Scrabbling for Scrabulous
p2pnet news | P2P:- Fans fight for Scrabulous future, says the BBC.
Game row: Notice surprises siblings, says the Times of India.
Yesterday, "Play Scrabulous, the coolest word game with your family and friends, right here at Facebook," says its inventors, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla on Facebook, p2pnet posted, going on:
"But, Don’t even think about it!, say joint Scrabble owners Mattel and Hasbro.
"They’re demanding Facebook yanks the Scrabulous game from its site claiming Scrabulous infringes their copyright on their Scrabble word game."
Now, "The threat to the hugely popular Scrabulous game has galvanised Facebook members into mounting a vigorous defence campaign," says the Beeb. "In little more than a day more than 13,000 people have signed up to a Save Scrabulous group on Facebook."
Makes one think of the Canadian Facebook campaign when Ottawa law professor Michael Geist started a group aimed at persuading industry minister Jim Prentice it might be a good idea to consult the population before making radical changes to Canada’s copyright legislation.
The Agarwalla brothers, "never imagined they would land in trouble for introducing millions of gamesters to an online wordgame similar to Scrabble on a social networking site," says the Times of India, going on:
"The brothers – who run R-J Software, a web service and e-commerce solutions firm in Kolkata – were served legal notices by US-based toymaker Hasbro for flouting copyright of Scrabble.
"The notice surprised the brothers, who never knew about copyright violation. Their website scrabulous.com has more than 6,00,000 subscribers, while they have 2.3 million players on the networking site."
Mattel and Hasbro, "launched their action on Tuesday saying that the Scrabulous game was a ‘gross copyright and trademark infringement’," says the BBC. "The companies asked Facebook to remove Scrabulous.’
Neither Facebook nor the Indian brothers who created the online word game have so far commented on the row, it adds. "On Facebook, Scrabulous regularly racks up more than 500,000 users a day and many of these have leapt to the defence of the game," it says.
Now on Facebook:
Topic: PETITION: Scrabulous Vs Matel/Hasbro ‘07-08
Signed up so far are Nimai Conde from Sunderland in the UK,.and Tsuey and Sabrina Yee from Brunei.
"US Scrabulous players have to send Hasbro a strong message that we will boycott their products if they have this page removed, you can send them a message by joining my webpage on facebook," says Ken White on Facebook.
Says Mark Zebrowski on Facebook in Close Down:
"Typical. I’d be willing to wager that 95% (or more) of the people who use this application own real-life, honest-to-god, cardboard-and-wood Scrabble boards. Such greed . . .
And, "I play scrabble at home I have two sets and all of my children now grown up have sets in their own homes – my daughter got super scrabble for Christmas," says Angela Smith from Newcastle in Britain, going on:
"I am near retirement and on my own, I thoroughly enjoy playing scrabulous with friends on facebook and would be very disappointed if you removed it! I think the majority of people who play will have a set, and if not the site will encourage them to buy it.
"Please rethink – a lot of lonely people enjoy this game."
But, says Timothy Baril from Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada, "If you started writing books and making movies about Harry Potter, JK Rowling wouldn’t like it very much. If you created something and someone else made money off your creation, you’d be upset too.
"Hating Hasbro and Mattel over their cease and desist order is WRONG. Fans of the Facebook Scrabulous app would be far better served to ask Hasbro/Mattel to acquire the app and keep it up, or develop their own.
"The developers of this application deliberately created an app based directly on someone else’s property (and make money off it – look at the ads). There is no question they are in the wrong. They did not create an original game, they did not get permission from Hasbro/Mattel to develop this version.
"Try working with Hasbro/Mattel on a solution to the issue and being positive, rather than unjustifiably angry because you’re selfishly upset you won’t get to play your game any more.
Meanwhile, how long before we hear of an amicable deal involving Facebook and the Agarwallas, do you reckon?
Also See:-
BBC – Fans fight for Scrabulous future, January 17, 2008
Times of India – Game row: Notice surprises siblings, January 17, 2008
p2pnet – Drop Scrabulous, Facebook told, January 16, 2008
consult the population – Don’t repeat US mistake, CLA tells Prentice, December 21, 2007
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January 17th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I don’t really see how they can claim ownership over a game where all you do is form words out of randomly selected letters.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Scrable is just a crossword puzzle renamed scrabble. So how can Masbro/Matel claim copyright on this?
A lot of people have been using cut letters from news papers to be able to reuse their crossworld puzles well before they show up with this so called “Scrabble”.
Soldiers in world war I were playing this games in the tranches and sailors too during the 19th century! Where is the novelty in this game?
Let’s get ride of this bogus copyright claim once and for all!
January 17th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
The world Scrabble was trademarked in 1948. So may be HAsbro can claim tradmark infringement because Scrabulous is related to Scrabble although it is fare fetched. But the game itself is just a crossworld puzzle. and even the idea of having amovible letters has many prior arts as fare as the 19th century at least! I will no be surprised if we can find some even older prior art for that. At most just change the game name to something else and continue to play!
January 17th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Scrabble was re-Invented in 1931. Did the copyright expired by now even on this claim?