An interesting row has arisen over the Facebook application Scrabulous, which allows users of the social network site to play a Scrabble-like word game with each other. Hasbro and Mattel, who share the trademark, have asked the site to remove the game as it infringes their copyright on Scrabble.
The Scrabulous application was not developed by Facebook but by developers in Kolkata and the row has already caused fans to set up a group on the network to save Scrabulous. At time of writing, it had amassed more than 600 members.
It’s an interesting dilemma for those interested in branding. Yes, Scrabulous is effectively taking the idea of Scrabble and translating it to an online environment. This is obviously moving into an area where Scrabble could build a new user base.
On the other hand, Scrabble hasn’t exploited this opportunity. You can go to the Scrabble website and play a little game online but making real-time moves over social networks? It hasn’t happened yet, so it’s no surprise that other brands are moving into this area.
Furthermore, should Scrabble really see this as infringement or as the best marketing opportunity possible? Why not just launch a much better application for Facebook with more functionality to steal back users from Scrabulous? Competition can sometimes show brands whole new markets available to them.
The game has also revitalised the market for Scrabble. It has taken the idea of a game to be played slowly on Sunday afternoons and made it sexy. Facebook Scrabulous ‘addict’ groups are full of people admitting they’ve bought physical Scrabble sets after playing the game on the social network. It’s pushing sales to Scrabble too.
What do you think? Problem or opportunity? Let us know.
January 16, 2008 at 12:21 pm |
[...] Hyped.nl: Beyond online news wrote an interesting post today on Scrabble vs Scrabulous: infringement or opportunity?Here’s a quick excerptAn interesting row has arisen over the Facebook application Scrabulous, which allows users of the social network site to play a Scrabble-like word [...]
January 16, 2008 at 4:06 pm |
Does a brand need Facebook to make it sexy? I hope not.
Scrabble has always been an incredibly popular game, and well marketed by its owners for years. At Christmas, Pink Scrabble sets lined the shelves of major department stores — endorsed by the British breast cancer charity. This was one of many variations. No doubt, you can also buy/download official software to play it on your computer at home.
Scrabble is Scrabble, in the same way that Google is Google. If you don’t have rights to play with a brand or TM, then don’t. If you have a good idea, then approach the brand owners with it — follow the process.
I wonder if I created an information based Facebook platform called Googulous how long it would be before I had the TM police knocking on my door.
January 16, 2008 at 5:24 pm |
Mike Lynd, intellectual property expert and Partner at Marks & Clerk, the patent and trade mark attorneys, comments:
“This is an unusual case as Scrabble’s owners have the possibility of bringing both copyright and trade mark cases against Facebook. Mattel may prefer to focus on the copyright case as it would probably be easier to prove copyright infringement, than proving trade mark infringement. Although the Scrabulous name plays on the name of the board game, it may be difficult for Mattel to show that it is harmful to their SCRABBLE trade mark.
“However, brands and trade marks are given stronger, enhanced protection by the courts as they become famous. Mattel also owns trade mark registrations of the actual design, layout and colours of the Scrabble board itself. Scrabble is such a long-standing, historic brand* that Mattel is likely to have national trade mark registrations in most if not all European countries as well as EU Community Trade Mark registrations. This gives Scrabble’s owners great freedom to manoeuvre, in terms of deciding exactly where to bring proceedings against Facebook, in other words to pick the forum likely to be most favourably disposed to trade mark owners.”
January 16, 2008 at 5:31 pm |
It’s a problem AND an opportunity. Obviously, Hasbro/Mattel are going to want to/ need to protect their trademark. But rather than just turn this over to the legal department, why don’t they first explore the possibility of collaboration and partnership. It’s clear that Scrabulous is popular and potentially a great way to extend the brand into a new marketing space. How about bringing the Scrabulous team into the organization and relaunching the application under the Scrabble brand?
Yes, Hasbro/Mattel can shut this down and have the right to do so. But, for me, that would be a huge missed opportunity.
January 17, 2008 at 8:57 am |
[...] US Scrabble owner Hasbro has set its legal team to task – much to its folly think many, including Brand Strategy Magazine which [...]
January 17, 2008 at 1:44 pm |
The protest group now numbers over 16,000 members (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4772916593), a huge figure generated by the adverse publicity that Hasbro’s action’s have brought upon itself. This, for me, is one of the most interesting aspects to this – not at all dissimilar to today’s Tom Cruise/Scientology/YouTube fiasco – whereby an aggressive threat of legal action by an organisation (Hasbro/Church of Scientology) only serves to generate more publicity for the defendant (Scrabulous/YouTube), which, in turn, shores up support for the defence. There were clearly many more sensible options for Hasbro to consider before issuing their threat – they could easily have conducted this behind closed doors and ended up owning part or all of Scrabulous. The Facebook application clearly does infringe copyright, but its millions of users – who, like me, will be more likely to have bought a set of scrabble as a result of its recent surge in popularity – won’t care and the only organisations to receive negative and damaging PR here will be Hasbro, not Facebook or Scrabulous.
January 23, 2008 at 10:54 pm |
Please let people enjoy something that is not belonging to a company.
January 23, 2008 at 10:55 pm |
Please let people enjoy the game.
January 23, 2008 at 10:55 pm |
So they can have enjoymehnt on the internet
January 27, 2008 at 6:40 pm |
Ok…I can tell most people who have posted on this site do not play Scrabulous. I actually played it everyday. My best friend moved to NYC and I moved back to LA. We played Scrabble with a board (which I prefer), but 3000 miles makes it difficult.
Bottom line, the people who created are not profiting off the game and they are certainly not damaging sales or representation. In fact, a long since dead game has been revitalized. I can’t find people to play scrabble with me to save my life save for my friends in New York and I certainly can’t play alone. It’s a shame that a companies like Hasbro and Mattel didn’t have the foresight to create a viable application such as Scrabulous. They pay people to view trends and capitalize on them, right? Yes… I get it trademark infringement. Are they going to start going to coffee houses and bars that have Scrabble tournaments and shut them down for using the Scrabble brand as a tool to bring in customers?
Oh and googulous? Are you serious? If you created a search engine called googulous you would be doing it to cash in, not to create a network of people who are truly in love with game of Scrabble and probably own the board version anyway. Apples and oranges my friend.
Thanks for your time. I mourn the loss of Scrabulous.
Huge missed opportunity on the part of these two major corporations.
Sincerely,
Jen Brown (a real life Scrabulous and Scrabble player)
August 3, 2008 at 5:39 pm |
[...] 3. From a brand strategy point of view we have the opinion of http://brandstrategy.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/scrabble-vs-scrabulous-infringement-or-opportunity/ [...]