One of the stories making the rounds on the Internet, is how a pair of Mumbai based geeks who have launched an on-line version of Scrabble, a wordgame manufactured by Spears Games in the UK (Mattel) and by Hasbro in the US – have been issued Cease and Desist Letters.
The scrabulous game can be accessed here: http://www.scrabulous.com/
One of the articles reporting the story, was published in Forbes and can be accessed here: http://www.forbes.com/markets/economy/2008/01/17/scrabulous-mattel-copyright-markets-equity-cx_rd_0117markets03.html
The question I’d like to raise is what should be the period of protection for games, before they enter the public domain?
You can’t copyright an idea.
Games cannot be copyright protected in the US.
From the USPTO Website:
The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.
Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.
Some material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable.
At best, therefore, the gameboard, may, if registered, be copyright in the US.
The laws in many other countries would exclude the game board as not being a literary, dramatic or aesthetic work.
In Israel, the game board may have been registerable as a design for up to 15 years. I assume it would long ago have entered the public domain.
Designs for objects of manufacture are protected for relatively short periods, that varies from regime to regime, but currently up to 25 years in Europe.
Assuming copyright lies in the aesthetics aspects of the playing board, or in an original font chosen for the letters on the tiles, then could a different font, and different shades of pink and blue remove the issue of copyright infringement?
What changes, if any, should be required to the popular on-line game to sanitize and legalize it? maybe the colour of the double letter scores or triple word scores?
After how long can other games manufacturers legally produce copies of the game?
