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.)

Comments

Uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Uhhh

[urbaer]

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.

Hmmm.... I think maybe the following:
Because the e-Scrabble URL is of no use to you, it should be transferred to Hasbro. We also demand that you provide us with information concerning the extent of your uses of any elements of the SCRABBLE game, as well as information regarding the distribution of your electronic Scrabble game to enable us to assess more precisely the extent of the damage done.

Isn't this just Hasbro saying "we'll take the game and the site from you and run it ourselves... then possibly take any money you made from it in the last year"? Hasbro clearly isn't interested in a purchase...

Re:Uhhh

[stratjakt]

It's a trademark issue, not copyright. There are tons of other online scrabble clones. I know, because my mother plays them obsessively.

You *have* to take action to enforce trademarks, or lose them. The "Scrabble" name is worth something to Hasbro. The game could have been nothing like real Scrabble, and they'd still probably have to send out a notice, just in case.

This is like the much-publicized case where Disney sent a C&D to some Florida pre-school for painting Mickey, Donald et al, on their walls. It was a big PR stinkfest, and Hanna Barbera stepped in and gave them permission to use their characters. It made Disney look like a bunch of heartless bastards, and HB look like saviors.

Now, we all know Disney does some evil shit, but in this case, they really didn't have a choice in the matter. Disney can't afford to lose the trademarks they have on Mickey and company.

Re:Uhhh

[That's Unpossible!]

Isn't this just Hasbro saying "we'll take the game and the site from you and run it ourselves... then possibly take any money you made from it in the last year"?

Yeah, and what exactly is unreasonable about this? Hasbro owns the game this site is trying to replicate and profit from. Why should this site be able to make money off of Hasbro's game? Would you think it is OK for a site to replicate Half-Life 2 in Java and make money off it?

Re:Uhhh

[Ohreally_factor]

The site itself could continue, if it were changed enough to not infringe on the Scrabble trademark.

If you read the C&D letter, you'll see that Hasbro is also alleging copyright violations, namely the board layout and the use of their rules.

So, unless he can completely reinvent the game, I think he's TSOL. He should still consult a lawyer, if for no other reason that to reach an agreement with Hasbro not to sue him if he complies with their demand.

If you could find someone really forward thinking at Hasbro in a position to make decisions, a creative alternate arrangement could be reached, where fatty Jared could either license the material from Hasbro, or they could take over the site and put him on the payroll. Given the nature of most suits and bean counters, this is a highly improbable outcome.

Re:Uhhh

[stonecypher]

Games are not copyrightable. The artwork is, yes, as is the text of the rules and the design of the pieces, and the name is trademark but the game itself has no IP protection.

Luckily, nobody made that stipulation but you. Yes, the game materials are copyrightable. Yes, they are copywritten. Yes, Jared stole them. Outright. Don't try to make some case for the game mechanics; you're pretending Jared didn't do something he did.

Besides, this bit that games aren't copyrightable is a popular misunderstanding; it's because game mechanics are patented. When you're busdy referring me to all these posts where people say that they can't be patented either, please realize that these are the same people which think warezing is legal if you stick a text file into an archive claiming to be a library and making some admonition about erasing things after a day. It's relatively easy to turn up the court case in which Tetris was taken away from Atari neé Tengen by Nintendo because Tengen bought the patent rights to the game mechanics from Robert Stein ne&eacute Mirrorsoft, who didn't actually own them, whereas Nintendo bought them from Elorg, who hadd purchased them legally from Bulletproof Software neé Spectrum Holobyte, and then had to go to court with Tengen and Elorg.

Now, let's be clear. They went to court on exactly the same laws you're currently claiming don't exist. Against a company in another country. In the middle of a media circus established by the owner of the companies trying to steal Tetris. A circus so big, in fact, that the Communist Party became involved.

And they still lost.

You know why? Because, despite your beliefs, games can be patented, and because game patents are regularly enforced. Almost every major board game has been extensively defended in this fashion, especially Monopoly, Battleship and The Game of Life, but more recently in the electronic world Tetris, Archon, Bandit Kings of Ancient China and so forth.

I can see Hasbro requesting that he stop using their trademark and stop distributing copies of their artwork (as the letter alleges they were doing) but they're demanding he dismantle the site.

Oh, so what you'd rather is that he take down all their current stolen stuff, but continue to steal their trademark?

but my paranoid little brain interprets this as an attempt to shut down a potential competitor.

Yes, they're trying to shut down an illegal competitor, the same way that Levi's does with knockoffs in china, the same way we all bitch that record companies should be doing with pirate CDs instead of MP3s.

This is ridiculous. A competitor would be if he made a different game and they were trying to shut that down. He's a thief, pure and simple. He copied their design wholesale.

Yes, they're trying to shut a thief down, and there's just nothing wrong with that.

That, or generic corporate bullying.

Blinded by dogma much?

Re:Uhhh

[NormalVisual]

Perhaps games can be patented, but depending on the type of patent, it would only be good for either 14 or 20 years, so the patent would had to have been granted no later than 1985 for it to matter in this case. Scrabble and its clones have been around for almost 60 years now, so it seems that even if Hasbro had applied for a patent in the mid 80's or later, they'd have an uphill battle getting a defensible patent granted since the game had already been around for so long.

This is an action strictly regarding copyright and trademark, and as long as any copyrighted text/artwork, the name "Scrabble", and any other Hasbro trademarks are removed from the site, I don't see a whole lot that Hasbro can do about it.

