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Hasbro Using DMCA on Facebook Game Apps
Boggle Addict writes "Rather than participating in the online gaming market, Hasbro is suppressing it with litigation. Scrabulous, a Scrabble imitation, is already fighting to prevent being shut down. Today, Hasbro sent out DMCA notices to other apps on Facebook, including Bogglific, a Boggle imitation. Copyright law has has always held very limited protections for games. This may be opening a can of worms for Hasbro.
Sounds like Hasbro wants to have a Monopoly on word games.
Naked Boggle, naked Scrabble, naked Taboo, or naked Minesweeper?
Or naked Monopoly with Uncle Pennybags swollen testi-sack?
I'll bet stuff like this already exists on the Internet.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Don't tase us, Hasbro.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
I mean, sure, Scrabulous is pretty obviously a Scrabble rip-off -- I think we all know that. But couldn't Hasbro at least have an official Scrabble game ready to replace it? If Scrabulous is forced offline, what the hell am I going to do all day when I'm at work?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
"Who is it?"
"Hasbro"
"Hasbro who?"
"Has bro come back wid da shit?"
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
From the PC World Article linked to from the article linked to in the summary:
If they don't defend their trademark everytime they see it being used outside of a licensing deal, they can lose it. You may not like it, but that's the way it is. You want it changed, change the law. I'd also like to point out that trademark law, at its best, actually protects consumers from shoddy ripoffs of the product they thought they were buying.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
Isn't the set of rules of a game essentially an invention? As such, shouldn't it be possible to patent the rules of a game?
Of course, patents don't last nearly as long as copyrights, so most of the games in question wouldn't be covered (and it's too late to file for existing games, in any case).
How are these applications infringing when Hasbro has nothing comparable? I'm sorry, but until there's the online alternative, I just can't buy into this notion of infringement.
I'm confused here.. DMCA is for copyright, that's what the C stands for.. but no part of what was taken was? It's possible it was patented (I believe game mechanics are patented) but there is no DMPA is there? TFA says that they have a "solid case" but I'm not seeing that this "solid case" is what is trying to be used here.. There is no copyright on scrabble. There's a copyright on the scrabble box design, and the scrabble instructions, and perhaps even on the actual design of the board, but not the overall layout of it. There's a trademark on "Scrabble" probably as well, on which "Scrabulous" might infringe.
I can see a pretty solid case on Trademark or Patent grounds, but copyright is the one thing that WASN'T infringed.
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
I remember back in the late 90s when a fun email version of Scrabble along with all the Boggle sites were shut down by Hasbro. Just a new generation of programmers learning about trademark laws from Hasbro.
Bummer, since the free games are great advertising for the few people who don't already own hardcopies of the games. But I guess that's the problem - everyone already owns the game, so the the only way to increase revenues is charge for the online versions.
-Chris
I hate Scrabulous! Everyone stop requesting games, I can't spell you insensitive clods!
I don't want to get into whether they have a copyright on those types of games, but I do want to talk about the trademark issue.
Calling a Scrabble knockoff Scrabulous or a Boggle knockoff Bogglific is pretty clear gounds for trademark infringement. I mean, this site is Slashdot. If I created a Slashdot.us - and always referred to it as Slashdot.us - it's still too close to being Slashdot. Same with Slashdotic or something like that. People who are casual observers would get confused as to the owner. And in order to keep that trademark, they have to litigate. So, if someone were to create a Slashdot.us site, Slashdot would have to file against them. If they didn't, slashdot would become a generic term like aspirin that anyone could use.
Now, I'm sure Hasbro doesn't just want them to change the name, but they have a really great case there. While Hasbro is being craptacular here, the Scrabulous people aren't completely innocent - they wanted to play off the Scrabble name to make money.
Hasbro is killing lucrative opportunities here. Every game is a gaming system. Hasbro should encourage such things so as create a community that will freely publicize its products. By sending out cease and deceast instead of working with the community it shoot itself in the foot.
You could always authorize it with a "Permit and Proceed" letter like I believe Second Life did.
