Scrabulous

A few weeks ago Hasbro sued RJ Softwares, the operators of Scrabulous, an online game that looks and plays like the Scrabble board game. Hasbro is claiming copyright infringment, trademark infringment, trademark dilution and unfair competition.

Great! A copyrightability case involving one of America's most loved and valuable franchises. And it looks like a close call. At issue will be which elements of the Scrabble board, if any, are entitled to copyright protection. The case, if it moves forward, will bring into play US cases like Feist and Selden, as well as a bunch of cases about games and game rules. This is really esoteric stuff.

It is said, according to Nimmer, that games are not copyrightable. But there seems to be about 1000 exceptions to that black letter rule, including some exceptions based on look and feel doctrine, something near and dear to the hearts of software lawyers. I started to delve into it all but then found an excellent three-part posting on the case and background law at prawfsblawg. Way better than anything I can say. Good stuff.

Here's the Hasbro complaint filed in the Southern District of NY.