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Hasbro Sues Makers of Scrabble-Like Scrabulous
Dekortage writes "As today's lawsuit indicates, Hasbro has apparently had enough of Scrabulous, the online word game remarkably similar to Scrabble. Filed in New York, Hasbro's suit is against Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, brothers from Kolkata, India, and asks the court to remove the Scrabulous application from Facebook, disable the Scrabulous.com web site, and grant damages and attorneys fees to Hasbro. Why did Hasbro tale so long to 'protect' its intellectual property rights in court? They waited 'in deference to the fans' until EA had launched the official Scrabble Facebook app earlier this month. EA's version has netted fewer than ten thousand players, versus Scrabulous' estimated 2.3 million. This was the next logical step for Hasbro after filing DMCA takedown notices against Scrabulous in January."
I R S F T T O P S Q
DESPERATION: When you rearrange the letters: A ROPE ENDS IT
EA's version has netted fewer than ten thousand players, versus Scrabulous' estimated 2.3 million. This was the next logical step for Hasbro...
Doesn't seem very logical to me. Why don't they just buy it?
That's Scrabulous news!
Is there any serious doubt that Scrabulous infringes on Hasbro's intellectual property? The "creators" of Scrabulous don't even make a token effort to add some new intellectual component to their game. So yeah, while I love Scrabulous, and will probably re-join the "Save Scrabulous" Facebook group, I don't think that they really have a leg to stand on.
I wrote a couple of iPhone games that are clones of Yahtzee, and Battleship respectivly. One thing that worried me is getting sued like this. All I can do is hope to not rock their boat to much. I tried not to infringe on any trademarks, but who knows with these big ass companies.
What year was it invented? According to Wikipedia, more than 50 years ago. Sorry, but I do not feel any of the so-called intellectual property associated with this game should be in force except for the name. If they want to sue over trademark infringement over the name, fine. Anything else, no I do not believe my taxpayer dollars should be paying for a monopoly (another game that should be in the public domain by now) of 50+ years on this game.
Is probably to ignore damages (or settle out of court in a way that the brothers aren't pissed off). They ought to then have Scrabulous disabled and then work with the brothers and EA to migrate Scrabulous users over to the official Scrabble app.
Free publicity+userbase >> damages
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
Every time I hear the name Hasbro, it is suing someone for infringing upon some old game that they either made or bought decades ago.
Could they still sue then?
I think they would cross the line then if they did.
Hasbro hasn't exactly tried hard to defend their patent until now. That may not bode well for them.
If you're right and the problem in question is a patents one, I think the best for EA right now would be to apply some dilatory tactics until software patents are abolished, then give the letters "F" and "U" to Hasbro.
The lawsuit wouldn't be quite so egregious if Hasbro offered their own online Scrabble game which wasn't extortionately priced, offered the same level of interactivity and community, and didn't suck all manner of ass.
Will they unsheathe the "lost sales" gun too, I wonder? If anything, Scrabulous made me more interested in Scrabble than any number of adverts or publicity by Hasbro ever has. Let's all go play on the Internet Scrabble Club instead.
Here's an interesting argument.
If the court concludes that the differences between a cardboard-n-wood game, and an electronic - internet power game having similar look and feel IS a diminuative difference - then this decision could be cited in every X-on-the-Internet patent as equally dissmissing the key feature of "Novelty".
In this country, the USPTO has granted endless claims for invention which are simply some traditional application - but rewired to work on the Internet. Mail (by Internet), Mail (by wireless ala Blackberry) Voice (over IP), shopping carts(on the internet), From buttons to telecommunications, shopping to sex, every aspect of our society has been "virtualized" and in every case won the argument that the virtualized version was novel and distinct from the real world counter-part.
Patents are only good for 15 years or so. so the workings of Scrabble are public domain (ie the addition and multiplication of points, placements etc... Only the name and logo are protect-able at this point. The broad net that would capture Scrabulous and scrabble would ensnare Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola, ABC and NBC.
If I were Scrabulous, I would counter sue for infringement on the new EA Scrabble version, on the grounds that the similarities between EA Scrabble and Scrabulous are greater than the similarities between Scrabble-the-Board-Game, and Scrabulous. In short, the addition of internet connectivity and facebook integration is a novel game which serves a customer base which is completely unavailble to a Boardgame due to distance - while the duplicate EA version serves exactly the same customer in exactly the same way.
AIK
If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em.
Oh, how quickly we forget
How about Hasbro makes an application that isn't only available in America and Canada before they spoil our fun?
