Intellectual Property,
Civil Rights
Oct. 7, 2014
Can you copyright a list of words?
Competitive Scrabble-players by Hasbro's attempts to claim exclusive copyright ownership of both the OSPD and OWL word lists after many years of leaving them free for community use.
Dan D. Nabel
Principal Counsel
Riot Games
Dan also teaches Video Game Law at USC Gould. His new book, "Video Game Law in a Nutshell," will be available in July 2018 from West Academic."
Most of us know Hasbro, Inc. for two things: the CGI-bonanza "Transformers" films, and Scrabble. While perhaps not everyone has enjoyed the film series, almost all of us have played Scrabble at one time or another. Those of us who have played Scrabble have also experienced playing with some smart-aleck friend or family member (like me) who uses made-up words like "faqir" (a dervish), "qaid" (a Muslim leader), "aa" (rough, cindery lava) or "gox" (gaseous oxygen).
None of...
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