OgreCave

‘Tis the season to resolve one’s differences, it seems. Scrabulous, an online clone of the classic word game Scrabble, was created by two brothers in India and went on to become tremendously popular on Facebook. (Why the brothers thought they had the right to do this, I have no idea.) Since this was done without Hasbro’s permission, Hasbro sued the brothers for violating Hasbro’s copyright and trademarks. The lawsuit, which demanded the removal of Scrabulous and asked for unspecified damages, was dropped early this week. Though an exact reason for the charges being dropped was not given, the brother’s company, RJ Softwares, have agreed not to use the name Scrabulous, and their new Facebook game, Wordscraper, is significantly different. Game developers, take heed: don’t infringe on a major company’s copyright and trademarks so obviously and thoroughly that they have no choice but to level both barrels of their legal team at you. Common sense, really, but apparently some guys need to be reminded.