Scrabulous Hangs On for Now (But It Should Be Hung Out to Dry by Facebook)
by Kara Swisher
Posted on January 25, 2008 at 1:01 AM PT
Apparently, rumors of Scrabulous’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
So far.
Although the popular Facebook widget was supposed to be taken down two weeks ago and then last week–pretty much because it obviously infringed on the rights of the owners of the popular word game Scrabble–it is still up and working on the service and allowing new downloads (I did it last night, for example).
And sources with knowledge of the situation say that it is not likely to go–for now at least–as the parties involved attempt to come to some sort of agreement about its ownership and future. In fact, those sources expect a settlement soon between the many sides involved.
There are many sides, including its developers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla (pictured here) of Calcutta, India; Hasbro and Mattel, the toy and game giants who co-own the rights to Scrabble; and even Electronic Arts, which has the online rights to Scrabble.
Oh, yes, and Facebook, which hosts the offending application, and which has been curiously silent despite its important role here.
Hasbro and Mattel had asked the hot social-networking site to pull it, and had also sent a cease-and-desist order to the Scrabulous creators.
Cue the quiet, behind-the-scenes negotiating.
Of course, there has been a lot of noisier wrangling with “Save Scrabulous” groups going up on Facebook created by its loyal users–there are more than 600,000 active daily ones on Facebook.
And, of course, they love Scrabulous (a game is pictured above). Why not? It’s fun, interactive and there is a real community that has been formed around it that is passionate.
That’s exactly what social networking should be about.
But, while I might sound like a skunk at a garden party, it’s also pretty amazing that Scrabulous’s creators had the audacity to just steal the famous concept and trademark and run with it. Worse still, its proponents think that’s just great.
It’s not, because it is out-and-out stealing of a well-known brand and that shoplifting should not be the way businesses are formed in the Web 2.0 economy.
Moreover, Facebook should be among the first to crack down on this kind of juvenile behavior (curiously, Scrabulous is an actually useful app, unlike others I have derided on Facebook as more suited for toddlers) all over the service, whether it relates to music, videos or anything else its third-party developers take without asking.
Can you imagine the hue and cry if The Wall Street Journal suddenly debuted a widget called “Monopolicious!”–a rip-off of Monopoly, complete with Park Place–on Facebook?
We’ll see if Facebook will truly do the kind of house-cleaning it needs. I hope so, because it would show a real step in the growth of its corporate culture and would go a long way in creating the kind of mature platform it has the potential to be.
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Comments
Facebook is no doubt trying (rather sensibly) to establish common carrier status with regards to the applications that interact with the Facebook platform.
And they may have ground to stand on, as the applications are after all hosted on the servers of the Scrabulous developers and Facebook merely provides the services of a directory of applications, an API for accessing the user information as well as a unified interface for applications.
The fact that Facebook convert from the FBML output of the application to the HTML rendered by the browser might be an issue, as arguably the perception is given that the application is being served from Facebook’s servers and appears to be a part of Facebook through the tight integration.
If it weren’t for the fact that Facebook applications are typically only available through facebook this integration step could be seen as analogous to say a site like stumbleupon.
Arguably OpenSocial provides an advantage here as the relationship between application and social network is much more loosely coupled.
Posted by Janek Mann at January 25th, 2008 at 1:44 amKara,
It would really help if you could dig a little deeper and identify exactly what “rights” are being disputed here. Are there claims of Trademark infringement? Copyright infringement? Patent infringement?
It’s important because it sounds like Hasbro/Mattel/EA are somehow trying to prevent the digital game from being played (regardless of whether the name of it sounds like “Scrabble”), when all they really own is the right to the name “Scrabble.” Are those companies claiming they own the right to the way the game is played? That would be kind of like the playing card manufacturer Bicycle trying to restrict online Poker, or preventing Microsoft from bundling Solitaire with Windows.
Please let us know what really is going on here because all “rights” are not equal.
Posted by alex curtis at January 25th, 2008 at 8:10 amClearly, Facebook employees do not want to see Scrabulous taken down. My guess is that there is a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure that Scrabulous sticks around.
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=5306887130
Posted by Jason C at January 25th, 2008 at 5:36 pmJanek:
You make excellent points, but the fact of the matter is is that it is Facebook’s town and it is responsible for the behavior of those who live there.
Posted by Kara Swisher at January 25th, 2008 at 9:34 pmAlex:
Trademark, first and foremost. But come on! Scrabulous is such an obvious rip-off and really low rent. Also, it is the same game.
Why don’t you start the Mall Street Journal? Use our content while you are at it!
I do not think Hasbro/Mattel is trying to prevent the use, but have some control over a brand name they own.
Posted by Kara Swisher at January 25th, 2008 at 9:38 pmJason:
I would hope so!
Posted by Kara Swisher at January 25th, 2008 at 9:40 pm“…shoplifting should not be the way businesses are formed in the Web 2.0 economy.” I think it’s about 8 years too late for that. Shoplifting has been the primary way the most popular web 2.0 businesses have been formed since the original web 2.0 breakout, Napster. YouTube, the biggest web 2.0 liquidity event, only gained its popularity from copyrighted content and “Don’t be Evil” Google was more than happy to validate its methods. Facebook? Started by Zuckerberg stealing private data from Harvard. Sure there are exceptions (e.g. myspace although even that is debatable), but I’d say the rule of breakout web 2.0 hits is shoplifting.
Posted by Erik Larson at January 27th, 2008 at 9:29 amErik:
How cynical! But how true!
Posted by Kara Swisher at January 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pmThe game was created 70 years ago, should it now be in the commons?
There is a great tradition in personal computing of copying other’s interfaces and experiences.
I agree that there are real intellectual property issues in the experience of Scrabulous and Facebook’s lack of action, but terms like shoplifting, piracy, and the like don’t speak to the issue in the eyes of the the younger generations. Shop lifting is a concept of physical theft. I think you have have seen one too many movies that started with the ad, You won’t steal a car would you?
Posted by Lloyd Budd at February 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pmOkay, I’m confused. Exactly which intellectual property issue is there here? Scrabulous doesn’t use the Scrabble trademark, because the name of the game is different. Scrabble is so old that it wouldn’t still be under patent even if that were possible, which it isn’t.
As for copyright, it’s possible to copyright artistic presentation, like the text of rules for a game, but it’s not possible to copyright the rules themselves, i.e., the algorithm behind the same. That’s why enthusiasts of the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons are in the clear even though they’ve released a gamed called OSRIC that uses the exact same rules:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSRIC
So couldn’t one argue that Scrabulous is to Scrabble as OSRIC is to D&D? If not, why not?
Posted by Steve Foerster at February 9th, 2008 at 4:58 pm