Long outplayed by two Indian brothers, Hasbro finally delivers a massive counter blow to Scrabulous, one of the most loved games on Facebook. Scrabulous fans in North America will see the following message when they try to play the game:
Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.
Hasbro has long contended that Scrabulous infringes on its trademarks for Scrabble. It licenses the North American digital rights for Scrabble to Electronic Arts, which announced its own Facebook version of the game earlier this month. (RealNetworks owns the international digital rights, and is not taking as aggressive a stance against Scrabulous).
Last week, Hasbro filed suit against the owners of Scrabulous, Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla. The same day, EA publicly launched its officially-sanctioned Scrabble game on Facebook. (See screen shot below, which I took that day).
Hasbro and EA planned their moves very methodically and waited patiently for their chance to strike. Perhaps EA felt that it could not compete with Scrabulous other than by taking it out at the knees. Scrabulous boasts 509,505 daily active users. EA’s Scrabble Beta has 14,956 (after only five days). Now, the question is whether Scrabulous fans will boycott the official version of Scrabble on Facebook or switch over to satisfy their word lust.
Update: EA’s Scrabble app seems to be down on Facebook. Maybe they weren’t ready for the surge in traffic.
E-V-I-L
Um, no. Not at all. More like E - V - O - L - V - E.
As in Hasbro & companies need to evolve and realize they need to get stake their Web 2.0 app….or someone else will.
In this case, some smart & entrepreneurial blokes in India.
The one thing W R O N G that Hasbro did was to not B U Y these guys. These two basically gave Hasbro a HUGE defacto fan base & that’s should’ve been compensated.
And the one thing that companies need to realize about Web 2.0 apps/social networking is that playing N I C E gets you more friends (& more P A Y).
Hasbro should’ve bought these two, accepted the adoration of the entire community & look like heroes.
Ok. F*(@#*@# IT. THEY ARE E V I L!!!
Simple explanation: Both EA and Hasbro have terminal cases of NIH syndrome.
Hasbro is evil because someone stole their IP and got it live in a new medium before they did? On top of that they much payoff the copiers? You realize the only reason the app was they copied Hasbro’s copyrighted game that everyone one knows.
@Jim,
Hasbro wasn’t evil. I was being silly. BUT it wasn’t just about two guys in India.
This was about the HUGE base of users who suddenly lost something they really enjoyed.
Hasbro’s actions, though legal, affected those users — THEIR users.
Hasbro could’ve inherited a HUGE pre-built base if they wanted to. Instead they have to count of users rolling over to them….and not being too annoyed at them.
And Hasbro could’ve also gotten some warm fuzzies from the development community which really drives social networking.
BAD decision by Hasbro. They could’ve looked like heroes but instead looked “corporate”, “uncool”, maybe even “mean” — fairly or not.
Well, gee. Hasbro is SOOOO evil for defending their patent rights, which, incidentally, if they HADN’T, they would’ve LOST, if I remember patent law correctly. I could be wrong on that point; I’m certainly not a lawyer of any kind, but whatever. They’re a private, for-profit corporation. Their job is to make a profit selling their products. Would you be happy if you produced, marketed, and sold a legitimate version of something you own the rights for to the point where it is a household name, and then suddenly some random pair of guys decided to give away free copies of what was rightfully yours?I would think not. I don’t care if it was 5 million people playing it - Hasbro was well within their rights to get it shut down. Just because a large group of people does something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. So, you may be unhappy that your free, but illegal and counterfeitted version of a popular, well-known game was taken down… but gee, when I phrase it that way, does the issue really sound the same to you?
You want to know what’s EVIL? These @#(*& nested comments are evil!
How they let you bump your comments & completely muck up margins. My neck hurts adjusting to the constant indentations!!
Should we start rating each other now?
Ok….breeeeeathe….breeeeaaathe….
you wouldn’t say that if you own the rights.
May be it’s just karma
oh, no you di’int!
