A few days ago, Wired News posted a breathless item saying the Scrabulous-Scrabble imbroglio might be being resolved—why, perhaps that very day!

11th Hour Buyout to Save Scrabulous Tonight?

By Terrence Russell

Unless a Hail Mary deal is reached, Facebook’s Scrabulous application may finally get the axe tonight. The causal gaming app has come under fire from toy makers Hasbro and Mattel, who claim that the game infringes on Scrabble’s copyright. But after a week of legal sparring, Hasbro’s cease and desist demands are slated to reach their zero hour this evening.

Or perhaps not! Scrabulous is still working and there’s been no agreement. For the last few weeks, a legend on the main Scrabulous Facebook page has heralded some wonderful new upcoming features of the game. This I found a little cheesy, in that, far from fab new features, the most likely Scrabulous accouterment might have been jail time for its developers, in that it was a precise online ripoff of a game (Scrabble) that belonged to someone else (Hasbro). That hasn’t stopped its online partisans from mounting a crusade on behalf of Scrabulous’s creators, Rajat and Jayant Rajat Agarwalla.

Today, the Scrabulous page contains this note:

Scrabulous Update!

Hi folks
We are really grateful to the entire Scrabulous community for the exceptional support that has been provided. It is amazing to see that a small application has touched so many people across the world! There has been a lot of speculation about the future of Scrabulous and it is currently impossible for us to comment on this matter. However, like always, we will keep you updated as soon as we can.

It isn’t always the case, of course, but it certainly is true some of the time that the nuttier the writing on one side of a cause, the least likely it is that the cause has the facts on its side. Over at the AP and the Motley Fool, folks are writing Scrabulous paeans of dubious logic. Here’s Alyce Lomax on the Motley Fool site. Don’t be fooled by her first sentence. Her argument grows more sophisticated after that:

Hey, wow! An online version of Scrabble, called Scrabulous, has Facebook users in an uproar of excitement. You’d think the big names behind Scrabble would be thrilled to see people enjoying a little online wordplay related to their classic board game.

But you’d be wrong. Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) and Mattel (NYSE: MAT), which between them own trademarks and copyrights to the game either here or abroad, are crying foul. They say that Scrabulous is an infringement, and they’re trying to shut the game down.

Hey, wow! Shouldn’t the Motley Fool be more careful with facts? Scrabulous isn’t “an online version of Scrabble.” And here’s Martha Irvine, writing a personal essay for the Associated Press:

[E]arlier this month, attorneys for Hasbro and Mattel, makers and owners of the rights of Scrabble, issued the brothers an order to cease and desist.

Cease and desist? Are they kidding?

[…]

It’s been said many times, on petitions, on blogs and on message boards, that Hasbro and Mattel would be making a huge public relations blunder if they shut down Scrabulous. Several of my friends claim that, because of Scrabulous, they’ve purchased Scrabble boards for themselves or friends.

People who’ve never played the game before are suddenly into it.

So in the end, is it really worth making hundreds of thousands of people mad?

Hitsville likes Scrabulous—even more than real Scrabble, actually. In board Scrabble, the use of rarely used words (particularly two- and three-letter rarely used words) is the key to winning, so players are divided into two clear categories—those that have them memorized and those that don’t, which makes an informal game of Scrabble less competitive than it should be. But Scrabulous levels the playing field efficiently, with the word-list and word-lookup buttons.

All that said, it’s a complete rip-off of Scrabble. It’s dumb, but within Hasbro’s rights, not to have a free online Facebook version of its game. Many of Scrabulous’ vocals fans are probably employed in the word professions. Would any of them like a stranger taking their work and posting it online and trying to make money off it just because they hadn’t got around to it yet?

Obvious the Agarwalla Brothers are giving Hasbro an object lesson in this subject. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t a little … grimy. Why don’t they come up with their own game to sell online? Because it’s easier to steal someone else’s.