Law School Exam Hypothetical of the Day

[heidi]

I know that some people believe that if TPTB (the powers that be) ask a fan to stop doing something, the fan(s) in question should immediately stop, no questions asked (except maybe to confirm that the request really came from TPTB and isn't a hoax).

Last week, Hasbro sued the guys who created Scrabulous as a Facebook app, claiming copyright and trademark infringement. So now, there's a lot of irate former Scrabulous users who are calling for a boycott of Hasbro, a return of Scrabulous, etc.

No, the situations aren't completely analogous, but there are similarities - the IP owner is upset about an action they view as infringing and asks the entity they believe infringing to stop and....

Do you think that the Scrabulous creators - who are fans of the Scrabble game (which is protected by copyright and trademark laws), who created something similar and yet with strong and obvious differences - should have removed their game as soon as Hasbro asked them to?

[Poll #1232503]

I'm really curious as to what people who have legal backgrounds would think and do, versus what lay-people would think and do, but I'm not really sure how to ask that in the poll without it getting very unwieldy.

Comments

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

The differences, as I understand them, are in the gameplay more than in the layout (although the version I saw didn't have the point/score info on the board when you looked at it, which is a difference, and when looking to the trade dress or copyright of something, even the little differences can be used by a lawyer to argue that they add up to something more significant). But things like the work-lookup "cheat", the chat-aspect of the layout and other "challenge" portions of the game don't exist in the offline version.

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

I meant the gameplay, too--I played a game against the AI to see, since I couldn't find the rules written out anywhere--but maybe it's different against a person. *shrug*