Shiva’s gonna smote yee now!
It’s a shame, but is it really evil? Should Hasbro not have the right to protect what’s theirs? (I’m not saying they handled the situation well, I’m just not sure that it was evil)
respect the copyright
I’m surprised it says just U.S. and Canada. I’d think that Facebook, being a U.S. company, would actually disable it across all countries. If I was Hasbro I’d still push for that.
Hasbro only owns the rights in NA, some other company owns the rights outside NA. Look for the rest to be taken down soon where they will be offered the digital version from Real Networks. Such a shame international game play will not be possible.
Well, hopefully the founders haven’t just been resting on their laurels and have been working on something more creative than copying existing games.
How many people do you think would need to boycott Scrabble for it to have an effect on them?
Why is there a debate? While I tip my hat to the brothers for their ability to build the app and get it out there it was a blatant counterfeit.
Copyright should entirely be respected, but Hasbro could’ve played it much smarter than this.
You and “silicon valley dropout.” It’s trademark, not copyright. There’s a difference.
Let’s play domino
Actually, the developers posted that note (likely to comply with a legal request) but the app is still very much there and Facebook itself didn’t intervene.
Scrabulous gone - Fair or Foul[VOTE]: http://snurl.com/373oc [www_thriveorfail_com]
Well has anybody played the Hasbro version of it yet?
What I really don’t understand is TechCrunch’s genuine hostility to musicians, journalists, game-makers and other creative folks whose work is being distributed via new technologies but for the benefit of the distributor rather than the creator. How is Scrabulous different than StudiVZ, the German Facebook knock-off which has earned so much derision here?
Scrabulous in my mind is the evil one — if that is how we want to characterize the party in the wrong — not Hasbro, regardless of their respective sizes.
Everything I’ve read from TC supports new technologies for distribution of media.
Besides, Scrabulous wasn’t evil…they were filling a niche that Hasbro wasn’t. People wanting to play a game on facebook isn’t evil. Now that there is an official online version though, that changes things.
sorry, i think i missed it… where is the “don’t really give a flying fuck about either one” choice on the survey?
Seconded.
it’s on the “don’t bother coming to this page if you’re not interested” survey
Seconded
This is silly. There could not be a more blatant infringement of copyright. Hasbro have every right to protect their property and I’m frankly surprised it took this long to get Scrabulous removed. YouTube videos get removed in a few hours don’t they?
which aspect of the game was copyrighted that it was fringed by scarbulous?
ooopsss….meant to say infringed
This is not about copyright. It’s more about trademark infringement. If they didn’t create name similar to Scrabble, I don’t think there would be an issue.
I also heard if they changed the color of squares they would also not be in as much trouble either.
Yahoo has had a nearly identical scrabble game (Literati) online for several years. I think all that’s different is the name and color of squares.
This is why building facebook apps is rather risky. Facebook can do anything they want and you have very little control over it.
All you are doing is increasing facebook asset for free. And at the end only a handful are making any money from the apps.
nytimes broke this story. link it up
damn it. i had a great 8-letter word lined up. triple word score too
geez - use a spellcheck before publishing.
Copyrights are evil.
Think about it.
One invites something new, but after year world is developed and hundreds others have possibility invite the same thing.
All new inovations are achievements of mankind.
Copyrights are evil.
I’m just disappointed that we can’t get a worldwide version of the Scrabble application. US/Canada gets one app, everywhere else gets a different app. Stupid, really.
The game was clearly infringing. I am an online Scrabble whore thanks to Scrabulous but have no problem switching. It’s a shame they can’t be rewarded in some way for forcing Hasbro’s hand in getting this game online but they were riding piggyback on a game owned by a very powerful company. They crossed their fingers and hoped to get bought out but instead they got crushed. Shit happens.
I don’t think that I would mind the forced switch if users were being offered a comparable product in terms of speed and efficiency. I find all the animated stuff to be a waste of my time. I want to click the app and start playing. Beyond this, before they took out Scrabulous, they needed to make sure that their app was ready to handle the load from many users. It was temporarily disabled this morning.