As far as I know you can't copywrite game rules, and I am not familiar with this app, so I'm guessing it is so similar they are suing based on trademark.
Hell yes there's doubt. Scrabble was designed and first marketed in 1938. By any reasonable definition of the "protected for a limited time" aspect of intellectual property principle, Scrabble should be in the public domain by now.
Inventing or creating something should not give you, your heirs, and the people who bought it from you, and the people who bought it from them the right to make exclusive profit off it for the rest of time.
The dude who invented Scrabble is long dead. Time to let others play.
Can you imagine if we we still had to pay royalties to whatever company bought the rights to Shakespeare's estate every time a school drama club wanted to put on Hamlet?
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
? why hasn't yahoo been touched
If they hadn't used the word "Scrabble" in the URL for the single player - aka, practice - version of the game up until Hasbro started making noise; for all I know, they may have used Scrabble elsewhere on their site or in their meta tags. That alone should merit trademark infringement.
Sorry, I'm very much for things like abolition of software patents and shortening of copyright terms - and I'm aware that game play cannot be patented - however these guys were obviously trying to benefit from the image of Scrabble. They went so far as to use the term to refer to their game, nevermind trying to actively dissuade people from confusing. The makers of Scrabulous acted unethically and I believe illegally.
Actually, Hasbro withdrew their prior lawsuit against Scrabulous *until* such time as it could put its own service up on Facebook. Hasbro's version is now live, and they have recommenced their suit. Ergo, this is new news.
Way to pick the ONE article in the history of /. that is actually *not* a dupe.
So, I've been playing with FreeCiv and FreeCol, and I thought their commentary was interesting.
The question was posed: isn't this blatant copyright infringement?
And their answer was - maybe not. Although it's clear that you can copyright graphics and sounds, and you can copyright a story and a plot, and you can copyright code, and you can copyright maps - it isn't clear whether you can copyright a ruleset.
It isn't clear, for example, whether you can copyright the concept of turning a card sideways to increase a number used to play other cards. It isn't clear whether the concept of a 2-D character jumping from one platform to another, and losing a life if he doesn't make it, could have been copyrighted.
Maybe this will clear some things up. Scrabble, after all, has no real proprietary art beyond their logo maybe the font used on the tiles. It's just rules, and nothing more. Can you copyright a concept? (Actually, that sounds more like something you'd use a patent for).
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
The person to whom Spy der Mann replied did, in fact, use the word patent. Is this another example of screwy threading on Slashdot?
On my screen, the tree looks like this:
#24326151 by sampson7
|
#24326220 by fireslack (uses the word 'patent')
|
#24326279 by Spy der Man (accuses use of the word)
|
#24326307 by sampson7 (denying use of the word)
Odd behavior.
You were safe until you used the term "Sorry" and "game" in the same in the same paragraph, but now we are forced to sue you.
Apparently, YANAL.
1) Trademark your game name
2) Just buy (it) your trademark from... those violating your trademark?
3) Profit!!!
With super-human logic skills like that, I imagine your post getting moderated up by others with an equally stuning level of logic. I also imagine the corollary to be true, as I haven't seen moderation points in years.
A word in a URL can infringe a trademark? Wow. I guess they should change that part of the URL to "buttheadgamecompany".
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
good luck enforcing US laws against an Indian company
When the RIAA sued Napster, I decided they'd never see another dime from me - and, true to my word, I haven't bought another RIAA-member album since. Haven't pirated many, either. Turns out independent music is actually pretty good.
Well, guess what. Now I'm done with Hasbro. I'm uninstalling M:TGO; I won't be replacing Cranium, Axis & Allies, Risk, or Monopoly when they inevitably wear out; I won't be buying any video game based on Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, etc.
Fuck companies that cling to the antiquated business model that withholding entertainment through legal action is still a valid way to do things.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Change enough to be legal. Change the name. Change the colors. Multiply all point values by 3. In other words, strip it of anything trademark-like.
Then release the underlying code so even if you do get sued into oblivion someone else can start their own.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If I were Hasbro, I'd be celebrating right now.
Their only real issue is with the time it took for them to sue. Because what Hasbro has done is let the company build up and attract a subscriber base (And by the way, do you think people believe that is because of "Scrabulous"? No, they are playing "The free version of Scrabble")
So Hasbro gets tons of benefits. For the person asking why Hasbro doesn't just buy the company, it is because litigation is a TOOL, and probably because it is more profitable to file a lawsuit.
