Recently though, RealNetworks launched their own version of online Scrabble, "Scrabble by Mattel," a completely legal and authorized version of the game. The "Scrabble by Mattel" app, released through RealNetworks' Gamehouse division, was made in agreement with Mattel, so, technically, it's only legal outside the U.S. and Canada.

But why recreate the wheel? Scrabulous is already doing quite well and is one of Facebook's most popular, not to mention one of their stickiest apps, drawing people to their site just for the purpose of playing the game.

And early reviews of "Scrabble" are mixed, at best, according to a recent NY Times article. Users are saying that "Scrabble by Mattel" "takes a long time to load, does not always update quickly to show recent moves, and the words the game will accept do not reflect the Tournament World List Scrabble dictionary."

With Scrabulous's appeal, one wonders why Mattel opted for their own version of the game - could it have something to do with this rumor about the creators, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and the tens of millions of dollars they wanted for their app? Perhaps Mattel just found that figure ridiculous.

So is Scrabulous doomed? Not necessarily. This move by Mattel doesn't have to mean that Scrabulous will be no more. There's still Hasbro to think of, and they recently worked out a deal with Bogglific, the online version of Boggle.

After submitting a takedown notice to Facebook over both Scrabulous and Bogglific, the Bogglific app rebranded and changed their scoring system and now continues, apparently legally, as Prolific. Scrabulous might be able to do the same. Facebook certainly doesn't want to remove the app just yet - they didn't even comply with the takedown.

However, RealNetworks' PR manager, Ryan Luckin, stated for the NY Times article, that "it is important to remember that even if we reach an arrangement with the Scrabulous owners, both Hasbro and Mattel must approve any Scrabble-related game."

And since Mattel clearly doesn't approve, fans should still be a little worried.

But a week after Bogglific was removed from Facebook, the application is back, sporting a new name, and some basic rule changes.

Like Nesbitt, I too am no lawyer, so I am not sure his minor changes to the Boggle gameboard and scoring system will keep the game out of trouble with Hasbro -- who have deep pockets and who in the past week have demonstrated they are very protective of their intellectual property.

Compared to Yahoo!'s Literati, which is another variant of a popular Hasbro game (in this case, Scrabble), the changes aren't quite as dramatic. Literati changed the tile distribution, letter point values, and the game board itself, while Prolific's changes are fairly minor. (Yahoo! also sells an officially licensed version of Scrabble, which can't hurt.)

Regardless, though, the relaunch of Prolific should make the game's fans happy for as long as it lasts. The gameplay mechanics haven't been changed enough (or much at all) to alter the enjoyment of the game for most fans. Therein lies the potential problem with Hasbro, but for now, Boggle fans on Facebook have a place to play again.

Scrabulous, meanwhile, remains online and unchanged. No licensing deal has been reached, to our knowledge, and Facebook has yet to pull the plug from their end.

But in the back of my mind I knew it wouldn't last. The name is too close to Hasbro's trademark. The rules, tile distribution, the game board -- all the things that make it superior in every way to Yahoo!'s Literati -- all infringe on Hasbro's copyrights. And so, this past week has not been a very good one in Scrabulous land.

It's easy to see why Scrabulous caught Hasbro's attention. According to Facebook measurement firm Adonomics, it is currently the 9th most popular app on the site by active users, with over 600,000 today. It generates 70 million pageviews per month and pulls in "over $25,000 a month."

Fans of the application have taken Quittner's advice to "please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous" to heart, and the Save Scrabulous group this morning has about 3,000 members. Users have organized email campaigns aimed at Hasbro headquarters, and the BBC News has even taken notice, with a reporter posting a call for Londoners willing to be interviewed live on BBC News 24.

Hasbro has also gone after Bogglific, which is a Facebook incarnation of its Boggle word game. "Hasbro, Inc. has sent a DMCA notification notice to Facebook regarding Bogglific. They claim it violates their trademark, and violates copyright over the Boggle rules," wrote developer Roger Nesbitt in an open letter to users this morning. "I'm no lawyer, and can't see how it violates copyright. But I have neither the time nor the money to fight this, and Facebook has given me a grace period of 48 hours to shut the application down voluntarily."

It would be interesting to see if Hasbro has experienced any sort of sales bump since the explosion of these games on Facebook. A number of users posting to the "Save Scrabulous" group have said that they became hooked on the game via Facebook and have since purchased copies of the board game (and the same anecdotal evidence appears on the message board of a group trying to save Bogglific). It seems a safe bet that apps like Scrabulous and Bogglific have exposed these traditional board games to a new audience. It is easy to draw parallels to the RIAA here.

"Anything promoting Scrabble to a younger audience is a good thing," said Stewart Holden, the publicity officer for the Association of British Scrabble Players, which has operated under a licensing agreement with Mattel (who licenses the product internationally) since 1987. "While we recognize the legal ownership of the Scrabble trademark by Hasbro and Mattel, the impact of the Facebook Scrabulous application has been enormous and it would be a shame if no agreement could be reached which enabled this huge publicity boost for the game to continue."

The Aragwalla's are reportedly trying to work out a licensing deal with Hasbro.

A form letter sent by Hasbro Senior Manager of Consumer Affairs Kriss De Nardo to Scrabulous fans who have emailed the Rhode Island-based company seems to indicate that the company is open to licensing the use of the Scrabble intellectual property. "SCRABBLE has been entertaining millions of people around the world for 60 years so we are not surprised that fans have thoroughly enjoyed playing Scrabulous on Facebook.com," De Nardo wrote in the letter. "What consumers may not realize, however, is that Scrabulous is an illegally copied online version of the world’s most popular word game, the copyrights and trademarks for which are owned by Hasbro in the U.S. and Canada and Mattel in the rest of the world. We encourage fans to continue to lay down online tiles at sites that have legally licensed the interactive rights to host SCRABBLE fun."

However, licensing attempts could possibly be stymied in the case of Scrabble, because the online rights for the game currently belong to computer game company Electronic Arts.

It would seem that Hasbro has three options: force a take down of the infringing apps, work out a licensing agreement with them, buy them. As Josh Quittner suggests:

"If I were an evil genius running a board games company whose product line spanned everything from Monopoly to Clue, I might do this: Wait until someone comes up with an excellent implementation of my games and does the hard work of coding and debugging the thing and signing up the masses. Then, once it got to scale, I’d sweep in and take it over. Let the best pirate site win! If I were compassionate, I’d even cut in the guys who did all the work for a percentage point or two to keep the site running."

Are you listening Hasbro?