The Social

There's something funny about Facebook's handling of this week's Scrabulous affair.

One of the social network's most popular developer applications, as the Web well knows by now, was pulled by its creators after Scrabble parent company Hasbro filed a copyright and trademark infringement claim. The game returned several days later as Wordscraper, a redesigned and renamed game that's probably just different enough to keep Hasbro's lawyers away. And all the while, Facebook says that its only action was to forward Hasbro's complaint to the creators of Scrabulous.

What was so odd? Facebook's insistence on being a "neutral platform provider" in the situation. Because, to state the matter bluntly, it isn't.

The social network has a history of tightly policing activity on its developer platform, banning "Secret Crush" over a spyware claim, locking down applications believed to be spamming users, and occasionally raising developer ire with some of its more stringent regulations. The site even temporarily blocked Top Friends, a creation of widget powerhouse Slide, when a security hole was discovered.

Security and spyware are obviously serious issues, but so is the threat of lawsuits over intellectual property--just ask Viacom or the RIAA. And Facebook has dealt with IP issues on its platform before: "There was some early uproar when Facebook first permitted applications, about some of the music-sharing apps," said intellectual property lawyer Denise Howell, who writes the blog Bag and Baggage, citing concerns from watchdog groups that the widgets could be used for illegal file-sharing.

"What ultimately happened then was that the music-sharing apps very rapidly were tweaked, so that people weren't doing any actual file-sharing." Music applications such as iLike, with streaming songs and concert listings, have turned out to be some of Facebook's most reliable developer successes. And thanks to the legal experiences of Napster and Grokster, there's a fairly clear precedent as to what can get a content provider or tech company in trouble.

Facebook was running a similar, albeit less clear risk with this case. Rumors of Hasbro's beef with Scrabulous began to arise in January, and some legal experts now say that Facebook ran the risk of getting pulled into the matter for not acting on it. "(Hasbro) certainly could've saber-rattled and pushed the issue with Facebook," said Howell, "particularly under the Grokster decision from a few years back...Facebook has to be very careful, even if it's getting indemnity from the people who are putting applications on the site. That indemnity might not amount to much if there's very little there to back it up."

Playing favorites
But here's the catch: Facebook wanted to keep Scrabulous around. In claiming a "neutral" stance, the company was actually taking the activist route.

That's because the social network is very willing to curate its own developer platform, at least passively--especially since it started getting jabs for being rife with pointless and spammy apps. "They're not really that neutral now," Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang said in an interview. "In fact, in last week's (F8 Conference) announcement, they (said) they are trying to award and sort out the good applications versus the not-so-good ones." That entails blocking spam applications, banning apps with security holes, tightening rules on music apps to ensure that takedown notices don't start rolling in--and, yes, letting Scrabulous stay up and sort itself out.

Scrabulous was a Facebook favorite. Founder Mark Zuckerberg professed to being an active user, and company insiders spoke highly of the game. There was good reason for it: Scrabulous was a brainy game devoid of zombies and vampires, it was created by small-time developers rather than an "app factory," its roots in a classic board game gave it cross-generational appeal, and it was addictive enough to keep Facebook users glued to the site.

It was also extremely popular. If Facebook had pulled Scrabulous on its own, the PR ramifications could've been just as bad as getting ensnared in a legal tiff. Claiming to be "neutral," however dubious a claim, was a very calculated response on Facebook's part.

"It's posturing, but it's the way that they are ensuring that they're not in bed with their application makers for this purpose," Howell said. It also kept them ostensibly on the side of developers and fans, not corporate America.

Facebook's formal statement on developer policy says that the company "strive(s) to work with developers to correct any issues we discover, but when necessary we will act quickly to correct problems and ensure a safe and high-quality Facebook Platform experience for all."

The stringent legal standards we've seen with digital music and movies are different than the ones that apply to games, something that Facebook's astute legal team was undoubtedly aware of, said Pete Kinsella, an intellectual property attorney at the Faegre & Benson law firm. "I think that this is a questionable area of intellectual property law and it's not clear-cut," Kinsella said. "When things aren't clear-cut, you don't necessarily go and cut off peoples' access to platforms."

That's why Scrabulous was able to return as Wordscraper, with a new name, a redesigned board, and a different points system. Legal experts speculated that the India-based creators of Scrabulous, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, probably consulted lawyers to see exactly how much they would need to change in the game to make it no longer legally dubious, and have not said anything public connecting one game to the next. Assuming Hasbro's satisfied with the results, Facebook didn't need to do a thing--and one of its prized applications is back, with a new round of press.

