Those dudes are b.a.n.a.n.a.s. for not taking $10millie if it were indeed offered but I am not sure about the infringement here. There's definitely trademark confusion (check out the board, dogs!) but game rules aren't copyright protected. I believe they fall under patent.
I am consulting with some of my gamer colleagues in GAMBIT to find out. I used to play Literati all the time on Yahoo games. It was very similar to Scrabble... but perhaps not similar enough? Or maybe it was 2002 and Hasbro wasn't yet hip 2 da scene? Kevin On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Oliver Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What about the trademark issues though? I forget what the extent of > trademark allows but I was under the impression it is protected for as > long as the product is on the market. And as much as I love Scrabulous I > can't help but notice that the colors, layout, etc of the board are a > nearly exact match. > > O > > On Fri, 1 Aug 2008, Nelson Pavlosky wrote: > >> Elizabeth Stark wrote: >>> >>> And Nelson, just to play devil's advocate here, isn't this just a clear >> case >>> of infringement of the Hasbro's copyright (and the Scrabble trademark for >>> that matter)? Should Hasbro not hold the copyright to scrabble? What is the >>> scenario we'd like to see? Should board games not be copyrightable matter? >>> Should naming a game with such a similar name not be trademark >> infringement? >> >> Well, ideally copyright would be shorter so that a game created in 1938 >> would be public domain by now. >> >> Failing that, I think we should put pressure on companies not to enforce >> their copyrights to the hilt. Just because you have the legal power to >> do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, either for your >> business or for the public good. Working with "pirates" in a civil >> manner instead of trying to sue them out of existence might have given >> us a healthy online music business back when Napster was created instead >> of like a decade later with iTunes, Amazon etc. A legitimized Napster >> I think would have been a seriously good thing. Similarly, working with >> Scrabulous might have been more productive than suing them. As the >> Economist article I linked to suggests, perhaps companies should >> consider more seriously whether the "piracy" is actually a bad thing >> before sending in the lawyers. >> >> We have carrots and sticks, folks. We can boycott companies that don't >> play nicely with others, and we can do things like CarrotMob >> <http://www.carrotmob.org/> to benefit businesses that are friendly to >> their fans and customers instead of suing them. Let's encourage people >> and companies to share more and to hoard less, because generally in the >> information economy, it's not a zero sum game, when you share frequently >> everybody wins. >> >> Peace, >> ~Nelson~ >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- )_)_)_)_)_)_ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
