Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble.
The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users. Lawyers for toy makers Hasbro and Mattel say Scrabulous infringes their copyright on the board-based word game. The move has sparked protests by regular fans of Scrabulous keen to keep the add-on running.
Scrabulous is currently one of Facebook"s ten most popular applications - little programs that Facebook members can add to the profiles they maintain on the site. The request to remove the add-on came from both Hasbro and Mattel because ownership of the Scrabble trademark is split between the two. Hasbro owns rights to the game in the US and Canada while Mattel has rights everywhere else in the world.
Facebook told the PA newswire that it had no comment to make at this stage.