Hasbro Using DMCA on Facebook Game Apps

Boggle Addict writes "Rather than participating in the online gaming market, Hasbro is suppressing it with litigation. Scrabulous, a Scrabble imitation, is already fighting to prevent being shut down. Today, Hasbro sent out DMCA notices to other apps on Facebook, including Bogglific, a Boggle imitation. Copyright law has has always held very limited protections for games. This may be opening a can of worms for Hasbro.

Not Copyright, Not DMCA, Trademarks

[crymeph0]

From the PC World Article [pcworld.com] linked to from the article linked to in the summary:

"Mattel values its intellectual property and actively protects its brands and trademarks."

If they don't defend their trademark everytime they see it being used outside of a licensing deal, they can lose it. You may not like it, but that's the way it is. You want it changed, change the law. I'd also like to point out that trademark law, at its best, actually protects consumers from shoddy ripoffs of the product they thought they were buying.

This is semi-legitimate

[b96miata]

Scrabulous isn't an imitation so much as the exact same game save the name, and having the writing on the colored squares explaining which is which. (I always end up GIS'ing up a real scrabble board for reference) Same scoring, same play, same word lists used in scrabble tournaments.

That said, how fucking old is scrabble? In a rational world any IP protection it had save for the trademark would have gone by the wayside long ago.

Boardgame Copyrights

[Digital Vomit]

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author's expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. US copyright law for games [copyright.gov]

The US law is similar to the Canadian law WRT boardgames:

Copyright protects the expression of an idea and not the idea itself. For example, an idea for a board game would not be protected by copyright, but the expression of this idea in the form of written rules and playing instructions would be protected as a literary work. - Canadian Copyright Policy FAQ [pch.gc.ca]

You can take any existing game, rewrite the rules in your own words (while avoiding the use trademarks, e.g. "Scrabble") and publish it. That is your right. There's no law to stop you from creating your own Scrabble game just so long as it does not infringe on any of Hasbro's trademarks. The rules, method of play, and alphabet are not copyrightable.

Re:Sounds like...

[deinol]

Sounds like Hasbro wants to have a Monopoly on word games.

Nope. That's Parker Brothers.

Correct. Which is owned by Hasbro. Hasbro *has* a monopoly on board games. At least, on the board games that appear in general stores like Target or Walmart.

List of companies Hasbro owns, stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia:

        * Avalon Hill (an imprint of Wizards of the Coast, see below)
        * Claster Television
        * Coleco
        * Galoob
        * Kenner
        * Maisto
        * Milton Bradley
        * Parker Brothers
        * Playskool
        * Selchow and Righter
        * Tiger Electronics
        * Tonka
        * Wizards of the Coast
        * Wrebbit

Re:Sounds like...

[eh2o]

It's not just a matter of confusion -- by means of sufficient similarity "Scrabulous" is leveraging the brand-recognition of the Scrabble trademark for the purpose of advertisement. At the same time it dilutes the identity of the mark as what one thinks of as Scrabble now becomes Scrab* or some such variant. So, it is both a type of IP theft and causes damage to the trademark by dilution.

Second the issue of confusion applies to people who are not necessarily familiar with the game -- granted most people are, but that isn't a valid counter argument from a legal POV. For this hypothetical person who has never actually played Scrabble and doesn't know exactly how to spell it, the two names are sufficiently similar to cause confusion.

I'm not defending Hasbro per say, just pointing out that this is expected behavior for a trademark holder. In fact, it is required, since if the mark is not defended with due diligence, that fact can be used as evidence in proceedings to have the trademark nullified. (This has been pointed out several times already in this comment stream by others)

They DMCA'd ms-monopoly.com way back when

[Anonymous Coward]

Way back when the MS is a Monopoly ruling first came out in late '99 I put together a site called MS-Monopoly.com. It was covered by /. but damned if I can find the story on /. now but here's a Linux Today blurb [linuxtoday.com].

I'd used the well known Monopoly game board as the basis for our site, with a different company that MS had bought for each square. The Community Chest and Chance cards were contributed by users. Satire is meant to be protected by copyright law, at least here in Canada. Anyway, we got slashdotted not once but twice, Yahoo site of the day, we were in Mac Addict, a whole bunch of portals, etc. Basically we were getting tonnes of traffic... then came the letters from Hasbro.

Long story short, I didn't own the domain name and the guy who did got cold feet after we received the fourth letter. I was holding out for a registered letter, but it wasn't my neck. We'd checked with lawyers and while we had a case fighting a case, even one your most likely going to win, gets expensive in a hurry. We reluctantly closed up shop.

Interestingly enough before we got shut down we heard from a fellow who produced his own version of Monopoly. According to him the game itself is in the public domain because it was a popular game long before it became a Hasbro product. He shipped us one of his board games and gave us permission to copy it for our site, but by that time we had moved on to other things.

To the folks making Facebook apps, I wish you luck. Fighting a Hasbro will require deep pockets and in court nothing is 100%. Yes, if you win you can sue for costs... but you can't be sure you'll win.

ms-monopoly.com lives on... as a advert site. Google it though and you'll still find copies [webspil.dk] of the site (minus a working backend) and references [overlawyered.com] around [howrichisbillgates.com], I guess people like a good joke. [gettingit.com]. In the end it had to end [vancouver-webpages.com], but I guess that's life.

- The Jester, Department of Jest