Filing a lawsuit = Cash INFLOW
Buying a company = Cash OUTFLOW (temporary perhaps, but also more risky)
Also for the person asking why don't they just buy it... I'm curious how you would determine that Scrabulous is a good enough company to buy? How many classes have you had in buying a business?
The mechanics of the game, the use of a player-generated crossword puzzle, point-multipliers in specific locations, the point values and other rules are typically covered by patents, and don't last all that long.
The actual wording of the rules and the name and logo are probably covered by copyright, which is still in force.
The name, logo, colors, the "star patterns" on the point-multipliers, and possibly even the location of the number of points on each tile are probably covered by trademark, which lasts "forever" as long as it is in use.
If these guys had created their own trade dress and reworded the rules, they'd be in much better shape legally. Of course, they would have to rely on word of mouth advertising to be "discovered" as an online "Scrabble game."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In addition, Hasbro has delivered to Facebook, which hosts the Scrabulous game, a notification of copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or the "DMCA") requesting that they remove the Scrabulous application in the U.S. and Canada as soon as possible.
This burns me up in so many ways. >:(
Not only is this a trademark case rather than a copyright one (as far I can tell, no lawyer here), but as a Canadian, it disgusts me that they're using the DMCA to dictate what can or cannot be published in Canada. We're having a tough enough time keeping crap legislation like that out of our country without amoral corporations smearing it across the boarder.
The exact text of the rules is covered by copyright. Until those expire they are protected. It's easy enough to reword them though.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I own and like Scrabble. Online, I tend to play Yahoo's "Literati" game. I've got my iphone dev kit, and this made me wonder - what sort of IP would it infringe?
You can certainly copyright rules and such for a board game, but if they're rewritten, that's taken care of. I figure you can probably copyright a board design, but the look and feel can be reworked without changing gameplay.
You can trademark the name - and maybe they think "Scrabulous" is infringing.
Lastly, there's gameplay patents. Scrabble apparently had no patents aside from a patent on an indicator in the corners of tiles so you could tell how they had been played after the fact without lifting the tile. And it was 1956 and expired in the 70s.
So, I guess what I want to know is: what are they infringing? My guess is the name (trademark) or the board design (copyright), but who knows?
I already own three Scrabble sets: deluxe, regular, and travel. I'm not going to buy another. And I never use any of the sets because: 1) Most of the people I would play with live out of state 2) It's actually a lot more boring in person because you have to sit and wait for them to play; with an online version you can do other things while your opponent thinks, and they're doing other things while it's your turn. Besides, the digital version is significantly different than the real-world one. Automatic tile shuffling, built-in dictionary, automatic scoring: these things I would kill to have in the box set Scrabble and are much more pleasant to have done for me by the computer. I don't know if it constitutes a "difference" in the legal sense, but in terms of personal experience it's a phenomenal difference. And leaving a game up for days or weeks, completely unattended, without having your cats nap on the middle of the board or eat the pieces? Priceless.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
There can be no patent on a games and the copyright on the board must be pretty narrow - certainly does not cover the essentials of the game.
The only legitimate complaint could be the title but that is going to be tough.
I REALLY hope Scrabulous kicks their butt in court.
Ed
There's a finite number of games a man can develop and play. Ti-tac-toe is one of them, chess is another. I don't see why both should be free of copyrights while Scrabble wouldn't be. Indeed, some long-dead man invented it one day, but the same applies to all such games.
My logic tells me it makes sense if hasbro wants to prevent companies from releasing scrabble clones. You know, the real stuff you can touch and move. The kind of stuff that is real.
But virtual scrabble? The blocks aren't the same, because they don't exist. The name is different, even if some may see similarities and the rules are different, maybe because there was no code to copy from. It's safe to assume the sued company didn't copy any assets - they wrote something, from scratch, that is similar. Because adding anything more would make it worse.
I wonder if this means that Hasborg will be going after the people who publish D&D stuff under copyright instead of the GSL next. As it stands, game rules can't be copyrighted any more than a math equation can.
I know I'm probably an idiot for not RTFA, but the only things they could be going after under current law would be the board design, logos and such. If they're trying to cast a broader net, that could set some far reaching precedents.
F_CK YO_!
Would you like to buy a vowel?
I'd say that using the trademark "Scrabble" in a URL to denote a particular version of a Scrabble-like game - e.g., http://www.scrabulous.com/.../scrabble.html - is almost certainly trademark infringement of the mark Scrabble. What's more, I wasn't particularly investigating Scrabulous for trademark infringement and wasn't all that early to its existence and it is quite likely that there were several other such instances of its use of the mark Scrabble to refer to Scrabulous.
