The demand for Scrabble articles has been tremendous — people can’t seem to get enough. I’m doing my best to keep up but I’m only one person and the phone won’t stop ringing. We have new developments in this fascinating battle. Writing for Business Week, Catherine Holahan reports that heartbroken, jonesing and angry Scrabulous nuts are hacking into Hasbro’s new online Scrabble game (launched recently to supplant Scrabulous) just to mess things up.  They’re hurt, and they are lashing out. Meanwhile, back in India, the Agarwallas have not been sitting on their hands; they have already launched a new Scrabble-ish game on Facebook called Wordscraper where you make up your own rules and the tiles are round and the points are different and it’s a completely new thing this time… promise.

Oh no! Scrabulous has been taken down from Facebook at the request of the Agarwalla brothers who can apparently see the writing on the wall and might be hoping to mitigate their damages. (The battle between Scrabble copyright owners Hasbro and the creators of Scrabulous started about a year ago when it was first launched on Facebook.) According to the ProJo the Agarwallas have blocked the game in the United States and Canada; the brothers state that they will continue to pursue their legal defense. Mattel owns the overseas rights to Scrabble, and has launched its own online version. But people playing on the Hasbro version (at Club Pogo*) can’t play with their Mattel counterparts and the whole thing is a big mess. Hasbro’s case against Scrabulous is as strong as these things ever get, but will they win the battle only to lose the war? Have they forever alienated the roughly 3 million fanatically loyal players registered with Scrabulous? Stay tuned.

*Club Pogo seems to have some kinks to work out. I clicked on Scrabble and the screen gave me two options — ‘the United States and Canada’ or ‘other countries’. Curious about what this last could possibly mean I clicked on it to find a screen that said ‘Sorry’ etc. But then I couldn’t get out of that and back to the ‘United States’ not back through ‘home’ not no way, not no how. Okay Hasbro, there’s a couple of brothers in India who could probably figure this out for you.

Now that Hasbro has launched its own online Scrabble game, the company has filed suit in federal court against Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the Indian brothers who created Scrabulous on Facebook in 2005.

The suit claims that Scrabulous has violated Hasbro’s intellectual property rights. Facebook is not named as a defendant, but has been notified of the suit. The new Hasbro version is available in the U.S. and Canada, but Mattel owns the overseas rights to Scrabble and they launched their online version in March. It’s complicated.

Attention everybody here it is — the thing no one was waiting for because they are perfectly happy with the thing they got already. Rhode Island game and toy colossus, Hasbro, is launching its answer to Scrabulous — Scrabble at Club Pogo. I’m not big on this online stuff. I prefer the click of the tile bag and the knowledge that if my tiles suck it’s the universe conspiring against me and not some computer algorithm. I suppose it will take a little while for people to try it out and see how it compares. But what if no one bothers to try it out? I certainly want this to work. With our state economy tanking, who isn’t cheering on Hasbro (My Little Pony notwithstanding)?

Above is a sample screen-shot and right away I have a problem. I’m picturing all these people naked. And clammy? Why is he clammy?

Rhode Island toymaker Hasbro Inc. will be launching its own online Scrabble game later this month in the hopes of scooping up all those Scrabulous players (according to today’s ProJo that’s nearly 3 million registered users). It is unclear what they have to offer that will tempt these people away. According to the Chicago Tribune,

Hasbro’s initial response to Scrabulous was to ask Facebook to take down the game. Hasbro and Mattel, which own the international rights to Scrabble, also reportedly made the same request of Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the creators of Scrabulous. News of the game’s possible demise stirred protests from avid players, with a “Save Scrabulous” group on Facebook attracting more than 45,500 members.

Inertia is not the only obstacle…

Hasbro faces several challenges in converting Scrabulous fans to the official version. Thousands of Facebook users are already comfortable with Scrabulous and are running multiple games with friends. Also, since Electronic Arts and Hasbro control the rights to Scrabble only in the U.S. and Canada, users based in those countries can’t play with people elsewhere in the world. RealNetworks created the international Facebook version of Scrabble for Mattel, and that game has about 5,600 daily active users.

As to the legal status of Hasbro v. Agarwallawallawallawallabro?*

The controversy over Scrabulous isn’t over … Hasbro is still considering its legal options and insists that the unofficial version infringes on the company’s intellectual property.

*(I made that up. Paul Grimaldi, writing in today’s Providence Journal, states that “Hasbro has not filed a lawsuit in this matter.” But I’ll bet there was a strongly worded letter.)

A front page story in today’s New York Times examines the weird legal jousting between the creators of Scrabulous, the Agarwalla brothers (may I suggest they shorten it to Agarbro?) and the owners of Hasbro, the Hassenfeld Brothers. It’s a squirrely sort of problem given the tension between protecting the property rights and some significant profits on the one hand and finessing the public relations issue on the other. (Why did I just picture Mr. Burns rubbing his fingers together?) I’ll bet it’s driving them crazy over there.

I am not an online Scrabble player because I want to know where your hands are at all times. It turns out there exists an “online ‘helper’ program, which generates a list of possible words based on the letters a user has.” Oh great, I was already picturing some creepy naked guy rubbing himself… now he’s cheating at Scrabble.

For someone with a BA in international relations:

Monopoly, the iconic game of capitalism, has been drawn into the dispute over Jerusalem.

Hasbro Inc. issued an apology Thursday after an employee, responding to complaints from pro-Palestinian groups, eliminated the word “Israel” after the city in an online contest to select names for a new Monopoly board game: Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition.

The company also pulled all country names from other cities on the site when even more people, including the Israeli government, complained because Jerusalem was listed as the only city without a country.