Scrabble

Hasbro Inc. made its move. The owner of Scrabble filed suit Thursday against the developers of Scrabulous, a word game played by millions of Facebook users each month. "We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro's general counsel. Hasbro also sent a letter to Facebook asking the social networking site to shut down Scrabulous. As of noon Pacific time Thursday, the game was still up. Filed in the Southern District of New York federal court, the suit against Rajat Agarwalla, Jayant Agarwalla and their company, RJ Softwares, claims copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This month Hasbro introduced a beta version of its official Scrabble game on Facebook.

In "Francine," Oscar-winner Melissa Leo plays a woman struggling to reestablish her sense of self after being released from prison. Unable and somewhat unwilling to connect with others, she seeks solace instead in animals. Bouncing from a job in a pet shop to working in a veterinary clinic, Francine begins hoarding animals at home, building a menagerie she can't properly care for. Filmmakers Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky focus closely on Leo's title character, leaving supporting characters on the periphery of her world.

A highly popular Scrabble clone already pulled from Facebook in the U.S. and Canada continued its tumble over the weekend as the online hangout extended its block of the game throughout most of the world. Facebook said it was forced to disable Scrabulous after one of Scrabble's rights owners, Mattel Inc., made a formal removal request and the developers of Scrabulous took no action themselves. The Scrabulous application remains available in India, where its developers live and where Mattel has filed a lawsuit claiming violations of intellectual property.

He carries a dictionary under his arm and wears a very large Star of David around his neck. His name is Fidel Babani, but you can call him Senor Scrabble. Babani, in addition to being an active member of Cuba's tiny Jewish community, is president of the also small, but growing, Cuban Scrabble Assn. Two very different passions, perhaps, but in his island nation, adherents have followed parallel paths: From both vantage points, Babani has seen slow, sometimes contradictory change.

What a charming and delightfully candid piece Mark Miller wrote ("One-Night Stand Jars His One-Track Mind," March 27). As a single woman living in Los Angeles, I was thoroughly amused and pleasantly surprised. Amused by your honesty about the "construction" of men vs. women and your willingness and ability to see outside of our architectural differences. Surprised by your desire to step beyond the physical and your ability to admire the magic that occurs when two people step beyond the physical realm into a much grander, more complete connection.

"Not the V Word" (Feb. 11) by Josh Getlin was a delight to read. Eve Ensler has taken a path most women would be too shy to travel. That is until now. Ensler's path reminds me of the consciousness-raising phase many women like me went through in the early 1980s, the result of which was to no longer suppress our feminine identities and to wish as well as act wholeheartedly for equality. I look forward to Ensler's Los Angeles appearance. I remember an evening in 1961, when I was playing Scrabble with several people.

My condolences to Bernhardt Sadler of Venice (Viewers' Views, April 16). I, too, have found my whole life style changed because of the cancellation of my favorite show, "Super Password." I have rearranged my entire existence--moved all the furniture around, gone on a diet, rescheduled my daily swim, shopped till I dropped, made a standing appointment with the hairdressers and even phoned my three offspring during the day --all because I no longer have to be on hand at 11 a.m. to watch Bert Convy, his guests and his interesting contestants play with my favorite subject, words!

Women sometimes accuse men of being interested in only one thing. And it's not Scrabble. OK, maybe for one man in Montana it is Scrabble, but Dwight's been married for 46 years and, frankly, at this stage of his life, scoring a 27-point word gives him a lot more pleasure than spending nights with his wife, Shirley. For the rest of us guys, though, I'll admit that occasionally we are only interested in one thing, and the one thing is sex. I'm sorry, but that's how we were constructed.

Sybil Washington of Inglewood, who loves word games, would like to find a Scrabble club in her area. If you could take your Q from this request and not be board by this little tile, Washington would never again be at a loss for words. David Young of Newport Beach needs the current address of Safety Bros. Inc. (formerly located in Pasadena) or someone who can supply him with the parts to one of the firm's bath/shower seats.

Paul Hellweg knew immediately that the woman sitting across from him would be his fiancee: "It was love at first phobia." There they were about a year ago, sitting around a campfire at the conclusion of a backpacking trip, when she mentioned triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). "Not only did I know what that meant, but I countered with one of my all-time favorites, pentheraphobia (fear of one's mother-in-law)," Hellweg recalled.

In a deal that will surely make activist groups froth and may have rivals looking over their shoulders, Discovery Communications Inc. and Hasbro Inc. are partnering on a new kids' cable channel aimed at the elusive 14-and-under demographic. Under the terms of the deal, Hasbro, maker of Trivial Pursuit, G.I. Joe, Transformers and Scrabble, will pay $300 million for a 50% stake in Discovery Kids Network, the cable programmer's children's channel, which is available in 60 million homes.

Hasbro Inc. has dropped its lawsuit against the makers of Scrabulous, a popular online version of board game Scrabble. According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Hasbro dropped the lawsuit Friday. Hasbro, which owns the North American rights to Scrabble, sued Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, brothers from Calcutta, India, this summer. The brothers developed the unauthorized version, called Scrabulous, after they couldn't find an online version they liked.

A highly popular Scrabble clone already pulled from Facebook in the U.S. and Canada continued its tumble over the weekend as the online hangout extended its block of the game throughout most of the world. Facebook said it was forced to disable Scrabulous after one of Scrabble's rights owners, Mattel Inc., made a formal removal request and the developers of Scrabulous took no action themselves. The Scrabulous application remains available in India, where its developers live and where Mattel has filed a lawsuit claiming violations of intellectual property.

Hasbro Inc. to Scrabulous: N-I-X-E-D, for a minimum of 13 points. The toy company scored big Tuesday in its legal match against the popular but unauthorized version of Scrabble that's played online by millions of Facebook members. The India-based creators of Scrabulous shut down the game to players in the U.S. and Canada, where Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble, a week after Hasbro sued them, alleging copyright infringement.

Hasbro Inc. made its move. The owner of Scrabble filed suit Thursday against the developers of Scrabulous, a word game played by millions of Facebook users each month. "We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro's general counsel. Hasbro also sent a letter to Facebook asking the social networking site to shut down Scrabulous. As of noon Pacific time Thursday, the game was still up. Filed in the Southern District of New York federal court, the suit against Rajat Agarwalla, Jayant Agarwalla and their company, RJ Softwares, claims copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This month Hasbro introduced a beta version of its official Scrabble game on Facebook.

C-O-M-P-E-T-E. Developers of a highly popular but unauthorized version of Scrabble for the online hangout Facebook vowed Tuesday to do just that, now that a video game maker has weighed in with an official version of the word game. Jayant Agarwalla, co-creator of the unauthorized Scrabulous, suggested that Electronic Arts Inc. would have a tough time attracting "the attention and patronage of a large and dedicated user base" as Scrabulous has with nearly half a million daily users.

My wife voted Nov. 7 at a little schoolhouse. For whom she voted is nobody's business, but since she's the one who made the colossal mistake of marrying a member of the media, you can take a guess whether I will respect her right to absolute confidentiality or blab to the world how she voted. (For Al Gore.) I have since found myself prying further into this woman's privacy, a full week beyond the election. "Did you punch a hole in your ballot?" I inquired. "Yes."

The companies that make Scrabble are trying to shut down Scrabulous, an online version of the game that is one of the most popular applications on the social-networking website Facebook. Hasbro Inc., which owns the rights to the crossword game in the U.S. and Canada, and Mattel Inc., which owns the rights elsewhere, believe that the Facebook game infringes their copyrights and trademarks. Scrabulous listed more than 600,000 daily active users on Facebook as of Wednesday.