Scrabulous Sued, Facebook on Notice

July 25, 2008 — -- After months of speculation, board game maker Hasbro has sued the creators of Scrabulous, an online game that the company claims copies its game Scrabble, and has asked Facebook to remove the game from its site.

The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in federal court in New York, claims that the game's creators, brothers Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla, violated Hasbro's intellectual property rights by creating the online game Scrabulous. The game lives on Facebook.com, where it's one of the social network's most popular applications.

"We expect the full cooperation of Facebook in this matter," Hasbro said in a statement.

In a statement issued late Thursday, Facebook said it hoped the suit wouldn't discourage other developers from creating applications for the social network.

"Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. "We're disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute; nevertheless, we have forwarded their concerns to Scrabulous and requested their appropriate response."

The statement did not address whether Scrabulous will continue to be available on Facebook. As of Friday morning, the application remained active.

The Agarwalla brothers did not respond to e-mailed questions on the matter.

Scrabulous is played much the same way as Scrabble and is among the top 10 most downloaded applications on Facebook, which has more than 90 million active users. It can also be played online at the brothers' Web site, Scrabulous.com.

Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble in the United States and Canada. Last year, the company struck a deal with video game maker Electronic Arts to develop digital versions of classic board games.

That deal came to fruition in the past few weeks, as Hasbro launched an online version of the official Scrabble, also downloadable on Facebook.

Hasbro had been mum on what legal action, if any, it would take -- until now.

"In deference to the fans, we waited in pursuing legal action until EA had a legitimate and better alternative available," Hasbro said in a statement.

When rumors of legal action first circulated in January, however, those fans that Hasbro is trying to woo were livid over a potential Scrabulous shutdown. Within hours of the news, hardcore fans registered their disapproval.

Several groups formed on Facebook, with tens of thousands of members joining to rescue the favored application from its demise. Nearly all the groups had some variation of the phrase "Save Scrabulous" in their names.

Jason Madhosingh, a 30-year-old New Yorker who works in marketing, is the leader of one of the biggest "Save Scrabulous" Facebook groups.