• Silicon Alley Insider, Tuesday, July 29, 2008 11:30 AM

The Silicon Alley Insider reports that Facebook has pulled the plug on Scrabulous, at least for the time being. If you try and access the app, you now get the following message: "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice." The message then asks you to enter your email address if you'd like to be informed about developments in the matter.

Last week, Hasbro, manufacturer of the board game Scrabble, filed a lawsuit against developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwall, who founded the popular Facebook app two weeks ago. SAI's Michael Learmonth says that a DMCA takedown notice likely ended the game's two-year run. This is the same tactic Viacom used against Google's YouTube last year.

This could be real bad news Agarwall brothers, who had been offered a substantial check from Hasbro and other companies with claims to the Scrabble brand (Learmonth says there are several), but they wanted more money. Learmonth thinks the brothers will wind up with something in the end, but the takedown notice certainly removes leverage, if not making it possible that they'll wind up with nothing from their wildly popular app.

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