hasbro: 11 points.
October 9, 2014 8:41 PM   Subscribe

Can you claim copyright on a list of words? When it comes to Scrabble, Hasbro seems to think so. This isn't the first time they've filed copyright claims related to the game, though it may not have been so effective.
posted by divabat (16 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hasbro has bad relationships with other fandoms too, it seems like the Pony fandom continues almost despite their actions, and that's huge.
posted by JHarris at 9:04 PM on October 9, 2014


Hasbro is a multinational law firm that happens to make toys and games.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:12 PM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


There are all sorts of legal reasons to set up licensing arrangements the way we do,” he told me. Berkowitz added: “Our goal is not to monetize NASPA. Our goal is really about the democratization of this game and getting as many people this content as possible.”

Pluh. Wow, just a barefaced contradiction.
posted by JHarris at 9:14 PM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


Here's a fun game: Oligopoly!

Name a toy or game, and guess whether it's owned by Hasbro, Mattel, or neither. Check Wikipedia for the answer. Award 1 point for a correct guess. Award 1000 points if the answer is "neither," whether the guess was correct or not. At the end of the game, give all your points to me because I own the copyright on this game.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:48 PM on October 9, 2014 [6 favorites]


At the end of the game, give all your points to me because I own the copyright on this game you get sued by Hasbro and Mattel for trademark violations.
posted by el io at 10:11 PM on October 9, 2014


I wish it one of the bit tournaments would just use its own word set or one from a standard dictionary. I'm still mad they removed the swears.
posted by NoraReed at 11:41 PM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


The article informs us that Hasbro doesn't fund the official Scrabble tournament anymore, it's now a separate organization. That's amazing and stupid. Of all the depressing popular board games Hasbro sells, Scrabble is the one most deserving of an official tournament structure. They sell this particular word list specifically for tournament play, meaning basically they have a captive market. And apparently a major source for the tournament word list is player contributions, giving me that ol' Gracenote feeling, of a company accepting free content harvested and compiled by fans, stamping a copyright symbol on it, and then selling it back to the fans and suing if they then give it away.

I'm thinking the tournament organization should come up with their own word list from other sources. Don't call it the Official ScrabbleTM word list, but explicitly state its useability for all kinds of word games.
posted by JHarris at 1:09 AM on October 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


"I'm thinking the tournament organization should come up with their own word list from other sources."

I know a bunch of folks (my family, largely) that takes scrabble pretty seriously, but aren't even close to tournament skill level. They wouldn't think about playing a game of scrabble with any dictionary other than the scrabble dictionary. I can't imagine tournament people would feel any differently (and they'd probably feel more stridently about it).

I don't consider myself a serious scrabble player by any means, but I do own a couple of games and a hardcover edition of the scrabble dictionary (most likely all of these things were donated by relatives so they could play when visiting me).
posted by el io at 1:45 AM on October 10, 2014


Any other scrabble players bothered by the title of this post? Proper nouns are not valid scrabble words, 'hasbro' cannot be played in a scrabble game.
posted by el io at 2:00 AM on October 10, 2014 [8 favorites]


The "Scrabble dictionary," however, is just something that is what it is because a rightsholder publishes it. It has the words "OFFICIAL" and "SCRABBLE" on it. Hasbro themselves have gotten out of the tournament scene, so, forget about them. No matter how good it is, if it's going to hold back the game to rely on it, an alternative should be sought, possibly made. It won't be any good at first, but give it time, and encourage those revisions and added word lists that people send in to go to them as well as/instead of Hasbro's locked-up version. It can get better, with effort, and the result won't be beholden to Hasbro's palaeolithic legal department.
posted by JHarris at 2:17 AM on October 10, 2014


(And this is FAR from the first time I've heard about that legal department harassing fans. I follow the pony fanscene remember. I know of at least one MeFite who's been hit by one of their CoDs.)
posted by JHarris at 2:20 AM on October 10, 2014


Yeah, Scrabble definitely needs an open-source dictionary. Just take what we have, remove some unimportant (low-playability) words of 5, 6, and 8+ letters, retain all the "core 2's and 3's" (well "ZZZ" can go, you know so the new list will be even more "original"!), and bob's your uncle. The body that maintains the list of official words should not be a fucking corporation. /mad out of all proportion to topic post/

Hasbro has been making underwhelming Scrabble software since 1990. I laugh at every design.
posted by sylvanshine at 6:59 AM on October 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


It seems like the thing to do is to just put the document out there in file sharing land, and ignore Hasbro. Good luck trying to control a sub-megabyte text file, jerks.
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 9:03 AM on October 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


unimportant words?

I think that either describes all words, or none of them.
posted by el io at 9:29 AM on October 10, 2014


Not many comments here, but as a mid-ranked tournament player, I can shed some light on how much of a mess this is (Stefan Fatsis did a great job of explaining the situation in the main article).

The origin of the current Scrabble dictionary (by Merriam-Webster for Hasbro) is that back when Selchow & Righter owned the game, players on the budding tourney scene wanted a uniform word list to work with - one specifically made with Scrabble in mind. A list was compiled based on words being in several (2 or 3?) of 5 major dictionaries. Players contributed a large amount of the work cross-checking lists and scrubbing errata, and then it got published. So right off the bat, it's obvious that these idiots are claiming copyright on a word list that 1) was made with a lot of unpaid labor out of 2) a bunch of competitors' dictionaries. On top of that, the newest edition has a stupid amount of errors, many of which the players new about before the printing even happened.

All the "serious" players want is to be able to have free access to the electronic list of words called the Tournament Word List. We've had it for years and there are numerous free tools that programmers have built as study tools. Those tools don't even say "Scrabble" - they are just tools that allow you to pick a dictionary of which "TWL06" is one. So now Hasbro has bought one of the tools and wants to encrypt the list and require any other tool makers to either cease and desist or agree to various strict terms TBD. Keep in mind that there are at best a couple of thousand active tournament players in the US.

Hasbro didn't create the list. It originated from other dictionaries. It doesn't have etymology, pronunciation, or usable definitions. They have allowed the electronic version of the list to be used by tons of tool writers for years without defending the copyright. They don't do jack shit for tournament Scrabble.* But, might makes right. Most of the tool makers are going to just take down their web sites, they say. No one has the time or money to fight it up to the SCOTUS (who I'm confident would come down against Hasbro).

* Well, they did fuck up the board colors! But that's ok because tournament players all use custom boards anyway ... which they'll probably go after next!

I like the idea of using an open source dictionary, but the current players' association leadership is trying to make nice with Hasbro so they'll pony up prize money like they once did long ago. So, probably not happening.

I'm waiting to hear the revised date for tournaments to start using the new list. It's on hold pending this crap, but at some point I will have a zillion new words to study.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:31 AM on October 10, 2014 [5 favorites]


Well, they did fuck up the board colors! But that's ok because tournament players all use custom boards anyway ... which they'll probably go after next!

Really? If they don't use the official board then what makes them Scrabble(R) players and not Crossword Game players?
posted by Monochrome at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2014


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