Scrabulous has been taken down by Hasbro! Say it ain't so!The drama officially started yesterday morning, when to to my horror, a bitchy note was where the wonderful, glorious Facebook Scrabulous application used to be, stating simply that "Scrabulous was no longer available in the US or Canada." No explanation as to why, or as to why the Europeans will get to keep playing when I don't, but there was a suggestion to play the Hasbro approved version. In my panic (and forgetting my allegiances to Scrabulous) I decided to try... It didn't work.
Cut to today, when a co-worker sent me this horrifying NY Times article which included frightening statements such as:
"The demise of Scrabulous was sudden but not wholly unexpected. The game, a favorite time-waster among cubicle dwellers, was created by two brothers in Calcutta. On July 24, Hasbro, which owns the North American rights to Scrabble, sued them for copyright infringement. On Tuesday, the brothers made Scrabulous unavailable to Facebook users in Canada and the United States, citing legal pressure."
Sigh. Legal pressure.
But (this is my favorite part) apparently, the reason why the authorized version of Scrabble was hacked by someone upset by the sudden removal of The Best Thing About Facebook. Good riddance I say:
"The authorized game had been the victim of “a malicious attack” on Tuesday morning, its developer said — an attack that came right on the heels of the sudden disappearance of Scrabulous."
I mean, yeah Hasbro has intellectual property rights blah blah blah and I understand that, but that doesn't make me hate them less for being total fun killers (who are just mad because they didn't think up The Most Awesome Idea Ever For People Who Are Bored). Next time I go to a bar that features Scrabble, I will decline a friendly challenge.
1 comment:
WHAT.
-K
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