From this evidence plus the similarities in color scheme and similarities in naming, it is quite obvious that the makers of Scrabulous were not simply coming up with an independent game that used the game play from Scrabble - which I believe would be legal - but were actively trying to benefit from the trademarks and image of Scrabble.
If Scrabulous pulled similar tricks in board game form rather than on the web, I doubt it would have nearly as many defenders.
By Rover because Ford make cars, just like Rover do!
There's a trademark on SCRABBLE.
This is called SCRABULOUS.
Can you see the difference?
Bored of the Rings
Don't tase me Hasbro!
these guys gave them the idea and they ran with it, now they're suing them. It's one thing to shut them down but this is vindictive and punitive to try to ruin them financially after hasbeen benifited from their leadership. This dinosaur of a company would never have dreamed of releasing a game on facebook without the lead taken by the targets of their lawsuit.
This decades old game should be in the public domain by now, (the progenitors have long since faded away) and it would be if the laws hadn't been repeatedly manipulated for their gain and profit.
Grrrrr!!!!!
How about if slashdot starts recognizing spacing as the poster intends it?
I was going to make a totally scrabulous post!
But it only works with the first letter of a line.
See
l
a
spacing would
help
doh
o
t
Honoring spacing as intended is fun and on topic. How about it?
I mean, I'm logged in. (Oh slashdot how I love thee.)
Do you really need to ignore my spacing?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Has BEEN...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I'm not personally particularly interested in this instance, but I do think this long after a creation, it's really not helping the general advancement of society to have a company milking it long after the creator is dead. Everyone reasonably responsible for the idea is gone and their descendants have earned probably as much as could be reasonable without revamping it with new and novel twists. Scrabble becoming a generic would save us from a confusing namespace of tons of different names for the same thing. Imagine if the names chess and checkers were still protected.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You can't copyright a game, but you *can* copyright a game board.
You also apparently can patent game mechanics.
What?
It's probably too late, but if they had some other apps that weren't infringing on Scrabble then they could perhaps walk with that. If Facebook takes down their app they lose all that traffic and ad revenue. It seems mad to have not tried to get their 500k daily users to adopt some other apps too. This was clearly going to happen one day. Scrabulous has the online traction that Hasbro will find very hard to catch in any way other than legally. Commenting as an independent board game publisher ( http://www.gifttrap.com/ ) it seems to make sense that they should broaden their offering to reduce their risk, We'd created a Facebook app in the vein of Free Gifts to help us promote our game which is about exchanging the right virtual gift. It's like Secret Santa but as a board game. Take a look at our app if you are interested http://apps.new.facebook.com/gifttrap/ Our game preceded the whole virtual gift thing, but it's all about being in the right format at the right time. We've just viewed Free Gifts et al as a great vehicle to promote the concept of "Virtual Gifts" (Unlike the Free Gifts app your friend gets to choose their own gift, the question is will you match. We have turned virtual gifts into a game.) Hasbro should view Scrabulous as a great vehicle to promote scrabble, but they they have prove their manhood. On a more serious note our board game got copied by Mega Brands with another game about exchanging gifts. It looks like we won that war simply because we had to greater momentum and an original design. If Lego didn't beat Mega Brands I didn't fancy my chances.
Never mind, another annoying post that starts on the subject.
I was going to post my own reply: You can't copyright the rules of a game. Parent has it right. Here's the copyright office's own document on the subject:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
First sentence is "The idea for a game is not protected by copyright." By contrast, "[...] the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable."
As with other forms of copyright, you can copyright the expression of an idea, not the idea. Copyright gives you the exclusive right to make copies, not the exclusive right to an idea.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Why not just by them out? They get a popular game with a built in audience. Why is it always the scorched Earth solution?
Seriously, the legal profession is the biggest sack of stupid shit humanity has ever assembled. These days I have nothing but contempt for lawyers, even the supposed "good" ones, because even they have to suffer the special species of mental malfunction required just to be one.
And if you are, in fac, a lawyer reading this: FUCK YOU! You and/or your fellows are fucking the world over every day.
Scrabble has 12,221 people playing it right now on pogo.com, pogo has 14 million unique visitors a month. EA's Scrabble on Facebook has only been out a few weeks also.
In "name" trademark infringements laws, i thought one had to have at least 50% of the original name in it's name to be considered an infringement. Correct me if i am wrong
This lawsuit is remarkably similar to SCO vs. Linux. It looks like Unix, sounds like Unix, and acts like Unix, it must be Unix.
