27th
On Scrabulous
I’m pretty hot and bothered about the IP dustup between Hasbro, Mattel, and the makers of Scrabulous. The makers of Scrabble have a very valid argument for infringement. At the same time, the makers of Scrabulous have added a lot to the originally trademarked game.
I’ve played more scrabble on Facebook than I have ever played on a board.
There are a lot of IP issues to squabble over, but I really I hope that Hasbro and Mattel can work out a licensing deal with the Agarwalla brothers.
In my mind, the long-form-time-lapse game, with messaging and reference tools, attached to facebook’s laundry list of friends to play with, is a great functional improvement over the board game. Fortunately for some, US Intellectual Property law is such that taking the game online will always trade on the name and likeness of the original, and judges tend to stretch the limits of copyright and trademark law when it comes to protecting the innovations of gamemakers. Fortunately for others, enforceability is murky because the Agarwalla brothers live in India, under a different set of trademark rules. A lot is riding on whether Facebook is liable for contributing to the infringement. Hasbro & Mattel did manage to shut down escrabble.com in 2005, and they’ve licensed the video game rights for all their games to Electronic Arts.
I just looked up from my screen to see my roommate scrolling thru huffpo. I saw a headline that I read Scrabulous and got really excited about. It was actually
“Bush Scrambles to reject Economic Policy…” Alas.
Dreams of Scrabulous on the brain…
I’ve read that the Agarwalla brothers tried to get in touch with the right people at Hasbro and Mattel to work with them on Scrabulous from the beginning. It’s reported that they weren’t interested at the time. Here’s to hoping that the good people at Hasbro and Mattel change their tune and cut a deal with the brothers at Scrabulous to take a percentage of the revenue they’re generating.
Triple word score!