The Scrabulous Lawsuit: Heading Toward Default?

I’ve posted extensively recently on Hasbro v. RJ Softwares, the Scrabulous lawsuit, including a four-part series on PrawfsBlawg and two posts here on the similar litigation in India. See my last post for links to all of those materials, and see this article for background if you’re just tuning in.

In the PrawfsBlawg series, I noted a number of interesting legal issues that might be raised during any litigation or, even better, appeal of the dispute between Hasbro, the owners of the North American rights to Scrabble, and RJ Softwares et al., the makers of Scrabulous. In particular, I noted some surprising weaknesses with Hasbro’s copyright claims, including the blackletter rule that games are not copyrightable, lack of ownership over the Scrabble dictionary, and the apparent lack of registration of the Scrabble letter tiles. Even more troubling, I noted a possible formalities problem with all of the Scrabble copyrights dating back to the original 1948 registrations. On the plus side for Hasbro, I questioned the purpose of the under-theorized blackletter rule, although I ultimately concluded it played an important role in copyright law.

Much as I would like to see these issues play out in court, however, I may not get that chance. On Thursday, Hasbro filed proof of service with the court, showing that the defendants were served on August 13. My guess would be that a motion for a default judgement will be hot on its heels. For civ pro junkies, I’ll go into a few more details after the jump.

Continue ReadingThe Scrabulous Lawsuit: Heading Toward Default?

The Indian Scrabulous Decision

Thanks to reader Apar Gupta, I have the text of the decision by the High Court of Delhi in Mattel, Inc. v. Agarwalla, a copyright and trademark action by Mattel against the Agarwalla brothers, the makers of Scrabulous. I posted a brief news item about the case earlier, and posted a four-part series on the American lawsuit against Scrabulous over on Prawfsblawg in August. (See Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.)

As the Agarwalla brothers reported a few weeks ago, the Indian decision held that Scrabulous did not likely infringe on Scrabble’s copyrights, but that the name “Scrabulous” does likely infringe on Scrabble’s trademarks. The court therefore issued an “ad interim injunction,” which I assume is the same as a preliminary injunction, against further use of the Scrabulous name. But my primary interest is copyright law, and the court’s copyright analysis, although very brief, is fascinating. Essentially, the court held that because the board and rules are necessary for game play, and game play is not copyrightable, therefore the board and rules are not copyrightable either. I think this probably goes too far, but it’s an interesting example of a court grappling with the nature of copyright in games.

Continue ReadingThe Indian Scrabulous Decision

Scrabulous Not Infringing (Copyright) in India

When it rains, it pours. This week there has been a slew of developments in copyright law. The motion picture studios have sued RealNetworks over its RealDVD application, claiming that RealNetworks violated the license it signed to get the decryption keys to DVDs. Congress passed a measure designed to ease the pressure on small webcasters after the Copyright Royalty Tribunal suddenly increased their fees. Congress also passed a version of the PRO-IP bill, which, ignoring a district court judge’s call to reduce copyright penalties, actually adds to them by allowing civil forfeiture of computer equipment in certain cases.

But the development I want to highlight here is the apparent decision by a court in India that Scrabulous does not infringe on the copyright for Scrabble. (The name, however, was held to infringe on the Scrabble trademark.) I wrote a four-part series for Prawfsblawg back in August that analyzed the case and copyright in games generally. (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.) Unfortunately the only news of the decision is from the Agarwalla brothers, the creators of Scrabulous, themselves; we don’t have the judge’s reasoning. But I’d be eager to see if it matches any of the points of my analysis.

Continue ReadingScrabulous Not Infringing (Copyright) in India