Hasbro D-R-O-P-S Facebook Scrabulous Lawsuit

December 16, 2008

In July, toymaker Hasbro, which owns the rights to the venerable board game Scrabble, filed suit against the publishers of Scrabulous, a Scrabble knockoff accessible via Facebook.

Scrabulous disappeared immediately, thanks to a DMCA take-down order, and EA quickly launched an officially-licensed Scrabble version on the popular social networking site.

The Associated Press is now reporting that Hasbro has dropped its lawsuit against Calcutta-based Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, the brothers who created Scrabulous. From the AP story:

Court documents did not specify a reason for the withdrawal of the case.

RJ Softwares, the Agarwalla brothers' company, said in a statement that it has agreed not to use the term "Scrabulous" and has made changes to different versions of the game it created after the lawsuit was filed...

"The agreement provides people in the U.S. and Canada with a choice of different games and also avoids potentially lengthy and costly litigations," the statement said.

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Comments

Re: Hasbro D-R-O-P-S Facebook Scrabulous Lawsuit

Submitted by sheppy on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 12:43.

I can just imagine the conversation that took place.

Hasbro Suit: So, how goes our current lawsuits against nonthreatening things?

Lawyer 1: We have successfully used the DMCA to remove Scrabulous from Facebook.

Lawyer 2: Yes.. however

Lawyer 1: Shut up, Steve!

Hasbro Suit: However?

Lawyer 2: Well, you see... they circumvented the lawsuit by changing the name of their application and now that makes it much harder for us to press the issue.

Lawyer 1: Regardless, we are pushing ahead for a cut of the profits.

Hasbro Suit: Just what ARE the profits?

Lawyer 2: Absolutely nothing sir. It was a free app.

Hasbro Suit: So this games existance could effect us in some way. Right?

Lawyer 1: Absolutely. It interferes with our PC software release of Scrabble Unlimited and it's offer of online play.

Lawyer 2: But those online servers went down a year ago...

Hasbro Suit: So no money, no competeing product, and they are defendable by a name change. Is the sole purpose of this lawsuit just to make us look like assholes?

Lawyer 1: Assholes protecting our Internet Millions, sir.

Hasbro Suit: Drop the suit.

Lawyer 2: At last I can see my wife and kids again....

Lawyer 1: I had them sold to somalian pirates in exchange for safe shipping routes for Monopoly Diamond Deluxe Butter Nougat Edition... sorry.

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Re: Hasbro D-R-O-P-S Facebook Scrabulous Lawsuit

Submitted by Father Time on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 17:46.

That's funny man, really funny.

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Debates are like merry go rounds Two people take their positions then they go through the same points over and over and over again. Then when it's over they have the same positions they started in.

---------------------------------------------------- Debates are like merry go rounds. Two people take their positions then they go through the same points over and over and over again. Then when it's over they have the same positions they started in.

Re: Hasbro D-R-O-P-S Facebook Scrabulous Lawsuit

Submitted by zel on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 11:09.

i never played it, did they make any changes to board design or gameplay? I can understand why they'd wanna make it but if they basically recreated scrabble rule by rule you also have to understand why hasbro would sue. They should have just tried to talk to them first before throwing lawsuits down though.

I hate the DMCA though, what a bullshit law. anyone remember how someone later proved a sharpie was in violation because it could be used to circumvent the audio CD protection used to prevent CD-ROMs from reading and ripping an audio CD?

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Re: Hasbro D-R-O-P-S Facebook Scrabulous Lawsuit

Submitted by DeepThorn on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 09:30.

it was a BS suit to begin with, though these guys should have been more creative and actually make some essential changes in gameplay. It really isnt that hard.

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Re: Hasbro D-R-O-P-S Facebook Scrabulous Lawsuit

Submitted by Sigma 7 on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 00:05.

The suit had to do with using the trademark, and since Hasbro wants to avoid many Scrabble knockoffs using the scrabble name (rather than doing variations to the name and board such as Literati), they have to persue anyone using their trademark.

It's also not that hard to choose the name "Wordscraper" over "Scrabulous", aside from having to spend time thinking.

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Shout box

E. Zachary Knight: New Humble Bundle Weekly Sale. Alan Wake: https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly No Linux or Mac support. :(05/22/2013 - 1:46pm

E. Zachary Knight: Microsoft talks about the lack of backward compatability. You're backwards. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/192801/If_youre_backwards_compatible_youre_really_backwards.php05/22/2013 - 1:39pm

E. Zachary Knight: That is absolutely nuts there. As bad an experience XBox Indie Games was, the problems weren't with the self published side of things. Forcing a publisher onto independent studios is not going to help.05/22/2013 - 10:43am

MaskedPixelante: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-22-microsoft-wont-let-indies-self-publish-on-xbox-one And the hits just keep on coming.05/22/2013 - 9:20am

E. Zachary Knight: AE: You beat me to it. That's what I get for taking the night off.05/22/2013 - 7:40am

E. Zachary Knight: To continue the confused and convoluted messaging system present in EA, They are making Wii U games: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/192753/EA_is_working_on_Wii_U_games_after_all.php05/22/2013 - 7:33am

Imautobot: I gotta admit, I seriously believed Microsoft was going to "Bring It" with this new console. But they failed, and I think that failure might be Epic.05/22/2013 - 7:27am

Andrew Eisen: Well, the Xbox One reveal certainly had an interesting affect on the big 3's stock prices. https://twitter.com/AndrewEisen/status/33705126448977100805/21/2013 - 10:45pm

PHX Corp: http://kotaku.com/so-the-xbox-one-reveal-screwed-up-a-lot-of-peoples-kin-509179256 So The Xbox One Reveal Screwed With Some People's Kinects05/21/2013 - 10:36pm

Zen: On a funny side note...both of my boys have already voted NOT to get the Xbox One as soon as they found out Minecraft won't transfer lol. Some people have priorities damnit! ;)05/21/2013 - 9:27pm

Andrew Eisen: Here's the full quote on EA making Wii U games according to Neogaf: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56112105/21/2013 - 8:19pm

Andrew Eisen: Xbox One may not be always on but that doesn't mean you can use it without an internet connection. http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-does-require-internet-connection-cant-play-o-50916410905/21/2013 - 7:39pm

Andrew Eisen: Polygon says EA's CFO says it is developing games for Wii U but doesn't provide that quote. http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4351844/ea-developing-wii-u-games05/21/2013 - 7:11pm

Andrew Eisen: Well, I was right. Both Sony and Microsoft's consoles will be out by the year's end and both will be significantly more powerful than the current gen.05/21/2013 - 5:06pm

james_fudge: thnx05/21/2013 - 4:47pm

Zen: Just to let ya know...you called it the "Xbox 260" in the backwards compatibility article lol.05/21/2013 - 4:26pm

Zen: @PHX Awesome, I will hit those up after class tonight. Going back to college finally! :) My kids have had a blast telling ME to do my homework now lol.05/21/2013 - 4:19pm

PHX Corp: @Zen I sent you a friend request on both PSN and XBL, just a heads up05/21/2013 - 4:16pm

Zen: I noticed it with the football players when EA showed off Madden as well.05/21/2013 - 4:11pm

Zen: Is it just me or is call of duty hitting the "uncanny valley" with their nicely modeled faces and dead looking eyes? I found it distracting and seemed actually "less" real to me lol.05/21/2013 - 4:10pm

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