, even telling people that you're using our formula--and no one would buy it. Because it wouldn't be Coke."
So his argument is that the strength of the product is in the name, the color scheme, and the package design; all of which are trademarked. (Unlike the formula, which is "secret.") Considering the Coca-Cola Company essentially wrote the US trademark laws, I'm not surprised they play to their strengths.
Exactly what "free information" would there be in taking away trademarks? No, really.
I dunno about you, but I quite enjoy the fact that Nescafe is Nestle's trademark. It means that when I go to the supermarket to buy a jar of "Nescafe Classic", chances are it'll actually be just that.
Or when I buy a can of "Pepsi", thanks to that being a trademark, I can have _some_ degree of certainty that there'll actually be Pepsi in the can.
Or when your company buys a "Cisco" router, you can have some degree of certainty that there'll actually be a Cisco router. Or when they buy a "Sun" server, they can have some certainty that it's actually that, and not someone's repackaged old ZX Spectrum.
So taking away those trademarks would make _what_ information free? And how would that benefit society?
Let's picture a word without trademarks. You go to the shop for your favourite brand of coffee. Oops, except everyone would be free to use that brand. If the shop owner wants to grind burnt peanuts and write "Nescafe" on the jar, they're free to. Or you buy a can of "Pepsi" or "Coke", whichever you prefer, and discover that it's some completely unrelated crap that you don't even like the taste of. Etc.
Where's the advantage for the consumer in that? No, seriously.
It seems to me like, if anything, you'd actually have _less_ information in a world without trademarks.
So basically it has nothing to do with "buying into" some concept, it's just a case of thinking for myself. I quite like to know what I buy.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"...We also demand that you provide us with information concerning the extent of your uses of any elements of the SCRABBLE game..."
another words, let's have a look at what you've done so we can use it with our own online version of scrabble...
I guess you have got be careful where your weekend hacking goes, or you could be saving someone bigger than you a developer's salary.
they sunk his scrabbleship?
Cultural/Social elite: "Checkmate."
;)
WH40K player (spewing Mountain Dew): "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE OF KHORNE!"
Right, the time of conception is the reason chess is held in a different light than WH40K.
Minor correction: Monopoly is not patented. Hasbro stole the game and attempted to patent it, but the patent was declared fraudulent in court.
http://www.antimonopoly.com/GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You can mail them with your opinions at: mailto:hconsumeraffair@hasbro.com
True, I was confused about your use of the terms "mechanics" and "material".
Game material is story content. That's what the monopoly junior example was about - it's the monopoly story content, the titles, the text, the character, the branding. That is copyrightable
"Color" like that is easily replaceable while preserving the mechanics.
Game mechanics are patentable.
Unlike copyrights and trademarks, patents expire. How long has the tile crossword game been around?
Using a slashdot user's rule of thumb to identify appropriate grammar is like using Michael Jackson to watch your kids after school.
For one thing, I have checked this rule of thumb against other authorities on the English language. Notably, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law disagree with you, preferring copyrighted (not *copywritten).
As the Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk and White and Fowler's Modern English all clearly agree, the past tense of the verb "to copyright" is "copywritten."
Are those three references online where I can search them and view their full text? I even registered at CMOS's web site, but its searchable index displays only paragraph numbers, not full text. The latest public domain edition of The Elements of Style does not seem to list a section giving the principal parts of "to copyright". I am not in a position to purchase books before I reply to your comment.
The patent [on falling tetramino games] is Russian, and was covered under international patent law.
Even if there is Russian patent, I thought that a patent enforceable in the United States had to have a counterpart with a U.S. patent number, unlike copyrights. For instance, the German patent on MP3 encoding has a U.S. counterpart, namely U.S. Patent 5,579,430. Where does 35 USC state that a United States citizen residing in the United States and operating a web site from the United States can be sued for violating a patent granted in the Soviet Union (and presumably still enforceable in its former republics)? My understanding of the applicable patent treaties is that 1. filing a patent application in one country establishes priority of invention under the Paris Convention, giving an inventor 12 months to file counterpart applications in other countries, and 2. the Patent Cooperation Treaty has standardized the patent application process, letting an inventor file in more than one country with one application.
If you would research this in good faith
Would you please help me come up with appropriate Google keywords?
The US Patent and Trade Office doesn't maintain foreign trademarks.
But it does maintain trademarks registered internationally through the Madrid System, as you allude. "TETRIS" is in fact registered in the States, but Elorg/TTC's competitors can merely change their products' name to get around that.
What they're doing is saying "Scrabble is ours. Cut it out and quit selling our things. And by the way, since there's no way for you to sell scrabble, and since you've been breaking the law taking our trademarks, give up the name to us."
Trademark law supports this. Copyright law supports this. Patent law supports this.
