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Brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla wasted little time in cloning the popular Scrabble and letting it lose online on Facebook. The game quickly gained popularity and became amongst the top 10 popular applications on Facebook - and is currently enjoyed daily by over 500,000 members.
Hasbro and Mattel, the joint owners of the rights to the game have waited for its popularity to grow and have sent a cease and desist notice to Facebook, asking them to immediately takedown the game.
Scrabulous is an exact clone of Scrabble, and since Hasbro has worldwide patents and trademarks filed, they are in the right.
What is surprising is that, on the pages that talk about the application and rules, the brothers have linked to the Wikipedia entry for Scrabble. There is no doubt that the brothers have copied the Scrabble game exactly as it is. Some variation in rules or gameplay may have given the brothers a fighting chance, but in their hurry to get the application on Facebook - and only change the "name" - that too with something similar sounding - is not going to help them fight this one in court.
The Calcutta brother's are earning about $1000 daily via the adsense ads that show up in the Facebook Application / Game, but this is not going to be enough to pay the damages they may face. Hasbro and Mattel have gone after Facebook and now the brothers. On being contacted, the brothers refused to comment, saying that their lawyers had asked them not to make any statements.
Scrabulous addicts from around the globe, no doubt are not happy with this and have setup groups online like - Save Scrabulous. Karl Savage a member of this group said - "A lot of people are saying shame on Hasbro, shame on Mattel, if you wouldn't be so short-sighted about this then you have an opportunity to actually make some money from this rather than alienate your existing customers. I'd say find some common ground. Look at licensing," added Mr Savage. "Perhaps sit down together and say look, these guys have created this fantastic piece of software that lots of people use why not employ them or have a similar product on there that is licensed but use that to advertise your other products?" He said that he doubted that a similar product online, if created by Hasbro would be a success. He said: "The main feature with Scrabulous for me is that I can play it in Facebook. I don't have to go to an external site and then search for all my friends all over again because I don't think that would work and I don't think many people would sign up for it." Links have also been posted to the customer service areas of the Hasbro and Mattel websites so fans can register their protests with the toy makers.
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Brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla wasted little time in cloning the popular Scrabble and letting it lose online on Facebook. The game quickly gained popularity and became amongst the top 10 popular applications on Facebook - and is currently enjoyed daily by over 500,000 members.
Hasbro and Mattel, the joint owners of the rights to the game have waited for its popularity to grow and have sent a cease and desist notice to Facebook, asking them to immediately takedown the game.
Scrabulous is an exact clone of Scrabble, and since Hasbro has worldwide patents and trademarks filed, they are in the right.
What is surprising is that, on the pages that talk about the application and rules, the brothers have linked to the Wikipedia entry for Scrabble. There is no doubt that the brothers have copied the Scrabble game exactly as it is. Some variation in rules or gameplay may have given the brothers a fighting chance, but in their hurry to get the application on Facebook - and only change the "name" - that too with something similar sounding - is not going to help them fight this one in court.
The Calcutta brother's are earning about $1000 daily via the adsense ads that show up in the Facebook Application / Game, but this is not going to be enough to pay the damages they may face. Hasbro and Mattel have gone after Facebook and now the brothers. On being contacted, the brothers refused to comment, saying that their lawyers had asked them not to make any statements.
Scrabulous addicts from around the globe, no doubt are not happy with this and have setup groups online like - Save Scrabulous. Karl Savage a member of this group said - "A lot of people are saying shame on Hasbro, shame on Mattel, if you wouldn't be so short-sighted about this then you have an opportunity to actually make some money from this rather than alienate your existing customers. I'd say find some common ground. Look at licensing," added Mr Savage. "Perhaps sit down together and say look, these guys have created this fantastic piece of software that lots of people use why not employ them or have a similar product on there that is licensed but use that to advertise your other products?" He said that he doubted that a similar product online, if created by Hasbro would be a success. He said: "The main feature with Scrabulous for me is that I can play it in Facebook. I don't have to go to an external site and then search for all my friends all over again because I don't think that would work and I don't think many people would sign up for it." Links have also been posted to the customer service areas of the Hasbro and Mattel websites so fans can register their protests with the toy makers.
Discuss
Add this link to...
Tell a friend
Bury
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