Scrabulous is Shut Down. Does That Make Hasbro Evil?
Scrabulous, the Facebook app that has over 500,000 users, has been shut down today in the US and Canada by the Indian brothers that created it. Big, evil Hasbro has put the drop on them and now it’s game over.
But not so fast. What really happened here, and is Hasbro really evil for protecting intellectual property?
Undoubtedly, Hasbro could have handled this situation much better. The best course of action would have been to create their own version of Scrabble for Facebook early on and corner the market. All of these old game makers would be smart to get on their horses because there is money to be made. The brothers that created Scrabulous are making a lot of money.
But why should they be? Sure, they did create the app, which I imagine too a lot of hard work. And people love the app–much better than the Hasbro version that was created to rival Scrabulous. But Scrabble is not theirs. It is not their intellectual property.
What if I decided to launch a Larry Potter app? Or Sooperman? If everybody loved it, would I expect a $10 million buyout from the companies holding the IP? I think there does have to be a line drawn when it comes to intellectual property. Besides, there are unconfirmed rumors (by a guy named Intosh in the comments of a Mashable post on the subject) the Agarwalla brothers were holding out for eight figures when they were being offered something in the high sevens. When does their greed become Hasbro’s evil?
I don’t believe it’s good for creativity to feel suspicious any idea one comes up with will be stolen and profited from. Where will the drive to create go if there’s no reward for the hard work, or if the reward can be so easily taken away? Perhaps we should create out of the sheer joy of it, but for the time and work invested in something, the creator deserves to reap the benefits of that toil. I understand the guy who created Scrabble is probably dead, but the principle still applies.
Although Hasbro hasn’t made any friends today. As a business decision, their move is probably off-base.
Technorati Tags: hasbro, facebook, scrabulous, intellectual property