Yes, you have to defend a trademark to keep it, but that doesn't mean you have to run around filing legal threats all the time.
Hasbro has been shutting down online/unlicensed scrabble clones for as long as I can remember, and long before the DMCA was around.
They've won every time in the past.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This could be one way you could get rid of all those ridiculous applications on Facebook.
Are games like Scrabble even modern enough to be covered by copyright laws and so forth?
Is it not like music and such where there's a limited copyright term, and hence is this term not over yet for many of these games? I'm sure some of them are pretty old?
Good luck getting rid of pyscrabble. When the code is free for all to share, and anyone can run a server, and the developer isn't maintaining it anymore, who do you sue?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Man, just when you thought it was safe to play those online wordgames, here comes the mother of all process killers, SHUTDOWN by a Game manufacturer. Damn, there goes all of those good old favorites that I used to play online. Now what am I going to do at work, WORK!! Geez, another way for the man to keep me down. What next somebody going to say it's illegal to wank my crank?
I'm waiting for The World of Darkness guys to sue because they invented werewolves and vampires. If they can sue over the movie, they should sue over the Facebook game too...
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Once again we have a commercial entity who, instead of using digital media as a gateway to selling their product, prefer to shut down anything they don't control directly.
How many younger people who play games almost exclusively online have ever played Scrabble or Boggle? Why would a company like Hasbro want to shut down a site that might actually inspire some online gamers to go buy a physical copy of the game?
Other than chronic business myopia, that is.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
...to set some money aside for legal fees. Why? Because as Brad Blumenthal told me about 15 years ago "Some bastard is going to sue you". It doesn't matter if they are right, or if you are right, it's just going to happen. Waving the white flag that says "I can't afford to fight" just makes the bastard stronger.
And let's face it, if you are pulling in $25K monthly on virtually no expense base, you can't turn around and bleat about not having the money to fight it.
DMCA doesn't apply to Scrabble... you can't use abbreviations in scrabble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble#Acceptable_words Unless DMCA falls under the 'regularized' provision... then they should have put a Z on the end to get the triple word score and have 57 points instead of 9
Scrabulous props up Hasbro's brand and continues its popularity--when it hasn't innovated in years. As such, it limits the facebook market and illegally keeps out small, legitimate board and video game companies that could acquire the facebook market. It's a stolen corporate brand name that guarantees people will click on it over legit indie games.
I have no pity for Hasbro and the companies that dominate and ruin a potentially diverse and strong US board game market (as compared to europe). But I also have no pity for folks that can't innovate, are just out to make a quick buck, and have the gall to issue a press release on the BBC. please. they got their cash, they should either innovate or start working for someone that can. and they should pray they don't get sued out of their profits.
Remember those cool lighting kits you could get for your gameboy advances, I believe the original name of the product was called Portable Monopoly until the makers of Monopoly had something to say about it. That whole thing wasn't even about a game (or even a game clone!), just some hardware to make your gameboy cooler.
- What is the nature of the "intellectual property" you are asserting protective ownership of? Is it copyright? Trademark? Patent? Some other unspecified fantasy form of IP (like SCO's undefinable "Linux stole it!" IP)?
- If it's not copyright, aren't you violating DMCA by invoking Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown?
- If it's patent, which one and when was it filed?
- Ditto for trademark. Are you claiming, for instance, the board design is trademarked?
- If it's copyright, what elements? Are you claiming copyright over the phrase "Double letter score" or something? Are you claiming that Scrabulous has written instructions for the game which infringe your copyrighted written instructions for Scrabble?
- Or, most likely, aren't you just making this crap up and trying to bully on-line competition into giving up?
Really, isn't it fact that you have nothing going other than empty bravado, vague and unverifiable assertions of mysterious IP ownership, and a burgeoning legal budget? And we saw how well that worked for SCO. Even if you're picking on the little guy instead of tilting at large and ill-tempered windmills, you can't win. Step back and relax a little. If you want into the online gaming arena, get in honestly and compete on merit.Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Scrabulous isn't an imitation so much as the exact same game save the name, and having the writing on the colored squares explaining which is which. (I always end up GIS'ing up a real scrabble board for reference) Same scoring, same play, same word lists used in scrabble tournaments.
