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Scrabulous Returns To Facebook, As Wordscraper
porcupine8 writes "Good news for those that have had a hole in their heart (and Facebook profile) since Hasbro forced Facebook to remove Scrabulous over copyright and trademark issues. The creators of Scrabulous have wasted no time in tweaking the game and have launched a new tile-based game called Wordscraper. In addition to changing the name, they have changed the board look so as not to directly copy the colors, etc of a Scrabble board, and have even made provisions for players to create their own board layout! Interested Scrabulous fans can add the application now. Only time will tell if the changes were extensive enough to keep Hasbro's lawyers at bay."
So if Hasbro takes them to court for infringing the board design (which IIRC is far shakier than the misuse of the trademark) then they can just delete that. The immediately available user-created boards which look like original Scrabble are, of course, not Wordscraper's fault.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If you define 'innovation' as copying someone else's idea in almost every detail.
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I also park illegally on occasion, and sometimes drive a few miles above the speed limit. I have been known file my taxes late, and have stolen music by downloading it. Sometimes I accidentally throw away paper without recycling it.
Scrabulous was a popular, well implemented version of a game I own no less than 4 boards for. i probably have purchased anywhere from 10 -15 boards over the past 20 years.
I enjoyed it, so I played it. Now that wordscraper is available, I will play that.
Those are all illegal, getting caught has penalties, and I know that. I may not agree with the laws, but when I get caught I pay the consequences, without whining or trying to come up with some sort of convoluted justification for my actions.
Not all laws are equal in my books. Murder is not a law I break with the same equanimity as a local parking ordinance.
If you have managed to live your life ethically pure, then I applaud you.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Actually, in this case I think the claim was that Scrabulous was infringing upon the Scrabble trademark. IMHO trademarks *should* last as long as the company is in operation. There's no reason why a company should have to lose its trade name over the course of time.