They could just call their game Wordulous. Problem solved!
Copyright does not extend to game mechanics. To the printed rules explaining those mechanics, yes, but changing the words in the rules is perfectly fine.
Hasbro has every right (and responsibility) to enforce their copyright. As anyone familiar with copyright law will tell you, if you don’t defend it, you could lose it. Aside from that, every account I have read so far has indicated that the two brothers were demanding exorbitant paydays for their work. While I certainly don’t fault anyone for being opportunistic, it’s probably a bad idea to start making unreasonable demands when the basis of your claim is that you infringed on someone’s copyright.
It seems a very vocal portion of the Facebook community is trying to demonize Hasbro, but it’s not a fair criticism to make. One’s enjoyment of the game doesn’t reduce the claim Hasbro has over their own copyright. They could have simply enforced their copyright from the start, leaving a void on Facebook and angering a lot of people. Instead they chose to first deploy their own, legal version of the game, and then enforce the copyright. While many (including the author of this post) will see this as a case of “taking it [Scrabulous] out at the knees”, it’s simply a case of one company defending their property. There is no gray area here. It’s a cut-and-dry case of theft.
Maybe you’re referring to trademark law. Or maybe you just don’t know what you’re talking about.
Anyhow, copyright on games is restricted to the visual look of the board and tiles and the text of rules and does NOT apply to the actual rules and game-play.
Jeebus! I hope “Loren’s Mom” employs more tact in her parenting than she does in her comment trolling. Ever met a polite rebuttal you liked?
Umm… copyrights are not a “use it or lose it” area. Neither are patents. Trademarks are in a way, but it’s far more complicated.
yeah, very articulate post but not too much knowledge backing it up
my grandma’s not gonna like this
The real story here is eternal copyrights. How long is their copyright good for? 100 yrs … 1000 yrs….
WTFPWNED. Very sad to see it go.
Yeah, I’m with Joe here. When was Scrabble originally created? Scrabble should be public domain’d by now it seems. (Excluding the name, Hasbro can keep the “Scrabble” name)
Agreed with Glenn Kelman.
The Scrabulous/Scrabble case is no different from the Facebook/German-Clone-Site case. Yet, lots of netizens side with Scrabulous for the former case but with Facebook for the latter. I guess on the affinity (or lack thereof) netizens have with a particular company — objectivity is not in those people’s vocabulary.
Personally, I welcome this news. Those brothers have made enough money exploiting someone else’s idea. I’d grab the money and run, if I were you!
Scrabulous was a crappy name to begin with; besides copyright infringement it sounds like a venereal disease.
Wrong! Scrabulous is a fabulous name. You must live in a middle state.
Erick - you misspelled Hasbro in paragraph 3
If reports on other blogs are correct that hasbro offered a 7 figure sum for scrabulous and the developers demanded a 8 figure offer then i don’t feel much sympathy for them. They should have taken the money while they could and not been so greedy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble
They’ve got what looks like the full rules on the Wikipedia page. (Copyright). Plus any reasonable person should agree that the copyright wasn’t meant to run this long.
http://www.hasbro.com/default......y_scrabble
“The game was trademarked SCRABBLE in 1948,…”
Here’s an interesting page on Scrabble’s legal issues. http://home.teleport.com/~stev.....ssues.html
Really aside from the Scrabble name I don’t see where Hasbro/EA has a leg to stand on.
Copyright should be respected *however* this in my opinion is an embarrasment to hasbro- who have had to resort to big power tactics on the net…which I don’t think usually goes down well.
Their snail pace response has resulted in the entrepreneurial, as they usually do, filling the void, all be it on dodgy ground. they should be congratulated on their efforts maybe hasbro wouldnt do badly from bringing them on board in some fashion.
