Comments on: Scrabulous and Fair Use http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/ Internet news and commentary Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:57:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Hasbro Wants To Wipe The Board Of FaceBook Favorite Scrabulous - Profy.Com http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-1104051 Hasbro Wants To Wipe The Board Of FaceBook Favorite Scrabulous - Profy.Com Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:01:39 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-1104051 [...] Scrabulous had to know this lawsuit was coming, though. Profy writer Cyndy Aleo-Carreria predicted this lawsuit as far back as January of this year. Of course, she was also on the side of Hasbro in the argument as a whole, and while she may be right legally, I fall onto the "fair use" and "customer satisfaction" side, from a consumer standpoint. [...] [...] Scrabulous had to know this lawsuit was coming, though. Profy writer Cyndy Aleo-Carreria predicted this lawsuit as far back as January of this year. Of course, she was also on the side of Hasbro in the argument as a whole, and while she may be right legally, I fall onto the "fair use" and "customer satisfaction" side, from a consumer standpoint. [...]

]]> By: FaceBook To Act As Application Host - Profy.Com http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-207681 FaceBook To Act As Application Host - Profy.Com Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:59:03 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-207681 [...] This move is innovative on FaceBook's part, and gives a solid demonstration that FaceBook is going to be a contender in the social networking arena for some time to come. It also was announced at an opportune time, as FaceBook has been catching flak for copyright infringement and some in the tech blogopshere have been questioning whether their value as a company was real or just "on paper". FaceBook has just solidly placed itself at the front of pack, leaving sites like MySpace to scramble to find their own innovation to help them stay popular. Found this post interesting? Consider subscribing to Profy feed. [...] [...] This move is innovative on FaceBook's part, and gives a solid demonstration that FaceBook is going to be a contender in the social networking arena for some time to come. It also was announced at an opportune time, as FaceBook has been catching flak for copyright infringement and some in the tech blogopshere have been questioning whether their value as a company was real or just "on paper". FaceBook has just solidly placed itself at the front of pack, leaving sites like MySpace to scramble to find their own innovation to help them stay popular. Found this post interesting? Consider subscribing to Profy feed. [...]

]]> By: Leslie Poston http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162951 Leslie Poston Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:27:41 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162951 See, the Pogo version, even the Pogo junkie that I am, I don't like. Real Arcade doesn't work on my MacBook, nether does Gamehouse. The FaceBook version I LOVE because it is just like the board game - no annoying changes or weird extras, no lag time, and people who don't understand how the web works to find sites like Pogo, like my mother and some of my RL friends for example, will log in and play with me whereas they wouldn't even try it out before. See, the Pogo version, even the Pogo junkie that I am, I don’t like. Real Arcade doesn’t work on my MacBook, nether does Gamehouse. The FaceBook version I LOVE because it is just like the board game - no annoying changes or weird extras, no lag time, and people who don’t understand how the web works to find sites like Pogo, like my mother and some of my RL friends for example, will log in and play with me whereas they wouldn’t even try it out before.

]]> By: Cyndy Aleo-Carreira http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162871 Cyndy Aleo-Carreira Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:09:38 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162871 Leslie, there's more to it than that. Any idea who owns all online play licensing? EA. Remember them? Slavedrivers, Pogo pushers? They HAVE licensed it for online use. Pogo has Scrabble Blast as well as their redesign (which, actually I like better) called QWERTY. RealArcade has one. Gamehouse has a download. Just because it isn't on Facebook doesn't mean it's not easily accessible. It's still copyrighted, and I don't think this compares to the RIAA. This one IS theft, plain and simple. Scrabulous makes $25,000 a MONTH. Off a lifted game. *sigh* And I know... I have too many vowels. ;) Leslie, there’s more to it than that. Any idea who owns all online play licensing? EA. Remember them? Slavedrivers, Pogo pushers?

They HAVE licensed it for online use. Pogo has Scrabble Blast as well as their redesign (which, actually I like better) called QWERTY. RealArcade has one. Gamehouse has a download. Just because it isn’t on Facebook doesn’t mean it’s not easily accessible. It’s still copyrighted, and I don’t think this compares to the RIAA. This one IS theft, plain and simple. Scrabulous makes $25,000 a MONTH. Off a lifted game.

*sigh* And I know… I have too many vowels. ;)

]]> By: Leslie Poston http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162831 Leslie Poston Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:04:32 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162831 This is the third time that I know of that Hasbro has messed with my online Scrabble enjoyment in the last ten years. If you keep having to shut down sites that offer Scrabble, and your customer base, using the sites, gets pissed and writes you letters, and other sites reopen to great success, you'd think that ONCE in ten years it would occur to you to license your game for use online already, or buy someone's app and be done with it. Hasbro must be taking business classes from the RIAA - don't make your customer base HAPPY or your product EASILY ACCESSIBLE, oh no. Just keep killing it. (And I am SO beating you in our current game, Cyndy - neener neener) This is the third time that I know of that Hasbro has messed with my online Scrabble enjoyment in the last ten years. If you keep having to shut down sites that offer Scrabble, and your customer base, using the sites, gets pissed and writes you letters, and other sites reopen to great success, you’d think that ONCE in ten years it would occur to you to license your game for use online already, or buy someone’s app and be done with it. Hasbro must be taking business classes from the RIAA - don’t make your customer base HAPPY or your product EASILY ACCESSIBLE, oh no. Just keep killing it.

(And I am SO beating you in our current game, Cyndy - neener neener)

]]> By: Mihaela Lica http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162361 Mihaela Lica Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:07:34 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-and-fair-use/#comment-162361 You nailed it, Cyndy. I wonder why Hasbro didn't see this sooner. Now the smart move from them would be to buy the application and put it on Facebook for a fee, pretty much the same as those "gifts" that cost $1 each. Money talks. The thing is that they probably don't want to buy it, they want to get it for free, considering that they own the trademark and the patent. Even the buzz around this is good marketing for them - posing as the innocents - and yes, they are. But the users don't care about Hasbro's innocence and rights. They want their game to stay. This will take some time and I am sure we'll still hear a lot about the issue. Hm...I bet Alfred Butts wouldn't like to see his creation as a topic of dispute. You nailed it, Cyndy. I wonder why Hasbro didn’t see this sooner. Now the smart move from them would be to buy the application and put it on Facebook for a fee, pretty much the same as those “gifts” that cost $1 each. Money talks.
The thing is that they probably don’t want to buy it, they want to get it for free, considering that they own the trademark and the patent. Even the buzz around this is good marketing for them - posing as the innocents - and yes, they are. But the users don’t care about Hasbro’s innocence and rights. They want their game to stay. This will take some time and I am sure we’ll still hear a lot about the issue. Hm…I bet Alfred Butts wouldn’t like to see his creation as a topic of dispute.

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