That said, how fucking old is scrabble? In a rational world any IP protection it had save for the trademark would have gone by the wayside long ago.
This should get me sued for ripping off both Scrabble and Boggle, but: http://www.lalena.com/Games/DailyScroggle.aspx
We actually bought a Boggle game recently because of an online boggle-like game (which I won't link to, though if you search for 'web boggle' I suspect you mind find it rather easily...).
Let me say that again: We started playing a Boggle-like game online. We loved it. But we recognized that it would also be fun to play the real game sometimes (b/c sitting around a table is more social than staring at a screen, etc.). So we bought your damn game.
Hasbro, I've got four kids under six. I am your wet dream demographic: I have both money and kids, and I love toys. Don't piss me off.
Try a different strategy.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
Would you Slashdot hackers please post some info about your new "UI".
Thanks and remember NOT to vote for Mick Huckabee
Wako, TX - Heaven, the makers of the ever-popular book, The Bible(tm) have lodged a DCMA take-down order against the developers The Booble, a look-alike being passed around on Facebook.
"We're very concerned about this." says His Holiness, the Pope. "Clearly this is an infringement upon our intellectual property, and the less-then-stellar attempts to change names, like Jesus becoming Jeebus and Mary Magdalene becoming 'That Ho Who Jeebus' Swings With, Man' don't cut it."
Intellectual Property expert and renowned athlete Steve Ballmer commented, "I'm going to fucking kill Jeebus!" This reporter opted to flee the room as Ballmer began throwing chairs, spewing vomit and shouting "Google sucks cocks in Hell!"
Along with take-down notices for The Booble, Heaven is also going after a popular knock-off found on P2P networks; "The Testicle According to John" by famed Scientologist Tom Cruise and "Moses, Twelve Days of Hot Sex" by Joan Rivers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You can take any existing game, rewrite the rules in your own words (while avoiding the use trademarks, e.g. "Scrabble") and publish it. That is your right. There's no law to stop you from creating your own Scrabble game just so long as it does not infringe on any of Hasbro's trademarks. The rules, method of play, and alphabet are not copyrightable.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
According to wikipedia, the game was invented in 1938 and has been marketed since at least the 1940s. That is a little longer than the one year to file (under 37 CFR 102) currently allowed. Even if it had been patented back when it could be, that patent would be long expired. On the other hand, a new patent with a new name might slip past the examiner. Some of them seem pretty young and might actually not know that scrabble ever existed.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
you sir, are a marvel and a credit to your species. It's too bad that species is a malformed race of degenerate bottom feeders.
Also, whoever it was who tagged this as informative, please check the links first in future.
I'd never heard of Bogglific before. It looks pretty sweet. Thanks for the free advertising, Hasbro!
"why not spend the money on innovating new games and or new forms of already present games,"
:O ;)
Maybe new versions of old games? Never seems to get worn out i guess:
http://www.boardgames.com/monopolygames1.html
Yikes, and one of those links leads to another list for colleges
Not going to admit to seeing 3 of those at my parents house....
There seems to be few new games and mostly party/trivia games, tho Apples to Apples was a fun party game during the holidays.
Who keeps putting these shit stories on Slashdot?
Old news. Hasbro has always been vigilant in protecting their flagship game, Scrabble.
Folks, if you want to create a Scrabble game, just go back in time and invent it first!
You douchebags bitch and moan anytime anyone enforces their trademark, copyright, or patent.