Other established businesses take note it may not play out as nicely for the corps. next time.
*Edit*
Copyright should be respected *however* this in my opinion is an embarrasment to hasbro- who have had to resort to big power tactics on the net…which I don’t think usually goes down well.
Their snail pace response has resulted in the entrepreneurial, as they usually do, filling the void, all be it on dodgy ground. The brothers should be congratulated on their efforts maybe hasbro wouldnt do badly from bringing them on board in some fashion.
Other established businesses take note it may not play out as nicely for the corps. next time.
@PhilK: Should McDonald’s Big Mac be of public domain then? What about Coca-cola?
A Big Mac *is* in the public domain. You can make your own 2 all beef patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion, on a sesame seed bun burgers and you’ll have no problems from anyone. However the name Big Mac is a trademark of McDonald’s.
One problem: special sauce is not of public knowledge. So you’re not making a Big Mac, but some kind of hamburger.
Bad examples. As I understand it both of them are trade secrets and trademarks, not part of copyright law. If I could legally find out what Coke’s recipe was I could make Coke as long as I didn’t market it with the Coca-Cola name.
You are right. Those are bad examples.
Regarding copyright expiration, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....Expiration
So, according to Wikipedia, Scrabble will be copyrighted for a while still.
not surprised the app is down, being an EA mishap, yet again. company has no clue about how to create an online experience, let alone run it.
I find the scrabble application lacking. The action is slow, they have ridiculous animations for score counting, you can’t type words for your move, has ridiculous sound feedback, and I’ve only played one turn. Sure, sue away, but maybe wait until your product is out of beta?
The “official” Scrabble on Facebook is horrible. It’s covered in bling and unnecessary flashy stuff, it lags horribly, and the placement of the tiles, chat, etc. is horrible. It is obvious that EA just tried to shove this out the door as fast as they could and did as little beta testing as possible.
Now, as you can see, the application is down. Whether that is from angry users purposely flooding the servers or EA simply not being ready to handle the traffic is up for speculation.
Either way, my boss will be happy about this. I won’t use the Scrabble Facebook app (sorry, it’s too blingy and “tricked out” to even be remotely playable) and will search the web for something similar where I can play with people around the world (I had several French games open to help me refresh my French). Someone mentioned Literati on Yahoo so I’ll check that out sometime today.
Perhaps the Scrabulous makers will make a new game, similar, but with different colored tiles and under a different name. I’ll come back and play that one. As a long time Scrabble fan, however, they have permanently lost my business. Trademark or no trademark, I’m a consumer and the product they put out is sub-par.
No foul here. These guys did rip off Hasbro in my view. They probably would have had less legal problems if they didn’t pick a name that sounded so similar to the copyright.
Secondly, they should have approached Hasbro and offered a branding deal.
J, http://www.sumolabs.com
I read this about Facebook and it’s pretty scary with apps…be careful about your online safety:
http://www.danielpoon.com/life.....nt-part-5/
Don’t count the Scrabulous team out just yet. I think they have a few tricks up their sleeves and this whole ordeal may in fact be looked back on as a blessing in disguise. Keep your eyes peeled..
Hasbro has a legal right to do it this way.
I will not be playing their game.
test
The same guys (I believe) released Wordscraper as an alternative to Scrabulous:
http://apps.facebook.com/wordscraper
Where you build your own Scrabble boards and challenge people.
Screenshot of the new Wordscraper app is here, with a random board created:
http://screencast.com/t/Cb1m0kGeVh
The real story is your FB inbox. Good god man =p
We also reported on this story this morning.
TL - http://tinyurl.com/SCRABULOUSREMOVEDFROMFACEBOOK
The brothers should of taken out a massive loan and bought the rights to the game
http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
Bob
“The brothers should of taken out a massive loan and…”
You mean “Should HAVE taken”? And you keep a blog?
Besides EA has exclusive digital rights from Hasbro, not that you care about accuracy, just spamming your shitty site.