Hasbro Sues Scrabulous Maker over Scrabble Knock Off Facebook Ap

July 25th, 2008

As you all know, people send you 50 friggin’ apps to add to your Facebook profile everyday. Once in a while there is actually a half way decent one that you may like. Few and far between, but the Scrabulous Ap, which is basically identical to Scrabble is one that millions have found and are more than happy with.

Now, Hasbro has decided to sue the makers for copyright infringement stating: “This is theft of intellectual property,” Blecher said of Scrabulous. “It’s really no different from when the recording industry faced the issue of folks posting music on sites like Napster and letting them copy it for free.”

(Give me a break with that comparison…lol)

Mark Blecher, general manager for Hasbro Digital Media, said in a telephone interview that his employer’s goal is to promote its authentic, legitimate Facebook application. After a bit of corporate performance management they have finally created the Official Scrabble Ap after the Scrabulous one has been out there for nearly 2 years.

So it begs the question…is Scrabulous doing anything wrong here? If you clicked over to the link for Scrabulous you can see that it is about as close to Scrabble as you can get with out actually calling it Scrabble. As far as I know, Hasbro actually offered to buy the application from the makers of Scrabulous, but were asked to pay millions for the rights. Never coming to any agreement, so now we are at the point where they will be sued over the Facebook creation.

Facebook representative Brandee Barker replied with this statement:

We believe that games are an important part of the social experience on Facebook and have been impressed by the creativity and innovation of the games that developers — both large and small — have built on Facebook Platform. In the case of disputes such as the one involving Scrabulous, our hope and expectation is that the parties can resolve their disagreements in a manner that satisfies the parties, that continues to offer a great experience to gamers and that doesn’t discourage other developers from using Platform to share their creativity and test new ideas. Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement. We’re disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute; nevertheless, we have forwarded their concerns to Scrabulous and requested their appropriate response.