For many game lovers, this may ring a bell: A spin off of a game that allows players to form words in order to score points was made. When RealNetworks, one of the many companies that have claim on Scrabble, tried to introduce an online Scrabble on Facebook, its attempt was overshadowed by that of an existing version of the game. The popular, yet unauthorized Scrabulous.

RealNetworks is quietly introducing a version of Scrabble on Facebook, despite pledging to save Scrabulous, the wildly popular, unauthorized online version of the board game.

In recent weeks, Gamehouse, a division of RealNetworks, introduced “Scrabble by Mattel” on the social networking site Facebook. The game, an online version of Scrabble, is technically available only to players outside the United States and Canada, though it relies on users to be honest about their location to make that distinction.

The rights to Scrabble are owned by multiple and competing companies, a situation that seems to be hobbling the game’s introduction to Facebook and other social networking sites, and complicating negotiations with the creators of Scrabulous.

Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble in North America, and Mattel in the rest of the world. RealNetworks of Seattle has signed deals with both companies for electronic rights, but Electronic Arts of Redwood City, Calif., also has a deal with Hasbro.

As of Sunday, the official Scrabble game had attracted fewer than 2,000 daily Facebook users, in contrast to more than 600,000 on Scrabulous.

Scrabulous’s popularity attracted the attention of Hasbro and Mattel earlier this year, and they threatened legal action to shut it down. The game companies’ actions spurred tens of thousands of Scrabulous players to sign petitions and join online clubs supporting the unauthorized game, and many have pledged to stop buying Mattel and Hasbro products if the companies shut Scrabulous down.

RealNetworks said in early March that it was working with the creators of Scrabulous to save the game. The introduction of a competing game on Facebook seems to indicate an about-face in strategy.

RealNetworks would not make an executive available for an interview for this article, but the public relations manager, Ryan Luckin, said in an e-mail message that the company had been “working with Mattel for a few months now on a version of Scrabble for Facebook.” Scrabble by Mattel is “in beta,” the message said, meaning it is still being tested.

RealNetworks said that “it is important to remember that even if we reach an arrangement with the Scrabulous owners, both Hasbro and Mattel must approve” any Scrabble-related game.

Rajat Agarwalla, one of the brothers in Calcutta who developed Scrabulous, said that he could not comment on the status of discussions with Mattel, Real Networks or Hasbro. Rajat and his brother Jayant have recently introduced a version of chess for Facebook, and Wordscraper, a Scrabble-like game in which players make up their own board configuration.

Facebook Scrabble takes a long time to load, it does not always update quickly to show recent moves, and the words the game will accept do not reflect the Tournament World List Scrabble dictionary. In a recent game, for example, Scrabble by Mattel accepted “feen.” Right now there is no way to challenge opponents’ moves, and no way to play commonly used words like “zen” that are not officially sanctioned Scrabble words.

So far, Facebook users’ response to Scrabble by Mattel has been split. One user wrote that it had “a few bugs, but over all it’s excellent,” while another said, “Beta Testers: View the Scrabulous site; see how well it works; and build your beta off of that.”

On this day in history, the sun rose. Yeah, pretty amazing, right? Strangely enough, it happens every day. Anyways, I’ve come to tell you about funny things and to post this video. This video has a great explanation of a historical event. It’s really interesting, and it has some humorous parts.

ANYWAYS. Moving onto the stuff that matters. On this day in history, the Warsaw Pact was formed. I’m not really sure what a warsaw is. I talked with a few intellectuals about it, and they had conflicting points of view. One said that it was a weapon used in maid-evil times. It was used to cut down trees, and sometimes to cut down people. Another said that it was some sort of sea creature, almost like a walrus or a seal or a juniper. A third said that it was the capital of Poland, before it disappeared. The last was dead. He wasn’t very talkative, but he was a GREAT listener and good with kids. Although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

After doing some research on the internet, I found that the Warsaw Pact was when a group of sea creatures with maid-evil weapons that lived in Poland (once again, before it disappeared,) got together and made a pact. This pact said something, but I’m sure it was. Anyways, Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”. I wonder why he thought truth would have its pants off…maybe he was still angry about it sleeping with his wife? I dunno. Anyways, I thought I’d take this time to say that Lawl-wrench of Arabia died on this date. But nobody cares about him. To wrap things up, have another link.

LOL LENIN!

I almost thought it was a joke when I first heard about this! However, this a true story. France Sony BMG got caught using pirated Microsoft software on its servers. That isn’t the worst part though. Guess how Sony got caught? They actually called Microsoft tech support and gave them their illegal key. Can you believe these fools at Sony BMG? After they install root-kits on peoples computer and crack down and P2P and music-sharing college students they use pirated software on THEIR OWN servers. Stupid French. However they only got a fine of $450,000 which is like pocket change to a massive corporation like Sony when they are charging college students $5,000 for sharing a couple of songs.

I have two words for Sony BMG:

EPIC FAIL!

Back in October, Hulu was launched as a joint venture between Fox and NBC. The site was to offer free, ad-supported videos of popular TV shows and movies. Back then and until a couple of days ago, it was still in private beta. I managed to get an invite a couple weeks ago, and I have been enjoying the service greatly (thanks again Alec.) Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that the rumors of a formal investigation were true and less than 30 minutes ago, at time of posting, four of the owners of The Pirate Bay were ordered to pay over $180,000 dollars in copyright damages each. The four said that they knew this would happen eventually, so they made sure that The Pirate Bay’s servers were spread throughout the world. Read the rest of this entry »

The MPAA has never been too high on college kids — remember the dishonor roll? — but it looks like Hollywood set is bummed about not being invited to that last kegger, because the MPAA is now admitting that it drastically overstated the effect of college downloading in previous studies. Back in 2005, the MPAA claimed that a whopping 44 percent of revenue losses came directly at the hands of carefree coeds nationwide, and used that number to pressure colleges into enforcing harsher downloading policies and even propose legislation currently before Congress that would tie federal education funds to copyright enforcement requirements. We’re not sure why the industry is now backing off that 44 percent number, but it’s now saying that “human error” resulted in a miscalculation, and the revenue loss from college piracy is more like 15 percent — a number which is further disputed by campus IT groups, who say it should be more like three percent. Of course, while it’s good to see the MPAA take an upfront stance on this, simply admitting you’re sleazy doesn’t actually wipe the slime off, so let’s see how the industry approaches future studies, shall we?

Thanks Engadget.

MAKE THIS YOUR SIG: Human error: An excuse for lying and justification for nigh-extortion, but not for downloading a movie you would never pay for.