Scrabulous Becomes "Wordscraper," Reappears on Facebook

Scrabulous, the popular Web knock-off version of Hasbro's Scrabble on Facebook whose creators took the game down after being sued by Hasbro (NYSE: HAS), has relaunched on the social network as "Wordscraper," an essentially similar game that makes changes to its name and other characteristics. The move is no doubt aimed at testing the boundaries of copyright and trademark claims under current laws. Unlike Scrabulous, which copped the basic colors and layout Scrabble, Wordscraper uses circles instead of squares, and alters its color scheme. The game already counts over 3,500 daily active users on Facebook, but that number is still a far cry from the 500,000 Scrabulous was drawing before it was taken down. The launch of Wordscraper also follows Hasbro's release of an official Scrabble game on Facebook, developed by Electronic Arts. The official version so far has over 62,000 daily active users, but has drawn some complaints from players due to its graphics-heavy design, and the inability to play against users from other countries.
http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2008/07/31/scrabulous-becomes-%26quot;wordscraper,%26quot;-reappears-facebook