Plus, had Facebook taken a hand in the Scrabulous debacle, it would've set a messy precedent. "The thing is, there's 400,000 developers (using Facebook's platform), and they're trying to find ways to be successful, and that means copying games that are going to work," Owyang said. "So you're going to see more indicators of this." If Facebook had vocally pulled Scrabulous, goodness knows how many game companies would've come knocking on Zuckerberg's door in Palo Alto with complaints of their own.

And that wouldn't have been good, because there are plenty of games beyond Scrabulous that have been boosting Facebook's score on that coveted Valley rating scale, user engagement. "They're clearly trying to segment quality apps that help the user experience, versus ones that don't," Owyang said. Again, in doing nothing, Facebook was doing a whole lot.

"They're a private entity. They're not a public utility, (and) they're not an ISP," Howell said of Facebook. "It's perhaps disingenuous for Facebook to use the word 'neutral' in that kind of situation, because at the end of the day they do hold all the cards on what people can and cannot do on their site."

The saga continues: Electronic Arts, which handles digital versions of the board game Scrabble for North American parent company Hasbro, has claimed that malicious hackers were responsible for the disappearance of its Facebook application on Tuesday.

The game had crashed on the same day that the creators of Scrabulous, a popular imitation game, blocked access to North American visitors after a legal complaint from Hasbro. With the real Scrabble inaccessible, irritated fans assumed that there was a server problem--the game is in beta, after all--and filled the application's discussion wall with angry comments.

But the real problem, EA has said, is that a hack downed Scrabble. When, according to the Los Angeles Times, the game was still inaccessible at 4 p.m. PT, the company released a statement.

"EA's Scrabble Facebook game experienced a malicious attack this morning, resulting in the disabling of Scrabble on Facebook," the statement read. "We're working with our partners to resolve this issue and have Scrabble back online and ready to play as soon as possible."

It sounds like the old "blame the hackers" excuse, but if you just look at the Scrabble application wall, it's pretty clear that there are a few people who are angry enough at Hasbro and EA to want to sabotage the game.

Whatever the case, the hack was a good one: on Wednesday morning, the game was still inaccessible.

When Scrabulous, a popular game on Facebook's developer platform, was shut down earlier on Tuesday because of copyright infringement issues with the manufacturer of the Scrabble board game, word game fans weren't totally left in the dark. After all, Electronic Arts (which handles the digital rights to Scrabble for the game's parent company, Hasbro) had recently created an official beta version of Scrabble for the platform.

Problem is, the servers that were hosting the "real" Scrabble app couldn't handle the load of new migrants, and the application crashed on Tuesday afternoon. Oops!

"We'll be back up shortly," an apologetic error message read. "We're working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!" The game is slated to exit the beta phase in the middle of next month, and some (my colleague Rafe Needleman among them) initially found it to be a better-quality game experience than Scrabulous had been.

But in the wake of a server crash, Facebook users weren't too pleased, as the message wall for the Scrabble application revealed. "Wow, does this suck," one Facebook user wrote. "Why can't you guys work out a licensing deal with the Scrabulous boys? Now we're back to square one and have to go through all of your debugging process."

Well, to be fair, rumor has it that Hasbro put out an acquisition offer for Scrabulous, only to have it rebuffed because its creators thought the amount offered was insufficient.

"Sucks, sucks, sucks," another Facebook user said. "Locks up at 30 percent loading. Sucks. Oh, did I mention it sucks? Get a grip, Hasbro."

Too bad "FAIL" will net you only seven points.

Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada can no longer access Scrabulous, the faux-Scrabble game that quickly became one of the most popular applications on its developer platform.

This was done independently on behalf of the Scrabulous creators, a Facebook representative told CNET News in an e-mail Tuesday. "In response to a legal request from Hasbro, the copyright and trademark holder for Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada, the developers of Scrabulous have suspended their application in the U.S. and Canada until further notice," the e-mail explained.

The game's disappearance comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed last week by Hasbro, the game manufacturer that owns the rights to Scrabble in the United States and Canada. In the suit, Hasbro named as defendants the creators of Scrabulous--India-based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and their company, RJ Softwares. The suit asked Facebook to pull the game, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and asked the Agarwallas to close their Scrabulous.com site.

That hasn't happened completely, though. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the rights to Scrabble are owned by game company Mattel, so Hasbro doesn't have jurisdiction there. Both game companies have released separate official Scrabble games for the Facebook platform. Meanwhile, the Scrabulous.com site, which existed before the Facebook application, is still working just fine.

Hasbro representatives were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

When Hasbro initially filed its suit last week, Facebook responded in this way: "Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement," the statement sent to CNET News.com read. "We're disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute; nevertheless, we have forwarded their concerns to Scrabulous and requested their appropriate response."

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had said in speeches that he was a fan of Scrabulous. That was before Hasbro started making it clear earlier this year that it wanted the game taken down.

