RIP Scrabulous

[Chantel]

The creators of a Scrabble knockoff responsible for countless hours at the online hangout Facebook have suspended their word game after being hit with a lawsuit, disappointing fans who logged on expecting to make their next moves.

Hasbro Inc, the company that owns the North American rights to the word game, last week sued the brothers in Calcutta, India, who created the Scrabulous program. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the program, something the site resisted despite risks of losing immunity protection from copyright lawsuits.

In a statement, creators Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla said they agreed to block Scrabulous in the United States and Canada in deference to Facebook's concerns, while continuing to pursue their legal defence. Rajat Agarwalla, describing the measures as "unfortunate," declined further comment.

Facebook said the Agarwalla brothers, not the company, made the decision.

In the year since Facebook began letting outside developers write web programs that Facebook members can plug into their personal profile pages, Scrabulous has become one of the most popular applications, despite efforts by Scrabble's owners to end it.

Earlier this month, video game maker Electronic Arts Inc released an official version for American and Canadian Facebook users under a licensing deal with Hasbro. But the authorised Scrabble has been attracting only 15,000 daily users, compared with some half-million for Scrabulous.

After the EA release, Hasbro sued the Agarwalla brothers and their company in US District Court in New York, accusing them of violating Hasbro's copyright and trademarks. The lawsuit seeks an end to Scrabulous and unspecified damages.

Facebook users who tried to access Scrabulous on Tuesday were simply told the game was disabled "until further notice," and many Facebook users updated their one-line status messages on the site to mourn the suspension.

The game continues to work at the developers' website, Scrabulous.com, but users must sign up and start games afresh.

[Hitman]

Still works for us!

[Hitman]

AUSTRALIAN fans of Facebook phenomena Scrabulous voiced their anger in forums yesterday after it appeared the game may have been removed.

It comes after the US and Canadian Facebook sites took down the scrabble knock-off on July 31 after threats of legal action against the game's creators Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla from US company Hasbro.

Last night Australian Facebook users were asking where the game had gone.

Julie Fitzpatrick said ``What on earth has happened to Scrabulous????Bloomin' heck!''

Another fan Melissa Piazza wrote ``Has scrabulous gone from Australia too now, does anybody know. I guess it has because it's no longer on my page WEEP, WEEP''.

Scrabulous.com was launched by brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla in India in 2005 and rocketed to popularity two years later after they released a version as a free ``add-on'' application for Facebook.

The Calcutta-based brothers pulled it from US and Canadian Facebook pages due to a lawsuit filed against them on July 25 in a US court by Hasbro.

Hasbro had sent a notice demanding Facebook remove the popular game from the social-networking website.

Joint owners of the Scrabble trademark, Mattel and Hasbro, asked Facebook in January to remove the renegade version of its game from the website.

In a statement, creators Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla said they agreed to block Scrabulous in the US and Canada in deference to Facebook's concerns, while continuing to pursue their legal defence.

Hours after Scrabulous was pulled from Facebook in the US and Canada, hackers sabotaged a Hasbro-sanctioned online Scrabble game made by Electronic Arts.

A day after it was pulled, the word game was reborn as Wordscraper which spins off the Scrabble design by using circular instead of square tiles, and introducing quadruple value scoring spots.

Hasbro _ which owns rights to the Scrabble trademark in the US and Canada _ said it was evaluating developments and would take action ``as appropriate''.