Scrabulous returns as Wordscraper
August 1st, 2008 | by jz | Published in Facebook, Web 2.0 platforms
The makers of Scrabulous have apparently relaunched it as “Wordscraper,” a word game that can support a variety of rules, and whose tiles no longer look so much like Scrabble’s. Players can themselves set the rules to simulate a Scrabble game — but that would make the infringement that of the users rather than Scrabulous. If Hasbro decides to go after the new incarnation — they may be just as put out by this version, since users can still end up playing what acts like Scrabble with it — to pressure Facebook they’ll have to sketch out a claim for tertiary infringement: the users are infringing (with no fair use defense?); Scrabulous is helping them do it (secondary infringement); Facebook is helping Scrabulous help the users do it (tertiary!).
The trademark claim always seemed the strongest to me — and the most easily cured. We’ll see what shoe drops next as Hasbro mulls its options and decides whether it can still effectively pressure Facebook, which may not want to deal with a lawsuit, no matter how much they think they could prevail.
