RIGHT AROUND NOW THE MOTHER JUDD IS LIKE POPEYE DOYLE IN FRENCH CONNECTION II:

'Scrabulous' disappears from Facebook after Hasbro suit (Caroline McCarthy, July 29, 2008, CNet)

Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada can no longer access Scrabulous, the faux-Scrabble game that quickly became one of the most popular applications on its developer platform.

It is not yet clear whether this was on the part of Facebook or independently on behalf of the Scrabulous creators.

The game's disappearance comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed last week by Hasbro, the game manufacturer that owns the rights to Scrabble in the United States and Canada. In the suit, Hasbro named as defendants the creators of Scrabulous--India-based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and their company, RJ Softwares. The suit asked Facebook to pull the game, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and asked the Agarwallas to close their Scrabulous.com site.

That hasn't happened completely, though. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the rights to Scrabble are owned by game company Mattel, so Hasbro doesn't have jurisdiction there. Both game companies have released separate official Scrabble games for the Facebook platform. Meanwhile, the Scrabulous.com site, which existed before the Facebook application, is still working just fine.