This was on the cards but is now official. The Indian creators of the popular Facebook application Scrabulous have been sued by Hasbro, the US based company that owns copyright over Scrabble. Check out reports here, here & here. The suit has been filed against RJ Softwares, the Kolkata based software development company owned by Rajat Agarwalla & Jayant Agarwalla, who together created the game. Hasbro is apparently seeking damages from RJ and asking them to stop using the name ‘Scrabulous’ for their game. Not just that, they have also sent a copyright notice to Facebook under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) saying that it infringes the company’s intellectual property and asked them to remove Scrabulous from its site, which Facebook has refused.
Hasbro incidentally now has its own version of Scrabble on Facebook and that has 8K users compared to over two million for Scrabulous.
Its not going to be easy for the Indian team to fight the lawsuit since it is filed in New York, while they are based in India. Apparently some talks had happened between the two parties over a possible partnership (or acquisition) but that did not materialise. Facebook’s position is precarious as well. Under the Safe harbour provisions the DMCA, they are bound to take down the application failing which they could be dragged into a bigger litigation.
While I’m not an expert on this topic, I do have a working knowledge of DMCA. I think the use of the title “Scrabulous’ might have been a mistake by the Indian team and it might prove crucial in this case. The standard procedure adopted by internet companies in DMCA infringements is to either take down the disputed content straightaway if they think it violates IPR, or suspend it temporarily till a decision has been reached.
Question to Indian readers- without being jingoistic, whats your opinion on this issue?
