Wordscraper: Don't Call It Scrabulous! (Now with X-tra Bonus Analysis)

The reason for Scrabulous' extreme makeover has its roots in some pretty gray legal matters: the real problem wasn't that it ripped off Scrabble, but that it ripped off Scrabble so blatantly. The colors of the board were the same, the list of rules led to a Wikipedia entry for Scrabble rules, and the two names were similar enough for Hasbro to cry foul.

Security and spyware are obviously serious issues, but so is the threat of lawsuits over intellectual property--just ask Viacom or the RIAA. And Facebook has dealt with IP issues on its platform before: "There was some early uproar when Facebook first permitted applications, about some of the music-sharing apps," said intellectual property lawyer Denise Howell, who writes the blog Bag and Baggage, citing concerns from watchdog groups that the widgets could be used for illegal file-sharing.

"What ultimately happened then was that the music-sharing apps very rapidly were tweaked, so that people weren't doing any actual file-sharing."

Facebook was running a similar, albeit less clear risk with this case. Rumors of Hasbro's beef with Scrabulous began to arise in January, and some legal experts now say that Facebook ran the risk of getting pulled into the matter for not acting on it. "(Hasbro) certainly could've saber-rattled and pushed the issue with Facebook," said Howell, "particularly under the Grokster decision from a few years back...Facebook has to be very careful, even if it's getting indemnity from the people who are putting applications on the site. That indemnity might not amount to much if there's very little there to back it up."