Barring India, the Facebook has scrapped the online copy of the popular Scrabble board game 'Scrabulous' from its social networking site. Facebook took this step following a copyright tussle over the game. On Monday, August 25, Facebook announced that it has removed Scrabulous off its site after Mattel asked it to do so. Mattel holds the right to Scrabble outside North America.

It was three weeks back when the developers of Scrabulous, Kolkata's Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, took off the game from Facebook in North America. This happened after Hasbro, which holds rights to Scrabble in U.S. and Canada, filed a federal suit in New York. The brothers then posted the Wordscraper game on Facebook that employs circles in place of the square tiles in Scrabble.   

In response to Mattel's demand, the Facebook in fact went on to remove the Scrabulous game itself without waiting for the Agarwallas brothers to do so like in the other countries. The game is available on the Facebook site only in India where a lawsuit filed by Mattel remains pending in the court.