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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.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds like Hasbro wants to have a Monopoly on word games.
Nope. That's Parker Brothers.
Correct. Which is owned by Hasbro. Hasbro *has* a monopoly on board games. At least, on the board games that appear in general stores like Target or Walmart.
List of companies Hasbro owns, stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia:
* Avalon Hill (an imprint of Wizards of the Coast, see below)
* Claster Television
* Coleco
* Galoob
* Kenner
* Maisto
* Milton Bradley
* Parker Brothers
* Playskool
* Selchow and Righter
* Tiger Electronics
* Tonka
* Wizards of the Coast
* Wrebbit
Got Apathy?
It's not just a matter of confusion -- by means of sufficient similarity "Scrabulous" is leveraging the brand-recognition of the Scrabble trademark for the purpose of advertisement. At the same time it dilutes the identity of the mark as what one thinks of as Scrabble now becomes Scrab* or some such variant. So, it is both a type of IP theft and causes damage to the trademark by dilution.
Second the issue of confusion applies to people who are not necessarily familiar with the game -- granted most people are, but that isn't a valid counter argument from a legal POV. For this hypothetical person who has never actually played Scrabble and doesn't know exactly how to spell it, the two names are sufficiently similar to cause confusion.
I'm not defending Hasbro per say, just pointing out that this is expected behavior for a trademark holder. In fact, it is required, since if the mark is not defended with due diligence, that fact can be used as evidence in proceedings to have the trademark nullified. (This has been pointed out several times already in this comment stream by others)