Accessing the Scrabulous application on Facebook now leads to a message that states, "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice" and allows members to submit their e-mail addresses to the Scrabulous creators to receive updates.

This post was updated at 7:31 a.m. PDT with comment from Facebook.

Electronic Arts, the video game giant that owns the rights to digital versions of the board game Scrabble, has announced that later this month, it will launch a Facebook application version of the game in conjunction with Hasbro.

Unlike the last time we saw an announcement like this, it actually extends to the United States. (Remember, rights to Scrabble are owned by different companies in the U.S. and abroad--here, it's Hasbro, there, it's Mattel.)

"Scrabble is one of the best social-game brands in existence, and we've worked diligently with the Hasbro team to ensure that regardless of the platform you're playing, you'll be able to enjoy a world-class version of Scrabble with friends or family," Chip Lange, general manager of EA Hasbro Games, said in a release Monday. "We're delighted to be bringing communities everywhere access to one of their favorite games."

Unfortunately for EA and Hasbro, the story is much more complicated than that.

A game of Scrabulous on Facebook.

(Credit: Scrabulous)

There was, famously, all that fallout early this year over Scrabulous, a Facebook application that bears a suspicious resemblance to Scrabble. It's ad-supported, which means that the India-based brothers who created it are making money off the game. And perhaps because there was no "real" Scrabble on the social network, Scrabulous became wildly popular.

Scrabble's manufacturers weren't thrilled, and they served a handful of takedown notices. But months later, Scrabulous is still alive and kicking, and the millions of Facebook users who have been playing it are unlikely to make the switch--who says they'll even notice the presence of the new game?

The "official" Scrabble application, licensed by Mattel for Facebook users outside the States, has fewer than 4,000 daily users on a social network of more than 80 million, and Scrabulous is about 100 times more popular.

But EA's official version might gain traction elsewhere. The company will also be launching a version of the game on Pogo, an EA-owned casual-game site. If that's the start of a distribution effort across other game hubs, the "real" Scrabble could get some attention.

On Facebook, though, unless Hasbro reignites its dormant legal efforts to remove Scrabulous from the system, the game probably doesn't stand much of a chance.

An official Scrabble application, developed by RealNetworks' Gamehouse division, recently launched on Facebook's developer platform. Will it be a Zombies-caliber success? Probably not.

It's been clear for a while that the copyright holders on the classic board game Scrabble have been none too pleased with the wildly popular Scrabulous, a developer-created Facebook application that mimics the design and rules of the original. So it seemed that, after months of legal threats, the companies behind Scrabble would be taking a step in the right direction to actually launch an official Facebook app to offer users a legal alternative to Scrabulous on the popular social-networking site.

Ouch! Somebody on Facebook doesn't like the new Scrabble app's restrictions.

(Credit: Facebook)

Except not really. The Scrabble app is only available to Facebook users outside the U.S. and Canada, because the rights to Scrabble are owned by Hasbro in those two countries and by Mattel elsewhere around the world. It was Mattel that negotiated the Scrabble Facebook app with RealNetworks. Only users who list their location as outside the U.S. and Canada can play the game.

Confused yet?

A New York Times article Monday wrote that RealNetworks had, oddly enough, made a pledge to help save the Scrabulous game back in March. Yet a company representative told the Times that the Mattel negotiations had been going on for several months.

All corporate bickering aside, it looks like the Scrabble game, which is in beta, just might not be that awesome. "Facebook Scrabble takes a long time to load, does not always quickly update to show recent moves," the Times article by Heather Timmons related, "and the words the game will accept do not reflect standard Scrabble dictionaries, or even the English language."

Sounds like the "Save Scrabulous" crowd has reason to keep up its cause.

"I'll go on a hunger strike!"

So said one adamant Facebook user in the wake of the news that game manufacturers Hasbro and Mattel were trying to do something about the wildly popular, unquestionably addictive online game known as Scrabulous.

The game, which rose to fame when its creators turned it into an embeddable Facebook application, is a word game that's a whole lot like the classic board game Scrabble. It uses a playing board with "bonus" spots just like Scrabble. In fact, the rules are identical to Scrabble's.

The companies in charge of the "real" Scrabble, for obvious reasons, aren't happy.

Game companies Hasbro, which distributes Scrabble in North America, and Mattel, which is responsible for its overseas trademarks, have reportedly asked Facebook to remove the game from its application directory. And you can tell it's a serious legal matter because nobody's talking.

Facebook declined to confirm the report, and it said that it has not yet issued any kind of statement about Scrabulous; representatives from Hasbro did not respond to calls for comment.

The similarities between Scrabble and Scrabulous are crystal-clear, and it's a no-brainer to see why Hasbro and Mattel are miffed. To add to that, Scrabulous serves up advertisements, which means that its creators are making money off the concept. But what the game companies really ought to do is take a step back and realize that they can use Scrabulous to their advantage--without removing the viral game from Facebook.

