‘Copyright is harmful for creativity’

When it comes to the fight between Hasbro-Mattel and Scrabulous over the online version of Scrabble invented by the Aggarwala brothers of Kolkata, I think the company over reacted. The Facebook application was a tribute to Scrabble and no one denied that Scrabulous was based on Scrabble. By slapping a copyright suit, the company is not only stopping its fans from enjoying the game but also is negating creativity.

Copy right law has been based on the core principle of promotion of creativity, which is an incremental action and in the present era of digital communication when the society is moving from ‘read only’ to ‘read and write’ culture, where participation plays an important role, this kind of restriction doesn’t make sense. Copy right law is trying to slow down that sense of creativity that is inherent to playing a game.

Another issue is the level of ridiculousness of the copy right suits. The Indian copyright law protects the rights of the inventor for 60 years after his or her death. It is 70 years in the US. This aspect of the law is being used by the company to maximise the eternal returns on a single commodity. This was not the reason for creating these laws.
One more aspect of this legal wrangle is that Facebook is launching another application as a replacement for Scrabulous. It is easy for a company like Facebook to introduce another word application as it’s a big company. An individual cannot face an expensive law suit — in the US the average cost of defending a copyright suit is $25000.

This kind of copyright is harmful for creativity. Look at JK Rowling, one of the richest women in the UK, who sued a Durga puja pandal in Kolkata because it was modeled like  Hogwarts castle. That is utterly ridiculous. 

Scrabulous was being used as a social tool. People were rediscovering the pleasure of playing the word game that was cut short by Hasbro.

Lawrence Liang is founder of the Alternative Law Forum  and a prominent critic of ‘intellectual property’. He spoke to Bratatee Barman.