Wow! It's a good thing people keep telling me we have a free market! Otherwise, I might get confused, what with all the "not allowed to manufacture competing product, because that's 'not innovative'" IP laws flying about these days. Three cheers for the free market! It's not dead yet! Really!
--
AC
haven't any of you read the disclaimer? e-scrabble is not for profit.
you may have noticed there's no advertising on the site, you don't have to pay to play, and there doesn't seem to be spyware or anything clandestine embedded in it.
so quit talking about the fucking money. there is none.
Jesus F'ng christ.
The crime was copyright infringement, not theft. What he did *might* be wrong (since despite how you re-word them they might still be copyrightable rules, maybe rules themselves can't be copyrigted, but I have to look it up), but using moral terms in a sentence on LEGAL TERMS AND CRIMES is just as logical as saying 2+2=5.
I am sick and tired of it.
Again, I am not nessecarily saying that his actions were correct or incorrect (so DON'T EVEN TRY twisting my words!), but this constant comparison is very annoying when done in the legal sense. Morally, call it whatever the heck you want, but legally the crime is illegal copying, not theft.
Yes, all is correct what you say, but that doesn't change that there is no expiry of a trademark and no mechanism intended to invalidate it.
/. news is interesting.
For example Coca Cola could be considered a pretty established and respectable drink in the western world - if you order Coca Cola in the restaurant, they will bring you the kind of cola they have, because Coca Cola has become a generic term - however that does not mean that any other company is allowed to sell "Coca Cola".
To look back to the article, this means the trademark on scrabble extends any IP protection, which the original scrabble game might have had, to an infinite time span, which is somewhat unfair, considering that some people see scrabble as a standard part of their life.
You wouldn't put up if a company had the trademark to "bread" (the kind you eat) either. So my point is, this is why this
I'm not sure this is so bad because you can just call the game 'literaxx' or so, and that name might get more popular, but then that name gets trademarked by someone else, etc.
I guess there would be less trouble if all versions of games included the name of the company or creator, like in 'Sid Meier''s Civilization'.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Unless I'm missing something, someone copied someones elses product and are being sued.
Good everything is working.
In general, I disagree that pixie pit is better, though some flaws in e-scrabble are absent in pixie pit (noticeably, the absolutely terrible end-game flaw in e-scrabble). It's just wishful thinking, but it seems unfortunate that there isn't any good way to have a "forum" (exclusively) for those of us who are actual, active e-scrabble players (indeed, this was a sorely lacking feature even before the current Hasbro death squash). It's not that others shouldn't be expressing their opinion... on the general intellectual property question of Hasbro vs e-scrabble (there's really nothing to argue, is there?) - - but I can't see how this is much more than an abstract issue to you, if you are not an "enthusiast" (addict) of the game. I think there are a number of issues that might be argued among actual players of the game... for which non-players will not have an perspective. As an example... there are surely not 100,000 unique registrants to the site - - or if it means anything, it must mean a large number of people who showed up, started (and one wonders... ever finish?) one game, and never came back... One might hope for a migration to pixie pit, and maybe even the utilization of its forum there. Alas, e-scrabble becomes "abandonware" in a sense it never intended. Best wishes, Rex rb43081@netscape.net
The US has repeatedly extended the copyright term from 14 years to 75 years.....in part to keep Disney's Mickey Mouse from passing into the public domain. But the most of the rest of the world uses a 50 year copyright term. If Scrabble is more than 50 years old, the e-scrabble folks could relocate it to a server in a country with less onerous and unfriendly copyright laws than the US. I wonder if the US will try to extent their limit from 75 years to 100 years when Mickey comes up for expiry next time?
Only boring people are ever bored.
Although the request to stop the site is fine if it was using the scrabble board design and colours, some of their demands are not.
a) surely they should prove the extent of the distribution?
b) you can't copyright rules can you? anyone can play the game however they like.
c) what commercial activity? he doesn't charge.
d) nor does their seem to be any intent to profit from the domain, so he shouldn't have to hand that to hasbro, he could easily host a fan site on it.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
Get real. This guy is making money off Hasbro's game and not paying Hasbro 1 cent. Now you want Hasbro to give him MORE money? For what?
http://www.google.com/search?q=online+scrabble
Jared's closed the site.
1 - In what way was he making money from it (I played there, never had to pay, didn't have to look at ads or anything.)
2 - Copyright and trademark infringement aside, I'd be careful about going after some of these people - Sony have "recently" done that and lost their trademark on walkman in Austria (and derivatively elsewhere - I'll just include the brandchannel article)
Kinda makes you wonder about the iPod dunnit? iPod is becoming a victim of it's own success with regards to naming. Many people here in NZ refer to all mp3 players as iPods... weirdos.
meth