Turns out that Hasbro is suing the dudes who made Scrabulous, and our sturdy friend Facebook has taken the bend-over-and-smile measure of locking down the application from anyone in North America using it. That means if you go to play Scrabble(R) today you’re stuck using the version with the real wooden tiles stashed in your closet. I could never remember to check my game status anyhow (and all my notifications are off because I was getting sick of having that constant flow of random email from Facebook bouncing up in my dashboard notifier all day long) so, I haven’t really played in a while anyhow and can’t say I’ll shed too many tears over its parting.

It seems to me, however, that Hasbro has taken the “Lazy Legal” route on this and pulled a page from the play-book of the recording industry. I think the chapter is called: “How to Piss of Your Customer Base by Punishing Them For the Mistakes of Others.”

Let’s do the math: A few million customers playing a game most of them already own in physical form PLUS a few hundred thousand more who probably don’t own the game because their only experience with games is via a computer or console EQUALS lots of new customers who get excited when they find out they can buy this cool board game at Wal-mart that is exactly like the one they play on Facebook.

Or, I guess you could just douse a really successful bit of viral marketing with the vaccinating power of legal action and leave all those excited new customers with nothing to play but — what’s that — a few THOUSAND other choices in gaming.

I know, I know. Brand protection, ad revenues, blah, blah, blah… but when are these companies going to realize that owning the rights to a cultural icon, holding control over a bit of the modern human experience, is both a privilege and a responsibility to the betterment of society and (despite the laws to the contrary) not simply a business asset. Hasbro would be wise to brace for the impact that is sure to follow this decision.