Scrabulous pulled off Facebook in US and Canada

A popular online wordgame, Scrabulous, created by two Kolkata-based brothers has been yanked off the social networking web site Facebook, from its US and Canadian versions, a week after a lawsuit was filed against the siblings by an American toymaker that owns the rights to Scrabble. 

Users who attempted to access the service on their Facebook account were greeted with a note that read 'Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice.'

Facebook itself had not taken sides in the dispute, and stressed that it was the developers Rajat Agarwalla, 27, and Jayant Agarwalla, 22, who had disabled the game which has over 500,000 daily active users.

'Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as a neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement,' the company said in a statement.

In a statement, the Agarwallas said the decision to withdraw the game in the US and Canada will allow them to focus on the lawsuit filed on July 24 by Hasbro, which owns the Scrabble copyright in North America.

The suit came less than two weeks after the release of an authorised version of Scrabble by Hasbro for Facebook which drew a lukewarm response with just 10,000 users.

Hasbro issued a statement inviting fans to try out the "authentic" game of online Scrabble, introduced this month by Electronic Arts.

But users were unable to access the game which was apparently hacked after Scrabulous was taken off Facebook. The company said its game had experienced a malicious attack this morning, resulting in the disabling of Scrabble on Facebook.

Over 50 Facebook users have mounted a campaign to 'save' Scrabulous. More than 47,000 joined a 'Save Scrabulous group'.

Angry Scrabulous fans lodged their protest on Facebook with some even calling for a boycott of Hasbro. Scrabulous is still available on the overseas versions of Facebook -- where the rights are owned by Mattel, and not Hasbro -- as well as on Scrabulous.com.

Mattel owns the rights to Scrabble in nearly 120 other countries. Scrabulous quickly became one of the most popular activities on Facebook after its launch in 2006 and is believed to have over 2.5 million registered users.