-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 FreeCulture.org - Students for Free Culture wrote: > Writes Nelson Pavlosky on our blog: > > Do you feel that Hasbro's lawsuit against [Scrabulous][1] was rather > heavy-handed? Did you enjoy Scrabulous's revival of a 60-year-old game, > and do you resent Hasbro's [free-riding off of the innovators who made > Scrabulous][2]? Is it uncool that Hasbro used Scrabulous to make > Scrabble more popular, and then sued the Scrabulous developers once > Hasbro developed an official Facebook app? > > Then perhaps it is time that you began boycotting Hasbro's Scrabble, in > all its forms. Why not: > > * **Refuse to use official Scrabble online games -** Let's face it, > they're [not as good as Scrabulous was][3], anyway. You can join the > Facebook group [We refuse to use official Scrabble app since Hasbro shut > down Scrabulous][4] or probably a dozen others like it. > > * **Continue playing Scrabulous anyway - **Hasbro does not own the > copyrights to Scrabble outside the USA and Canada, some other company > does. So, if you connect to Facebook from an IP address located outside > the US and Canada, then you can continue playing Scrabulous just like > the good old days. [This Facebook group][5] has easy instructions on how > to do so, by connecting to Facebook through a proxy server. A silver > lining to this lawsuit might be getting more people using the [Firefox > web browser][6] and the [FoxyProxy][7] add-on. > > * **Avoid buying products from Hasbro - **Do you really need a new > Scrabble board? Aren't there a gazillion Scrabble boards floating around > people's attics and garage sales that you could pick up for a song? Same > thing goes for other Hasbro games! Exercise your first sale rights and > buy used games instead. > > * **If you have a Scrabble board, don't play Scrabble on it, play a > different word game -** What's so good about the exact copyrighted > version of Scrabble anyway? The Scrabulous developers realized this and > [released the more flexible Wordscraper][8], a Scrabble-esque game that > lets you change the board/rules. If you have a physical Scrabble board, > there are innumerable word games you could play with it. You could use > the tiles to play [Anagrams][9], a lovely fast-paced party game that > predates Scrabble, or perhaps even [Bananagrams][10]. Or, create your > own entirely new word game, and go down in history as the inventor of > something even better than Scrabble! > > * **Make your own Scrabble-esque boards -** Why buy it when you can > make it yourself? The tiles might be a bit tricky (although a [RepRap 3d > printer][11] would probably make short work of it once it's generally > available to the public) but it should be child's play to draw a grid > and fill in the boxes with double word scores or more interesting > variations. > > Honestly, Hasbro's rent-seeking with the Scrabble copyright is a really > annoying example of how copyright can hinder creativity rather than > encouraging it. Scrabble was invented in 1938, and sold by the creator > in 1948 to someone who could commercialize it (not Hasbro, Hasbro bought > the copyright much later around 1986). How much real innovation has been > done since then with Scrabble by people who benefit from the copyright > royalties? Isn't it telling that the innovators here innovated without > benefiting from copyright controls or copyright royalties? This is a > clear case of copyright outlasting its usefulness. Perhaps more > importantly, I think it's rotten that Hasbro is shutting down Scrabulous > for bringing Scrabble to life again for a new generation… that's not a > proper reward. I'd love to send a message to Hasbro that their behavior > is really uncool. Just because Hasbro has the legal power to shut down > Scrabulous doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, either for their > bottom line (see [the Economist's cautious endorsement of piracy][12]) > or for creativity in the field of gaming. > > [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabulous > > [2]: http://freedomforip.org/2008/07/31/hasbro-v-scrabulous-tm-in-a > -user-generated-world/ > > [3]: > http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/29/1455219&tid=202 > > [4]: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25544341610&ref=nf > > [5]: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22388656294&ref=nf > > [6]: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ > > [7]: http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/ > > [8]: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080731-scrabulous-goes- > for-bonus-points-relaunches-as-wordscraper.html > > [9]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagrams > > [10]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananagrams > > [11]: http://reprap.org/ > > [12]: > http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11750492 > > URL: > http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/07/31/ideas-for-boycotting-scrabble-and-hasbro/ > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss Cool ideas, I'm certainly never using the official version anymore. I with the developers would release the source code so we could to a mass civil disobedience : ( CRK -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
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