Fans of Scrabulous, for one, aren't happy about the takedown news. On Facebook, an unofficial group called "Save Scrabulous" is growing fast, with more than 7,000 users at last count (and 5,000 hours before.) Its members, including the aforementioned "hunger striker," are livid.

"Leave Scrabulous alone!" one of them posted in the group's message board, a thinly veiled allusion to the "Leave Britney Alone" viral video.

Others were more visceral: "I've burnt my Scrabble board in protest!" one exclaimed.

A game of Scrabulous on Facebook.

(Credit: Scrabulous)

Scrabulous is the creation of two brothers in India, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, who founded Scrabulous.com in 2006. When Facebook launched its developer platform in May, the Agarwallas soon transformed their Scrabble spin-off into an application designed for the social network, and it caught on like wildfire. More than 2 million Facebook members are active Scrabulous users, and several hundred thousand of them play the game each day.

It was a catch-22 for the Agarwallas. The "Scrabulous guys" became Facebook celebrities, but the exposure meant that they were much more visible--and so were the obvious similarities between Scrabble and Scrabulous.

"It wouldn't be an issue if Scrabulous weren't so popular, right?" observed Darren Herman, director of digital media for marketing firm The Media Kitchen. It's the sheer mass of Facebook Scrabulous users that have made it a high-profile case as well as an inevitably ugly situation, if the game is indeed taken down. "We're seeing the power of social media in its early days. Since we're still trying to figure out the rules of the game, no pun intended, these types of issues are bound to arise."

In other words, according to Herman, the debate over Scrabulous is indicative of the fact that the world--or at least certain mainstays of the game industry--still hasn't quite figured out that a traditional course of action just doesn't always work on the Web.

"I don't think they are crazy to think this way," Darren Herman said when asked if Hasbro and Mattel are totally off base. "Scrabble came out in a time when everyone guarded their (intellectual property) tightly."

In the old order, a takedown notice may have been the only route. But this is the Web, and plenty of people have pointed out that Hasbro and Mattel are sitting on a marketing gold mine with Scrabulous. They have a gleefully addicted fan base, a machine for viral buzz (Facebook's platform), and the deep pockets to offer to buy Scrabulous outright--or at least strike an innovative advertising deal.

There's also no direct competitor. Neither Hasbro nor Mattel operates a Web-based, ad-supported version of Scrabble; video game manufacturer Electronic Arts owns the rights to electronic versions of the game, and it currently sells a PC game of Scrabble for about $20. (EA was not available for comment on the Scrabulous issue.) With Scrabulous, all three companies may be sitting on a marketing treasure trove.

Hasbro and Mattel might not get it. But the members of Save Scrabulous think that they do.

"Do these greedy fools not realize that they should be paying the creators of Scrabulous for all the damn fans of the game they created?" one angry Scrabulous fan from the United Kingdom asked on the group's "wall." He brought up a further point--that this is getting people excited about the musty old board game in a way they haven't in years. "It's like the music vids put on YouTube. It makes me buy tracks I never would have done, and frankly, before this game emerged, Scrabble was just something for rainy days in my childhood."

Another member of the group put it more concisely. "Scrabulous brought Scrabble back in style. They should be thankful."

That noise you just heard was the sound of several hundred thousand procrastination-happy Facebook users gasping in panic.

Josh Quittner at Fortune reports that Hasbro, manufacturer of the timeless board game Scrabble, is trying to shut down Scrabulous, an unauthorized electronic version of Scrabble that has gained a rabid following on Facebook. The reasons are obvious: licensing. Scrabulous profits from advertising revenue. Hasbro, citing infringement, wants to see it scrapped.

There's no online version of Scrabble, but as Quittner notes, electronic rights to the game belong to video game manufacturer Electronic Arts. One of Scrabulous' creators confirmed to Quittner that Hasbro has contacted Facebook about removing the application.

Scrabulous was started in 2006 as a standalone site operated by a pair of 20-something Calcutta, India-based brothers, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, but the game exploded when they created a Facebook application that currently boasts 2.3 million active users and soon became the workplace productivity drain du jour. It's currently the ninth most popular application on the site. If Hasbro decides to take legal action against Scrabulous--which seems rather likely--it'll make a whole lot of cubicle monkeys very, very sad.

But Hasbro cares about its intellectual property, not about the desires of bored office workers. And, sadly, Scrabulous really does mirror Scrabble letter-for-letter: the "Rules of Scrabulous" section of Scrabulous' FAQ even redirects to the Wikipedia page for Scrabble. As Quittner wrote in his article, all good things must come to an end.

(Full disclosure: I have four active Scrabulous games in progress on Facebook.)