Scrabble-maker Hasbro has sent notices to Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, Kolkata-based brothers, and Facebook for copyright violation of Scrabble.
- Annoying? Yes.
- Fair? Probably not.
- Unforeseeable? Not in this day and age.
- Legal? I don’t know. Is it copyright infringement, trademark violation or merely a fan’s tribute? …the method of playing the game cannot be copyrighted, patented or otherwise protected.
Scrabulous is apparently a trademark and it’s been reported that the brothers had allegedly written to Hasbro for permission although they received no response from the company. The point being is that if that’s true, they obviously weren’t oblivious to IP issues.What amazes me is that, nonetheless, neither the brothers nor Facebook seem to have anticipated the possibility of this happening and taken steps to protect themselves (although Facebook does have pretty comprehensive rules for third party developers).