[OT?] Copyright infringement, Scrabulous, and the GPL

[Marc Lanctot]

I figure this the place to ask about my question concerning copyright.

After doing some light reading on copyright infringement, I'm still a 
bit unclear on what qualifies as infringement.

It is clear to me that making an exact copy of a copyrighted item and 
distributing it is a clear case of infringement (a song, a movie, etc.).

I'm interested in games, board games in particular, and the case with 
Scrabulous. Scrabulous got nailed with lawsuits because they referred to 
Scrabble and used a trademarked name attached to their product; they 
have now renamed their service to Lexulous, but it's still the exact 
same game as Scrabble except with slightly different colors. I know 
another server which offers play-by-email games 
(http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/) and he has a lot of popular games 
implemented under different names as well. Brettspeilwelt and Game Table 
Online actually use the game's name and graphics, but I'm assuming they 
have deals with the respective gaming companies.

So my question is this: is it legal to implement a (say GPL'd) online 
game which allows users to play a game whose original rules etc. are 
under copyrights /as long as you don't use their names and art/? Is it 
legal to distribute the implementation under GPL? If so, "how legal" is 
this? Suppose I do this.. should I be prepared to have lawyers knocking 
on my door?

Marc

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