The toy companies Hasbro (who own the rights to Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada) and Mattel (who own the rights to Scrabble for everywhere else in the world) have asked Facebook to remove the “Scrabulous” application as it infringes on their copyright for the game.
Mathew Ingram has already said this but I’ll say it again: Mattel and Hasbro are making a mistake by giving in to the knee-jerk impulse to think “infringement!” and calling in the legal team. All that will do is generate ill will towards them. A far more profitable approach would be for them to simply buy the application from its creators — which they could easily do for a few hundred thousand dollars, mere pin money to them — and use it as a marketing tool for Scrabble as well as other games in their stable.
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Definitely a stupid, yet predictable, move from Mattel and Hasbro. I play Scrabulous all the time and love it, and lately I’ve been lamenting not having a Scrabble board at home, which is to say Scrabulous has made me more likely to spend money on the physical product.
You’re right that the companies would be wisest to just buy out Scrabulous, though I’m not sure they’d sell out for “a few hundred thousand dollars.” The game existed on Scrabulous.com before becoming a Facebook app, and I suspect they’ve got a bit more invested in it than some realize. It could surely be had for seven figures, though, which is still “pin money” to Mattel and Hasbro.
I guess this is another reason to quit the Facebook. Scrabulous was my number 1 reason for logging in.
Well well.. what can we really expect from the company that owns “monopoly”