Hasbro seeking to shut down Scrabulous

Hasbro is attempting to shut down Facebook's Scrabble knockoff Scrabulous.

According to a Fortune article, Scrabulous co-creator Jayant Agarwalla confirmed that Facebook received notice from Hasbro a few weeks ago.

Brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla of Calcutta claim that they wrote a letter to Hasbro to ensure that they were not infringing on copyrights when they put their Scrabulous game on Facebook last year - Hasbro did not respond.

The brothers first developed an online version in 2005, and started a Scrabulous web site the following year.

The Facebook Scrabulous application attracts 2.3 million active users and is currently the 9th most popular application on the site.

The electronic rights to Scrabble belong to Electronic Arts, thanks to a recent licensing agreement with Hasbro. There are a number of Scrabble knockoffs online, but apparently no officially licensed version.

A request for comment from Hasbro has gone unanswered at the time of this writing.