Well, a better name would have helped

[hsmith]

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?

Re:Well, a better name would have helped

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who practices copyright law, I have to say that you're fairly well off the mark.

The "idea" of a board/2D game based on making words out of individual letters is not copyrightable. The "idea" of the rules is not copyrightable -- but only to the extent that the rules involve the steps of drawing a tile or tiles, playing a word, and adding up a score (common elements in many games).

That being said:

The expressive aspects of the game are certainly copyrightable. For instance:

The values of the individual letters - you don't get to copy these, they are to a certain extent arbitrary and altough you can discern a general rule, you cannot say that it inevitably leads you to chose those particular values for any variation of the game.

The ways in which the values of a play are increased - I don't pretend to know all of the details of Scrabble, but the bonus for using all your tiles is certainly an expressive aspect of the rules [note: I'm not saying that you could copyright the rule, but the rule is an arbitrary aspect of the whole game].

The layout of the board - the size of the board, the geometric layout of the bonus squares, any blocking squares, etc., are all arbitrary components that are part of the Scrabble(C)(TM) expression of a word-building type game.

This guy was not just asking for trouble by ripping off the Scrabble trademark. This guy was asking for trouble by cloning the Scrabble game so that he could attract Scrabble players. He could have built any board/2D word building game EXCEPT one derived from Scrabble (different letter values, different board layout, different set of multipliers/bonuses) EXCEPT THAT HE COULDN'T because this particular game is the one that Scrabble players are familiar with, have practiced for, and want to compete within.

The sad part is, if he had writtin the program and offered it to Hasbro, at least he would have a strong business case. But because he has already "distributed" the program, he has essentially written a very good Scrabble game for Hasbro for free (derivative works become the property of the copyright holder in most suits - a particularly nasty consequence).

Hopefully business-like heads will prevail and some type of beneficial settlement can take place.

Pay him?

[RedWizzard]

Timothy wrote:

It's also the best online scrabble game I've seen; Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue him.

Why would Hasbro pay Jared? What are they getting out of it exactly?

Well, actually I would think Hasbro is right

[episodic]

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.

Guess what

[stratjakt]

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.

Hasbro's C&D letter somewhat inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

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....

Oh please...

[Kjella]

...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

Re:Well...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Uh, it's Hasbro's property that e-Scrabble has copied. Tell me again who's the party that's failing to innovate here?

Hasbro is totally in the right here. It's their game, their trademarks, their ballgame, yet you and others here are painting Hasbro out to be the bad guys? Why? For protecting what's its own property?

Let's play a game of word substitution for a minute. Let's pretend that "Hasbro" = "F/OSS developer", "Scrabble" = "GPLed code" and that "e-Scrabble" = "commercial/CSS developer". Now, imagine a commercial/CSS developer took someone else's GPLed code and ignored all relevant copyrights, trademarks and legal protections. Now whose side are you on?

The guys at e-Scrabble broke the law. They know they did and you know they did. So don't make Hasbro out to be the bad guy because they've asked e-Scrabble to stop.

Heck, Hasbro hasn't even taken legal action, it's politely (as politely as can be done in such cases where the law is concerned) asked e-Scrabble to just quit what it's been doing. If they really were evil then they would be litigating right now, and demanding the shirts of these guys backs to compensate for lost sales (however fictional those lost sales may be).

Hasbro has done everything right here. So far, it's done things by the book and it's done things in as politely and as amicably as it can, given the circumstances. If you want to see an example of "if you can't innovate, litigate" then I suggest you check out RIAA and its friends.

igorance of the law: no excuse for it

[tverbeek]

Hasbro should pay Jared, not sue 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.

Grow up.

[stonecypher]

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.

Re:Well...

[symbolic]

"Scrabble" does belong to Hasbro. That's just the way it is. However, although Hasbro has the copyright and trademark, I think it would have been a more informed choice to make a similar type of game with a different name, and perhaps a slightly different style of gameplay (slightly). However, the truly sad part is the distinct possiblity that someone may actually have a patent on "a style of gameplay whereby users take turns forming words with game pieces, each piece having a single letter."

The unreasonable part...

[jeti]

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".

Re:The unreasonable part...

[Moraelin]

Even so, "Scrabble" is a trademark of Hasbro. As long as they're willing to defend that trademark, it's theirs. And in fact they _have_ to defend it or lose it. That's in fact the _only_ way for a trademark to be lost: they don't have a time limit.

You know, just like "IBM" is a trademark of International Business Machines, or "Pepsi" is the trademark of Pepsico. You can't just name your new company or your new product "IBM", even though they first used it more than 100 years ago. And you can't just name your own drinks "Pepsi".

So, sorry if I don't feel much sympathy for that site. They just took someone else's property and tried to make a buck out of it. It's no different than trying to make a buck off the Coca-Cola trademark by writing that on your own soft drinks cans.

I see no little guy unfairly oppressed by a big corporation. The little guy is the thief here, and the big corporation is just defending its lawful property.

And how does copying someone else's game help advance the progress of science and useful arts? I've said it before, but advance and progress comes from researching and creating _new_ stuff, not from a million monkeys copying someone else's work.

They have a problem with big bad Hasbro not letting them make a buck off the game Hasbro invented, and the trademark Hasbro owns? How about sitting down and inventing their _own_ game, then? Progress and advance are that-a-way.