What is Digg?106 Comments
- bluepill2, on 07/31/2008, -6/+78Love it. Actually WordScraper allows users to design their own kind of word game, and of course, if a user wishes to create a game with the same rules as Scrabble, well, it takes about 2 minutes. BRAVO. This is the kind of jujitsu that proves many things: that copyright laws are waay outdated, and that an empowered audience can humble major media anytime. I love this.
- Typhoon2009, on 07/31/2008, -2/+54They should've just sold scrabulous for the 10 million or whatever it was. Idiots.
- HonestAbe, on 07/31/2008, -12/+58Scrabulous wasn't a copyright infringement.
Wordscraper is DEFINITELY not a copyright infringement.
Good on them for working within our corrupt copyright laws and creating a competitor that can't be sued into the ground. Goodbye, Hasbro. - pitchblack16, on 07/31/2008, -7/+38now this is just downright hilarious, i agree full heartedly, good for them.
- CrushThemTorg, on 07/31/2008, -1/+31I'm releasing a game of grand strategy and world conquest called Brisk ... because of the pace at which you play it.
- bxblox, on 07/31/2008, -4/+17Past tense of ***** is ***** or shat, but never shatted.
- RyeBrye, on 07/31/2008, -3/+15Your example doesn't make any sense. You most certainly CAN sell something with the exact same formula as Coke - just so long as you didn't arrive at that formula by stealing it... (i.e. you created it yourself in a clean room).
- DeathRay2K, on 07/31/2008, -2/+14The name doesn't dictate whether or not it's copyright infringment. Names are trademarks, its the content that is copyright. In this case, the game of Scrabble. If scrabulous/WordScraper is similar to Scrabble, it is illegal under copyright law, because it is the game itself that is copyright, not the name.
- PopcornDave, on 07/31/2008, -0/+11Do you have to drink iced tea while playing as well?
- iPanda, on 07/31/2008, -3/+12i hear EA Games is releasing Wordscratcher
- diggduggDOOM, on 07/31/2008, -0/+8Although 'Wordscraper' sounds a little bit better, I think 'Scrabulous' sounds like a nasty symptom of some horrible disease.
That gonorrhea looks scrabulous. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -8/+16***** THE HASBRO!!!
- rz8472, on 07/31/2008, -3/+11This reminds me of this Chinese Disneyland facsimile that avoided copyright infringement by calling their version of Mickey 'a giant cat'. Bravo!
- asteron, on 07/31/2008, -0/+7Why would Hasbro be angry?
This is the exact result they wanted. Noone would stop people from making a game that plays like Scrabble with the same rules. Their are dozens that are out there and Hasbro never bothers any of them.
So why did Hasbro go after Scrabulous?
Having it named "Scrabulous" is clearly a play off the "Scrabble" trademark. While the distinction between trademark law and copyright law is lost on the average digger it is still important. For instance I feel free to make a carbonated soda but how would you like it if I put it in a red can and called it "Coca Cole"?
What the makers of Scrabulous have done is answer Hasbro's objections. If they had done this from the start and not dragged their feet kicking and screaming Hasbro would have never had to sue. - birch25, on 07/31/2008, -1/+8hasbro owns the copyright to the "distinctive scrabble tiles" and scrabulous definitely ripped those off. also the board was exactly the same and the rules were EXACTLY the same. i loved scrabulous and i hope they bring it back in some way, but it was definitely a copyright infringement.
- inactive, on 08/01/2008, -0/+6DON'T HAS ME BRO!
- xero69, on 07/31/2008, -5/+11I'll add Hasbro to my list of companies with more lawyers than common sense.
- tech42er, on 07/31/2008, -0/+6It's a new kind of drinking game.
- Plughie, on 07/31/2008, -0/+6That wouldn't be infringement. There's nothing speedy about any Hasbro grand strategy and world conquest game.
- NathanielJ, on 08/01/2008, -0/+5No, Hasbro did not go after Scrabulous because of the name. They went after it because it got popular and they thought they should have been getting the money for it, not some random internet people who took their board game and internet-ized it.
If Scrabulous never caught on, Hasbro wouldn't have cared. Conversely, if the exact same game under the name "WordFun" got super popular, Hasbro would have been pissed. - benologist, on 07/31/2008, -0/+5Except the USPTO says Scrabulous is a dead trademark that was previously held by an Australian company. And god knows it wouldn't be the first time the USPTO has made mistakes.
- danmenard, on 07/31/2008, -0/+4Actually the formula for Coke is protected ONLY as a Trade Secret and not by patent or copyright law. Meaning if some other company had the exact same formula and got it through legal means (not industrial espionage), there is nothing Coke can do about it. Essentially the company itself is responsible for protecting its trade secrets through NDAs and the like, but they forgo any protection that a patent might give (like exclusivity in using the formula) because they aren't disclosing it (which a patent requires). So... While calling the product Koke might violate the trademark, if the name was changed and used the exact same formula, it would be legal... the only problem is the formula is secret (you can get close, but probably never perfect) and since Coke has no exclusive privileges on fizzy black beverages, you could market a Coke clone without any problems.
- lemur, on 08/01/2008, -0/+4This is not even about copyright... you can't copyright game rules, and Srabulous was ever so slightly infringing on Scrabble's trademark that a simple name change was all they needed to do in order to void the litigation. This happens all the time... I don't know why people didn't see it coming and just assume that they would change the name.
- HonestAbe, on 07/31/2008, -4/+8"If scrabulous/WordScraper is similar to Scrabble, it is illegal under copyright law, because it is the game itself that is copyright, not the name."
