Hasbro pulls the trigger, files lawsuit against Scrabulous makers

Update 4:49 PM

Facebook just issued the following statement regarding its role in the Scrabble vs. Scrabulous conflict: "We’re disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute; nevertheless, we have forwarded their concerns to Scrabulous and requested their appropriate response."

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Hasbro made its move. The owner of Scrabble today filed suit against the developers of Scrabulous, a popular word game played by millions of Facebook users each month.

Filed in New York federal court, the suit against Rajat Agarwalla, Jayant Agarwalla and their company, RJ Softwares, claims copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property," Hasbro's general counsel, Barry Nagler, said in a statement. Hasbro also sent a letter to Facebook this morning, requesting that the social networking site shut down Scrabulous. As of noon Pacific, the application was still up.

The war between Scrabble and Scrabulous began ...

...months ago when Hasbro, which owns the rights to Scrabble in North America, and Mattel, which owns the rights elsewhere, sent cease-and-desist letters to the Agarwalla brothers, who reside in India. The brothers issued a statement vowing to keep the application live.

Hasbro earlier this month introduced a beta version of its official Scrabble game on Facebook. Developed by Electronic Arts, the game is slated to be broadly available to all Facebook members sometime next month. "We want to give Scrabble fans a legitimate way to play the game," said Mark Blecher, Hasbro's general manager of digital media and gaming.

So far in the court of public opinion, players have ruled in favor of Scrabulous. While Scrabble counted 8,862 active players this morning on Facebook, Scrabulous had 512,961. Blecher said the game hasn't really begun, since Scrabble is still in beta, which means only players who have been invited can access the application.

Hasbro, through EA, has also developed Scrabble for iPhones and iPods. The game is also featured on EA's online game site, Pogo.

"Our primary goal is to give fans the chance to experience their passion in as many places as possible," Blecher said.

Anywhere but Scrabulous.

"Scrabulous looks like Scrabble, plays like Scrabble, and it sounds like Scrabble," Blecher said. "So it’s theft of intellectual property. It is just that simple. This is no different than when the recording industry considers it theft if people post songs on Napster and allow others to copy it for free."

-- Alex Pham

Image courtesy of Scrabulous

Comments

[Henry Sneath]

The suit looks strong on its face. They do a nice job in the pleading of setting up the factual basis for infringement of both copyright and trademark. Interesting how Hasbro waited until after getting its on game on line - perhaps to give die hard fans of Scrabulous a place to land if they are successful in shutting the game down. It will be interesting to see if Facebook responds to the DMCA notice and what Hasbro will do if they don't take it down. Should be a fun battle to watch.

[marat jensing]

Scrabulous is a GORGEOUSLY designed program...a gem that is even more enjoyable than board Scrabble for numerous reasons. What is on Pogo right now is pathetic and tacky in my opinion. Unless Hasbro et al. come up with something as magnificient and elegant as Scrabulous, they will be hard pressed to get a huge following. I have nothing, obviously, but praise for the intelligent and aesthetic design of Scrabulous--a game which DESERVES to survive SOMEWHERE on the net. Its pretty pathetic to read this: "Our primary goal is to give fans the chance to experience their passion in as many places as possible," Blecher said. Duh...more than half a million people a day have been doing that with Scrabulous. Why not merely work with the Indian duo who developed something so grand and maintain it in its current incarnation? Its called $$$$.