Scrabulous shut down on Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Scrabulous shut down on Facebook

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36 pointsnarendra28 comments

In my opinion, this is exactly how copyright should work, instead of the sue grandma bullshit we have now.

Hasbro has exclusive rights to Scrabble that is pretty distinctive in brand and shape. Trademark, not copyright protects both the brand and the design of the board. Hasbro would have a case here, rest assured.

What we have here is a situation where one party is making money based on the IP of another, including using the brand's strength to attract attention. If that isn't outright IP infringement, we may as well get rid of the whole concept.

We're all better off that this didn't get to the courts. If Hasbro had lost, you can all but guarantee that there would be new and even more restrictive measures put in place to protect IP.

Scrabulous violated the spirit of the law, if not the letter. Those of us who already feel the letter of the law goes too far shouldn't be supporting these guys, honestly.

It may be how copyright does work, but it's not how it should work.

Money has been made off of Scrabble for 50 years. Maybe enough is enough?

What?

It is a bit of a surprise that Scrabulous, an obvious copy of the board game Scrabble, managed to avoid shutdown as long as it did.

So what if it's a copy? You cannot copyright a game: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html What Scrabulous should have done is to modify their name so it's not even similar to Scrabble (and doesn't share a syllable and a half) and they should have fought this in a court. They've made enough money to hire an excellent lawyer in the US. Had Hasbro had a really good case, they would have filed charges in court. They opted for a generic DMCA...

While it's true that you can't copyright a game, you can copyright parts of a game. For example, the game's artwork or the official Scrabble dictionary. I haven't actually played Scrabulous, but if they used the exact same board layout, that might be copyright infringement. Or, if they used the official word list, that might be copyright infringement.

You can also copyright the text describing the rules of the game. But, I doubt they'd be so lazy as to copy that...

And, of course, you can trademark the name of a game. As you said, Scrabulous is probably too similar to Scrabble.

I think it's possible to legally make a Scrabble knock off (not a lawyer, though!)... but, if Scrabulous had used a non-derivative board, word list, and a completely different name would they have gotten so popular?

You can't copyright a database of publicly available information (e.g. a dictionary, a phone book etc.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...

Some dictionaries have been inserting a fake word into their lists so that they can copyright that specific word and go after the infringer for using that word in their dictionaries. They can also copyright the definition of words. But you can't copyright Scrabble's list of acceptable words.

See also: "Fictitious entries" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry)

"Ghost words" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_word)

You can't copyright the rules to the game. Any distinctive design elements can be copyrighted. But if those elements are dictated by the rules then they still cannot be copyrighted.

Honestly I doubt that Hasbro could successfully pursue a copyright infringement case over Scrabulous. Scrabble has a very generic design which is mostly directly implemented from the rules. Hasbro's best bet would likely be a trademark claim. Though, if a court determined that "Scrabble" has become a generic term for an acrostic game then they could actually lose the trademark. That's a serious danger, just from my own personal perception.

The DMCA is a lousy way for Hasbro to try to eliminate Scrabulous. If I were Scrabulous I would send a counter-notice, at which point under the DMCA Facebook would be required to reinstate the game. Then take it to court. Hasbro will have a hell of a time making this one stick.

Edit:

The safe harbor and counter-notice provisions of the DMCA are the only thing I like about it.

Hasbro is the current Evil Empire of the toy industry. I would not mind seeing them taken down a peg. Long live the underdog!

Scrabulous would have a case, if they did not make such a direct rip-off of Scrabble (e.g. see all of the not-quite-direct-rip-offs floating around casual gaming sites or for mobile devices.) The coloring of the board, the design of the tiles, etc; all of this is covered by copyright and Scrabulous made the bad decision to ignore this fact and simply copy everything. Scrabulous can fight this, but they will lose.

Yeah. If I were cloning this, I would put the numbers in the upper-left-hand corner, and change the colors on the board. Perhaps I would change the point value for some letters also, and maybe move the "triple word score" squares around.

Actually... now that the competition is shut down, I wonder if I should implement this. Can I have some funding, kthx? ;)

Suing over the "copyright" for games is nothing new for Hasbro:

http://boardgames.about.com/library/news/bl000208a.htm http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=867

The headline is now "Scrabulous Shut Down on Facebook".

"UPDATED 11:00 a.m.| Facebook says the decision to block Scrabulous for U.S. and Canadian users was made by the Scrabulous developers, not Facebook."

Sneaky. They released a new variation called Wordscraper: http://apps.facebook.com/wordscraper

You can make your own custom boards, it seems, but otherwise it's the same game so far.

Screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/Cb1m0kGeVh

No, that's not the same game. "Similar" I will grant you, but if you are a Scrabble player than this substitute would never suffice.

Custom board = make your own Scrabble, but not in a way that Scrabulous could get into trouble for.

Can someone be my friend and share a Scrabble board with me?

What do the letters D,M,C,A spell?

I assume the Indian creators were too tough for Hasbro to negotiate a settlement with (good for them, not good for their addicted users).

mad,mac,dam,cam,cad,ma,am,ad, bullshit(wait what?)

http://www.wineverygame.com/wbg.php

Digital Millenium Copyright Act

I disagree with the writer who believes that the game board isn't highly protectable under copyright law. The number of squares, the arrangement of double and triple letter squares, the point values of the letters and the number of letters of each point value, are all copyrightable expression protected under the law. Copyright law doesn't prevent any else from developing their word-tile game but it does protect the particular combination and arrangement of these components that make Scrabble recognizable as Scrabble.

Or they could skip the hassle, negotiate a royalty with Hasbro, cut a little into their margins, and get on with it.

Hasbro reportedly offered them a large sum and they turned it down. Serves 'em right.

Turning down a company's offer to buy you out is a valid reason for them to apply a law designed to prevent movie piracy against you? That "serves 'em right"?

It "serves 'em right" for trying to profit from a clone of someone else's idea, but I doubt they did anything illegal. I hope they fight this and win, but it's a shame that they didn't use the opportunity to create a slightly different variant of Scrabble. Maybe it would have been better.

Yes, it does. What did they think Hasbro was going to do if they turned down the offer? Shrug and walk away?

I'm surprised Hasbro even made an offer, honestly. I thought they would have pressured Facebook to do something like this right away.

I'm surprised Hasbro even made an offer

I'm not. Buying them would have saved Hasbro the effort of hiring developers that knew the Facebook API, getting popular on Facebook, etc. They would have instantly had a popular product and qualified developers to work on the project.

i think what i find most appalling is how the electronic arts/hasbro scrabble app croaked this morning, presumably due to the incoming flood of scrabulous refugees.

no way!

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