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by LogicHoleFlaw 6540 days ago
You can't copyright the rules to the game. Any distinctive design elements can be copyrighted. But if those elements are dictated by the rules then they still cannot be copyrighted.

Honestly I doubt that Hasbro could successfully pursue a copyright infringement case over Scrabulous. Scrabble has a very generic design which is mostly directly implemented from the rules. Hasbro's best bet would likely be a trademark claim. Though, if a court determined that "Scrabble" has become a generic term for an acrostic game then they could actually lose the trademark. That's a serious danger, just from my own personal perception.

The DMCA is a lousy way for Hasbro to try to eliminate Scrabulous. If I were Scrabulous I would send a counter-notice, at which point under the DMCA Facebook would be required to reinstate the game. Then take it to court. Hasbro will have a hell of a time making this one stick.

Edit:

The safe harbor and counter-notice provisions of the DMCA are the only thing I like about it.

Hasbro is the current Evil Empire of the toy industry. I would not mind seeing them taken down a peg. Long live the underdog!
2 comments
evgen 6540 days ago
Scrabulous would have a case, if they did not make such a direct rip-off of Scrabble (e.g. see all of the not-quite-direct-rip-offs floating around casual gaming sites or for mobile devices.) The coloring of the board, the design of the tiles, etc; all of this is covered by copyright and Scrabulous made the bad decision to ignore this fact and simply copy everything. Scrabulous can fight this, but they will lose.
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jrockway 6539 days ago
Yeah. If I were cloning this, I would put the numbers in the upper-left-hand corner, and change the colors on the board. Perhaps I would change the point value for some letters also, and maybe move the "triple word score" squares around.

Actually... now that the competition is shut down, I wonder if I should implement this. Can I have some funding, kthx? ;)

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jcl 6540 days ago
Suing over the "copyright" for games is nothing new for Hasbro:

http://boardgames.about.com/library/news/bl000208a.htm http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=867

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