I wrote a Connect4 game for the iPhone called Touch4 (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=283490535). I did some research on this and the name can be trademarked which is what MAY be the issue here. Like scrabble, the game play for connect four is centuries old and there cannot be infringement on that. My guess is that this is a negotiation tactic my Hasbro. I am watching this one closely. I wanted to name our pong game with Pong in the name but decided not to take the legal risk which is why it's called Touch Tennis (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284442084). I think the other games with Pong in the name are at legal risk. Some of them aren't even pong, but just using "Pong" to get hits.
The 43 year old housewife would like to buy an "E"
They can't, because Hasbro doesn't have world-wide rights to scrabble.
In most of the world, they don't.
In the rest of the world, the rights are owned by: J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England
In fairness to Hasbro, they probably would have some legal difficulties of their own if they offered their application outside of North America, since Mattel (their archrival!) owns the rights to Scrabble in the rest of the world. Yes, it's a very strange situation.
On a related note, I wonder if Facebook would be able (or willing) to continue to offer Scrabulous to users outside the US. That's a significant (and growing) portion of Facebook's userbase.
apterous.org
I see enough of these kinds of comments on Digg, you should be run out of town.
Don't taze me, Hasbro
What if I sell a Scrabulous game in the form of a large hexadecimal number? If you create a blank EXE file in a hex editor and type this number into it, you may find it plays the Scrabulous game. Should copyright law protect me from selling you this magical number? How about the number 23491143? Or 3? Can I print it on a t-shirt? Can I create a website with many of these very large, very interesting numbers?
Because that's the law. "Insightful" my ass.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Is Scrabulous isn't charging any money for the stupid app. They can even call it scrabble if they want to. Noone can do anything.
And, when Hasbro puts their feet to the fire, they'll be saying, "Don't braze me toe..." (Spoonerism on "Don't tase me, bro..."
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
There's supposed to be a Scrabble-like game in Tamil called Thiruthamizh. I've seen press accounts and even a video clip of people playing it, so I'm pretty sure it is for real, but it doesn't seem to be available either in India or overseas. It even has a web site, http://www.thiruthamizh.com, but most of the links don't work. Has anybody seen it?
The dude who invented Scrabble is long dead. Time to let others play.
Young man, I'll have you know that I am neither a "dude", nor am I dead.
I invented the game of Scrabble in the midst of the Great Depression, when all we could suffice to consume were incommodious blocks of wood. We adorned them with letters scrawled by coal dust in order concoct some meager facsimile of alphabet soup! It was then that I conceived the game of Scrabble. A novelty that children still relish the fortunes to play, even to this modern age!
I'll be damned if you fancy-pants kids with your new-fangled internets steal my life's achievement before I expire!
Scrabulous is not even a real word!
— Mortimer Witherspoon Scrabble
I don't see how anyone can reasonably conclude scrabulous was out to deceive anyone.
If scrabulous is violating trademarks here for scrabble, then you might as well sue hyundai for violating honda's trademarks.
Theyre both cars, they both have an H as their logo, they have similar models with equivalent numbers of doors.
They've been ranked very closely in initial quality assessments..
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I tried to check at archive.org, but it seems the Scrabulous people blocked archive.org from their site. (Hmm, that doesn't exactly reek of good faith, does it?
Homeland security:
"We want cowboyneal sent to gitmo for aiding and abetting terrorism!"
Judge:
"Do you have any evidence to support your accusation?"
Homeland security"
"We tried to use our domestic spying program to monitor his web habits, but he encrypted everything with a 1028 bit key! (Hmm, that doesn't exactly reek of good faith, does it?)"
Judge:
"Cowboyneal, you are now sentenced to 0x23FF years in prison"
Cowboyneal:
"WTF?"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
This is a terrible PR idea. It could have been a great opportunity for Hasbro to embrace Scrabulous and increase the popularity of their own product. Instead they took the douchey way out.
If you have to explain it...
There apparently is one - "SCRABBLE(tm) Worldwide (excluding U.S. and Canada)" (just search for Scrabble on Facebook, it was the top hit for me). Note that I've not added it yet, so I've no idea of the quality.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
If you look closely at the screenshot, you can see the Google Desktop Logo
That's not news that's their standard practice. EA not buying over a game company is news but totally expected that they would try and do it on the cheap by suing them. Personally I'd say there will be a boycott on the EA version soon.
cant these guys just move their servers to India [or elsewhere for that matter], and simply proceed to show Hasbro the middle finger, a-la pirate bay? ..on second thoughts maybe facebook will face all the fire in the hell then...