I worked for Atari over last summer for an internship. At the time, Atari owned the rights to create and run Hasbro board games on their website Atari Play. By the end of the summer, however, I suppose because of financial problems, Atari sold their rights back to Hasbro. Instead of keeping Atari's well run board game website and all of the programming to the games, a large loyal fanbase, and development team, Hasbro foolishly shutdown Atari Play and replaced it with nothing. From what I can gather, their executives do not sound to be the shrewdest bunch. At the end of the day, they're simply pissing off those most willing to enjoy their franchise. Many fans on the former Atari Play board even offered to pay a monthly fee after hearing of the sale. Yet, Hasbro has shown itself to not only limit fan access to their franchise but shutdown all alternatives until then. Not exercising a popular franchise should be considered a corporate crime.
I'd much prefer people check out new stuff over Monopoly and Life. Though Boggle and Scrabble are hard to improve upon....but overall there are some really great games out there.
Fortunately, Clue Computing stood up to them and won.
This stinks something fierce of former litigating folks who were beginning to see the eminent eating itself up from the core of the RIAA, have jumped ship and are now employed or contracting for Hasbro.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Compulsory licensing, now, there's a sensible argument. "You're really obviously trying to rip off our game. That's fine, but we get a cut." Then everybody's happy. Hasbro gets money, game stays in business, players keep playing game.
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
Way back when the MS is a Monopoly ruling first came out in late '99 I put together a site called MS-Monopoly.com. It was covered by /. but damned if I can find the story on /. now but here's a Linux Today blurb.
I'd used the well known Monopoly game board as the basis for our site, with a different company that MS had bought for each square. The Community Chest and Chance cards were contributed by users. Satire is meant to be protected by copyright law, at least here in Canada. Anyway, we got slashdotted not once but twice, Yahoo site of the day, we were in Mac Addict, a whole bunch of portals, etc. Basically we were getting tonnes of traffic... then came the letters from Hasbro.
Long story short, I didn't own the domain name and the guy who did got cold feet after we received the fourth letter. I was holding out for a registered letter, but it wasn't my neck. We'd checked with lawyers and while we had a case fighting a case, even one your most likely going to win, gets expensive in a hurry. We reluctantly closed up shop.
Interestingly enough before we got shut down we heard from a fellow who produced his own version of Monopoly. According to him the game itself is in the public domain because it was a popular game long before it became a Hasbro product. He shipped us one of his board games and gave us permission to copy it for our site, but by that time we had moved on to other things.
To the folks making Facebook apps, I wish you luck. Fighting a Hasbro will require deep pockets and in court nothing is 100%. Yes, if you win you can sue for costs... but you can't be sure you'll win.
ms-monopoly.com lives on... as a advert site. Google it though and you'll still find copies of the site (minus a working backend) and references around, I guess people like a good joke.. In the end it had to end, but I guess that's life.
- The Jester, Department of Jest
What you could (or should be able to) do issue them for defamation or tortious interference in the small claims court over their allegation that you've breached copyright. This is libel. It is done for commercial reasons and it is deleterious to your standing and ability to work. Put down "unspecified" as the damages.
So Hasbro has to either retract their statement or prove them right.
Cheaper than a lawyer.
cf. Lindows court shopping to a foreign language court.
Waaaah. Just because you didn't have the forethought to jump into this first, the only option is to sue the pants off the competition? Why not make your own "official" version of Scrabble available on Facebook and let the damn market decide.
:P
I notice they're not going after Yahoo! Games for Literati which is also a Scrabble knockoff. I imagine Yahoo! has more lawyers at it's disposal and a bigger bank account than whoever make Scrabulous.
Congrats as well Hasbro, I'm sure you just gave Scrabulous and that Boggle clone a good amount of free press
Insert Sig Here
Although to add to my previous comment, a more recent BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7193416.stm has what claims to be a direct quote from Hasbro: "gross copyright and trademark infringement". So it seems that Hasbro view it as both a copyright and a trademark violation, after all.
I'm amazed that a statement with so much bias is allowed past the moderators onto /.
/. for allowing it on there !
Hasbro are seeking that various free apps on Facebook which rip-off their IPR are taken down.
How is this refusing to take part in the online games market ?
Its a BS statement by a complete idiot and it has no place on the frontpage, shame on
{...sorry, couldn't resist...}
A goal is a dream with a deadline