Hasbro Steps Up Fight Against Scrabulous
The gloves have come off in the battle between Facebook [http://www.scrabble.com/] application for copyright infringement.
sent a notice [http://www.hasbro.com/] to Facebook requesting the game's removal from the service. At the time, Scrabulous co-creator Jayant Agarwalla expressed hope that a compromise could be reached, and despite Hasbro's request, the game has remained available to Facebook users.
Hasbro appears somewhat disinclined to look for a happy middle ground, however, announcing that it has sued Jayant and his brother, Rajat Agarwalla, and their company, RJ Softwares [http://rjsoftwares.com/], and served a copyright infringement notice to Facebook. "Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro general counsel. "We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand."
One possible explanation for the company's new aggressiveness is its announced on July 7 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/75834] that an official version of Scrabble was coming to Facebook later in the month, and while the "real" version of the game has been given the support of the National Scrabble Association, Scrabulous is a well-established and popular Facebook application, reporting 2.3 million active users in January 2008.
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The gloves have come off in the battle between Facebook [http://www.scrabble.com/] application for copyright infringement.
sent a notice [http://www.hasbro.com/] to Facebook requesting the game's removal from the service. At the time, Scrabulous co-creator Jayant Agarwalla expressed hope that a compromise could be reached, and despite Hasbro's request, the game has remained available to Facebook users.
Hasbro appears somewhat disinclined to look for a happy middle ground, however, announcing that it has sued Jayant and his brother, Rajat Agarwalla, and their company, RJ Softwares [http://rjsoftwares.com/], and served a copyright infringement notice to Facebook. "Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro general counsel. "We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand."
One possible explanation for the company's new aggressiveness is its announced on July 7 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/75834] that an official version of Scrabble was coming to Facebook later in the month, and while the "real" version of the game has been given the support of the National Scrabble Association, Scrabulous is a well-established and popular Facebook application, reporting 2.3 million active users in January 2008.
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