7-8-9-10-0
Sorry, I'm very much for things like abolition of software patents and shortening of copyright terms [...] They went so far as to use the term [Scrabble] to refer to their game, nevermind trying to actively dissuade people from confusing.
Sounds like we are on the same page when it comes to attitude to IP.
However I disagree that referring to Scrabble means they infringed Hasbro's trademark. If they had marketed it under a less similar name and simply stated that it was "like Scrabble" and been sure to make clear that "Scrabble is a RTM of Hasbro who have no association with this game". Then I think they'd be in the clear.
Under this sort of clear display of origin of the goods I can't see how there would be any confusion. They would definitely have to use a different name to Scrabulous however.
Unfortunately they didn't do that and as you rightly note Scrabulous is pretty clearly infringing the claimant's mark.
My wife loves Scrabulous, so she went out and bought the expensive collectors version of Scrabble so she could play it "live" with friends when they come over. We haven't bought a board game in years. Has Hasbro even investigated the possibility that Scrabulous is increasing the value of their brand?
In case scrabulous does get sued out of existence, I added the scrabble beta that's up on facebook now. Like so many efforts at appealing to gamers online, the application opens with a stupid, time consuming flash animation. Scrabulous keeps it simple, which is a huge draw for me.
Not that they care, but I anticipate far less participation in EA's game if it stays the way it is.
In the discussion board for this beta, a lot of these sentiments are reflected. One comment is titled "our words get lost on the too colorful board." I think that sums up the EA approach to online scrabble.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Do they pay the legal geeks by word score..oor letter????
Joe Investor
I can't find the link, but I believe the makers of crap sued crapulous and won an injunction.
Actually I think it might be bad news for Hasbro.
IANAL but from what I know (IP management as a part of my job) Hasbro has to be seen to take erasonable action ASAP in order for it not to give implicit permission to the Scrabulous guys.
Since Hasbro KNEW about the infringement and it KNEW (or should have known) that doing nothing would hurt its market share and it KNEW that it had a replacement in the works - then it follows that it should have taken reasonable steps (Im thinking court order) to get the Scrabulous guys to ceasse and desist _very_ early on.
Since it didn't - well , that leaves it with some interesting explaining to do in court. Instead, theyve screwed up and like any incompentent they seek to conceal the screw-up by bullying someone with more talent but less power. My advice (and people pay good money for it) is to buy the Scrabulous IPR plus a gilt-edged agreement from the guys not to repeat the exercise or comment about it in the street. Call it $500K. Chump change to Hasbro.
There is no intellectual property, there is trademarks, copyrights and patents.
Just speaking of intellectual property instead of the correct thing is quite confusing.
Scrabulous probably infringes on the trademark(which I personally don't think is a very intellectual thing, but the result of solid marketing or businessmanship), but not on any patent(too old) or coypright, since game ideas are not protected by copyright(www.out-law.com/page-7896,google:game ideas copyright)
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
They will change their name to stackwords.com
'In deference to fans' my ass! Scrabulous was launched in 2005. WTF were Hasbro doing then? Oh I know.. "Hmmm...here's this clone thingy of one of our games. Meh, nobody will want to play that, we are TEH RULEZ!!11" Then after it gains like 2M+ users.. "WTF? How did this happen? People actually *want* to play this online? Quick, we need to make money off this! License it to a big name! Lynch the little guy" ran It sounds flamebait-y, but come ON. I would still say the creators of Scrabulous were in good faith. If Hasbro had walked up to them early on and said, "Hey you're kinda stomping all over our trademark, so, well, don't" I'm sure they'd have stepped back. As it happened, Hasbro stood twiddling their thumbs, saw someone had a better business model than their legions of MBAs and ran whining to the mommy-courts for protection. I'm not saying the creator chaps weren't stupid to cross swords with Hasbro, but in their defence, when they saw no great backlash, they decided it's all good and forged ahead. This stinks.
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Then the creators of scrabolous could counter-sue EA for patent infringement. It is 10x funnier when the tables turn.
I know this is an old post and probably no-one will notice this, but just to let you know, scrabulous has now been disabled for the rest of the world, as there is now an official version of the scrabble game for the rest of the world.
Unfortunately having these seperate versions means that US/Canadians can no longer play scrabble against anyone else in the world(and vice versa of course). Way to go Hasbro/Mattel