"The game previously was a copyright violation"
"i loved scrabulous and i hope they bring it back in some way, but it was definitely a copyright infringement."
***** ***** *****.
You can't copyright an idea. You can only copyright creative expressions of ideas.
You can write out the rules for Scrabble, and copyright what you just wrote, but copyright law doesn't prevent someone else from reading what you wrote, and writing it down again in their own words.
Cloning a board game is not copyright infringement. Doesn't matter if it uses the same rules. You'd have to copy parts of the game that are actually under copyright. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -0/+4"Make Facebook version of their games themselves"
I meant other GAMES they own i.e. Monopoly.
What's the chance any version of Monopoly Hasbro puts out will be accepted. Zero. - hexydes, on 07/31/2008, -3/+7Post of the day. I'm not reading any more stories. Nice work.
- benologist, on 07/31/2008, -1/+5The game previously was a copyright violation, and on top of that a decent lawyer could probably have argued the name Scrabulous infringed on their trademark too.
- benologist, on 07/31/2008, -1/+5If RC stood for Roca Cola and the can looked nearly identical to Coca Cola cans, then your analogy would be accurate.
- SmartfulDodger, on 07/31/2008, -1/+5Thanks for that one Sgt. Buzzkill
- inactive, on 07/31/2008, -4/+8@online I'm not sure why you are getting dugg down.
Hasbro could have just kept their mouth shut. Make Facebook version of their games themselves, then made money off ads and the new found interest of the board versions of everything.
Instead, they've killed all good will they would have had, and noone will use their "official" version.
What is more of a thumb in the eye is that Scrabulous was around how long before they finally cried foul??? They these guys built interest in Scrabble for free for Hasbro, ***** everyone, then expect people to sit through their version.
I hope the ad wizards behind this get sacked. - BoneheadFarker, on 07/31/2008, -1/+5Really? So how long until digpicz is back?
- DarkLaughingMan, on 07/31/2008, -1/+4Simple, because the people who really loved Scrabulous are angry at Hasbro. And if they find Wordscrapper then they just point them and any of their friends to it.
Not to mention with time, word is bound to be spread in the social networking circle about how the scrabble client sucks and how Wordscrapper is much better. - adml_shake, on 07/31/2008, -3/+6What are you talking about? Your example doesn't apply here, it would be more accurate to say that Coke was going after RC for infringement because the RC can had the color red on it and was a cola.
- tapyocca, on 08/01/2008, -0/+3A
B
O
U
TIME - asteron, on 07/31/2008, -1/+4Hasbro doesn't own Scrabulous. How could they make money off of it? By confusing the two you have proven the trademark violation.
- geekuskhan, on 07/31/2008, -0/+3You seem to have copy rights and patents confused.
- hierophantus, on 07/31/2008, -0/+3Dugg for lucid explanation of the difference between using legal means to protect your intellectual property and the practical advisability of finding other solutions.
- tech42er, on 07/31/2008, -0/+3They did bring it back in some way..."Wordscraper".
- DreamSynthesis, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2They did try to buy it, for $10 million no less. The brothers were greedy and wanted more. So what do you expect Hasbro to do at that point.
- runCMD, on 08/01/2008, -0/+2So - how is infringing on the intellectual property of someone else considered cool ?
- CarnivalOfDust, on 08/02/2008, -0/+2They're worth loads in internet dollars now though.
- DESTROYER2118, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2....because clean rooms make everything legal.
- Wakkyweed, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2@asteron
Yes, they did make a version of the game. It's buggy, ugly, and not worth playing. - creepermclurker, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2I'm not sure if that's true.
I don't think developing a copycat product 'by accident' is a valid defense but if you have a citation I'd be interested to read it. - joaob, on 08/01/2008, -0/+2"Scrabulous was developed by two brothers who liked the game Scrabble and noticed that it couldn't be played online. "
*****. I've been playing Scrabble online for the past 8-10 years on Games.com
This was all about money. - yacks, on 07/31/2008, -1/+3All I have to say is that all these Scrabulous Fanatics need to stop acting like children. You act like Hasbro took away your ill-gotten pacifier. You wish to deny that Hasbro was in the right here. They were right in their actions. Scrabulous should have been set-up like Wordscrapper to begin with then there would have never been a legal problem with it. They stole the Scrabble board and called it their own. But now you get an even better game in which you can create your own board.. gosh I wish you could do that will regular scrabble. :)
- lemur, on 08/01/2008, -1/+3This guy got dugg down and yet he's absolutely right.
- tech42er, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2And if you have a better arrangement, you can make it too. So this is a slap in the face to hasbro and a cool game to boot!
- HonestAbe, on 08/01/2008, -0/+2@crossmr
Patents and copyrights are not the same thing. If Scrabble were PATENTED (like Magic The Gathering) then you couldn't reproduce its mechanics, but the patent would have expired by 1960 or so.
Copyright, according to the founding fathers, would have expired within another decade. But copyright doesn't even apply to ideas, mechanics or utilitarian aspects (like the rules of a game) only to creative expression. So the absurd extensions of copyright protection since then (from 28 years to 100+ years) are irrelevant. - ibeetle, on 07/31/2008, -3/+5If Scrabulous is no longer on Facebook, and nobody knows where it is, and if Scrabulous is no longer goes by that name, and nobody knows what it is now called.
--And--
If Scrabble is on Facebook, and if everybody knows what it is called... how is that a loose for Hasbro?
To 90% of people out there Scrabulous is gone and Scrabble is not. -
Show 51 - 100 of 106 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is