On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 11:50 AM, David L. Willson <DLWillson@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > First and foremost, as a builder and creator, you must do what you are called to do, and you must do it in the way that you feel is right and ethical. If something you feel is right and ethical, happens to be illegal, re-examine your ethics. If you ~still~ think it's right and ethical, consider protest and/or civil disobedience. > > I took Vijay's advice and looked up Scrabulous. I disagree with him about whether Hasbro was being "petty". It seems to me that Scrabulous wasn't a "derivative work", or a "work inspired by", but an exact clone of Scrabble. It seems not to have had offered variance from, or improvement on, the original work. Scrabulous is a bad example. That case is a messy mix of trademark and copyright issues. Trademark law is much different from copyright and it requires much more vigilant litigation of infringement. In my eyes Scrabulous is clearly a derivative of the "brand" Scrabble and trademark law basically requires the owner of the trademark to go after any potential misuse of the mark. Vijay is basically correct in that the mechanics of a game cannot be copyrighted (but they can be patented). The specific published written rules may be copyrightable. See: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html I hate to be trite but "follow the golden rule" is probably the right advice for giving credit where credit is due. -Craig