Scrabble scramble

New.com.au reports that Hasbro and Mattel are trying to shut down Scrabulous, an online version of their Scrabble game, which is available through Facebook. There is currently no authorised electronic version of Scrabble, but Electronic Arts is developing one under licence.

The IPKat says that infringing other people’s IP rights is never a good idea, and the fact that you’re doing it online doesn’t magically make it OK. In the ideal world of pragamtic utopia, Hasbro would make both itself and its fans happy and take over the existing version, though that wouldn’t be possible on the assumption that Hasbro has granted Electronic Arts an exclusive licence.