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It was a rude awakening for thousands of addicts across Canada yesterday.

They got up, poured their morning coffee, sat down to their computers and discovered that the unthinkable had happened: Scrabulous has been taken offline.

Instantly, blogs, chat rooms and Facebook pages across the country were abuzz with the news. "DEVASTATED," wrote one user, while others called for a boycott of all Scrabble products.

Since launching last year, the online game that allowed Facebook users to play an adaptation of Scrabble free of charge has become hugely popular, with millions of players worldwide.

But last week, Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the North American rights to Scrabble, launched a lawsuit against the creators of Scrabulous, Indian brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, claiming the online game represents a "clear and blatant infringement" of intellectual property.

The developers agreed to block Scrabulous in the U.S. and Canada, while continuing to pursue their legal defence.

"I logged on to take my turn this morning and it wasn't available, and I almost burst into tears," says Riel Hahn, a Vancouver comic. Ms. Hahn usually had between seven and 15 games on the go. "I have a lot of close friends who are spread all over the country, and they were my regular Scrabble buddies."

Others used their "Facebook updates" to express their grief. One read, "Matthew B. Safran is going to keep hitting F5 until Scrabulous comes back on."

Not surprisingly, a Save Scrabulous Facebook page has already been launched.

Wrote one frustrated user, "It's because I got back into playing Scrabble on Scrabulous that I went out and bought a Scrabble board so I could play with friends in coffee shops."

Other Facebook users are defending Hasbro, arguing that the company - which had tried to negotiate a deal with the Agarwalla brothers - owns the rights to the game, and that Scrabulous was an infringement of copyright.

Earlier this month, Hasbro launched its own version of the game, created by Electronic Arts, on Facebook. But so many people had adopted Scrabulous that only a few thousand made the move over.

Now Hasbro is hoping that, without access to Scrabulous, users will adopt its version.

"In deference to the fans, we waited in pursuing legal action until Electronic Arts had a legitimate alternative available," Hasbro said in a statement.

University of British Columbia business professor Ron Cenfetelli says in the long run, Hasbro's move may prove to be a bad one. Although the company retains the rights to the 60-year-old game, the Facebook version has rekindled worldwide interest, and to shut it down could damage the company's relationship with the game's fans, he said.

"It's a new world, and you have to be willing to accept that a lot of the core parts of your business are going to be free, then figure out other ways of generating value," said Mr. Cenfetelli, who teaches e-business at UBC's Sauder School of Business.

"I mean, how many of those half million people go out and buy the board game? So I think for Hasbro to sue them is really shortsighted. It's the old model."

But while Internet watchers and Scrabulous players twitter about the move, Dan Restivo, a Toronto Scrabulous player who at one point had 30 games going at once, joked that he's actually happy the game got pulled. "Really, I'm not too upset," he says. "It was the procrastination tool."

With files from Associated Press