Scrabble -- the board game in which you compete with other players in making words -- has become a familiar household name since December 1948, when the game was granted a copyright application and a trademark was registered in the U.S. Since then, it has sold more than 100 million sets in 121 countries in 29 different languages.
Scrabulous -- an unofficial, online version of Scrabble -- is perhaps lesser known, but since its launch in July 2007, it has become one of the most popular applications on social networking site Facebook. In early August, it had 1,331,840 monthly active users; at its peak it was attracting 600,000 players a day. (See "Scrabulous and the New Social Operating System.")
Combined, the two games are not only creating words but also making waves among online users, application developers and copyright experts: On July 24, Hasbro, which owns the rights to the game in the U.S. and Canada, filed suit in federal court in New York City against Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, the Calcutta-based brothers who created Scrabulous. Facebook has since pulled the application in North America. (Mattel, which owns the Scrabble rights in the rest of the world, had earlier issued cease-and-desist letters to the Agarwalla brothers, but they ignored them.)
The online community sees this as a replay of the traditional story of a small developer David taking on a Goliath corporation. Another application called Save Scrabulous has been started on Facebook and a petition has already attracted more than 10,000 signatures. Meanwhile, the Agarwallas have introduced a new word game, called "Wordscraper," which is already gaining traction from Facebook users.
On the corporate side, the issue is less about money than copyright infringement and brand control. Wharton faculty note, however, that Hasbro may be doing more harm than good to its brand by going after Scrabulous. It not only risks alienating existing Scrabulous users, they say, but also misses the opportunity to capitalize on Scrabulous's success in the difficult-to-harness social networking world.
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