they made a game that has an uncanny similarity to the game Scrabble (which by the way, was invented more than 60 years ago), and they gave it a name that people would definitely associate with Scrabble, so that people would recognize that it is a Scrabble-like game. They used the same board layout, and the same scoring mechanism. And you know what, they are acting completely within the copyright laws in doing so. They do not claim that their game is the official Scrabble, and they do nothing to misrepresent what their game is, a Scrabble-like game that can be played online.

The number of people who are siding with the big bad company who just launched their own game, and is using their expensive lawyers to get rid of any competition, is really disturbing. I guess big business really has won.

http://www.tastesliketv.com/shorts/latest/scrabulous/

Brothers: "What?"

Hasbro: "Right."

Ask yourself this: Why did those two weasels name the online game "Scrabulous"?

Since critical thinking apparently isn't your strong suit, here's the answer: They wanted to freeride on the Scrabble trademark.

Sometimes the big corporation is right and the little guys are wrong. This is one of those cases.

Also, good job quoting something that wasn't even in the link you offered. Before mentioning you read the rumor in SA (unverified and anonymous), everyone that clicked over to the NYT story would've found nothing about any buyout offer...appearing as if you made it up out of thin air.

Clearly, you were an intern for Judith Miller, during the Iraq run-up. Wonderful, quick study.

The brothers were foolishly wrong to name the online game "scrabulous". When they did that, they guaranteed that Hasbro would have to sue them because trademark rights can be lost if they're not defended by the mark holder.

So Hasbro had to stop Scrabulous or risk losing its trademark in Scrabble. Hasbro did the right thing. The brothers didn't. They're just common thieves.

Seriously, once you say "according to" you can't just make up what ever you want.

It is a crime against humanity to use a blank to play anything less than a bingo, for anything less than 56 points (except in certain cases, depending on the context).

On a different note, I can't believe that the brothers refused $10M. I would have taken the money immediately and used it to build something innovative, maybe stayed as a highly paid consultant for EA to help them better understand what they went through, what they learned from their 500,000+ customers, etc. It was clear that things would get ugly at some point. But, of course, only the brothers really know why they did not take the money, if money was indeed put on the table.

Hi Clare! Will subscribe to thepoint.com later today to support your effort. Cheers!

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

Some material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable.

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If Hasbro did all they could to join forces with the brothers, then I agree this was the right move. However, if not (which just seems to resonate more with the situation) then maybe they should try again.

People are joining forces pretty quickly to try to make that happen at thepoint.com.

There has to be a better solution that what is happening now.

Even though I was a huge Scrabulous fan and it was the only Facebook game I played regularly, it was a clear violation of intellectual property laws. And I'm a bit surprised how some people are saying Hasbro et al. were stupid for not just buying up Scrabulous - as much as I liked Scrabulous, this kind of piracy ought not be encouraged or rewarded. The companies were quite generous in offering a deal to the Scrabulous developers at all.

You raised some good questions as well... I do think the biggest lesson is learning to defend a brand via competition. If the makers of Scrabble had built a quality application to begin with, Scrabulous would probably have never taken off. And while some "piracy" can be seen as helpful advertising (e.g. a fan site that uses copyrighted images), there are cases where I think a company is right to take action - and this is one such case.

I'd also add that even in the helpful cases, a company has to be very careful. As much as us techies rightly talk about problems with copyright/patent/trademark systems, they remain very important systems that ultimately do benefit consumers.

What we really need - and has been proposed - is a 'use it or lose it' clause to copyright ownership, with rights reverting first to the creator, then the public domain. Some contracts already have this in, but it seems a good principle to widely establish.