Gizmodo Editor-In-Chief Sues Apple Over Tetris Movie (theverge.com) 53
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Gizmodo editor-in-chief Daniel Ackerman has sued Apple and other parties over the 2023 Apple TV Plus film Tetris, alleging it rips off his 2016 book The Tetris Effect. Ackerman claims Apple, Tetris rightsholder the Tetris Company, the Tetris film's producers, and screenwriter Noah Pink copied "the exact same feel, tone, approach, and scenes" from The Tetris Effect -- particularly its framing of the game's release as a "Cold War spy thriller." Initially reported by Reuters, Ackerman's lawsuit (PDF) outlines a yearslong correspondence with the Tetris Company as he wrote The Tetris Effect. He claims that the Tetris Company was aware of his work and threatened him with legal action for trying to pursue film and TV adaptations of his own book, only to draw heavily from his framing of the Tetris story. "The film liberally borrowed numerous specific sections and events of the book," claims Ackerman.
Apple and the Tetris Company did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge. But Ackerman's case may be difficult given the fact that Tetris and The Tetris Effect both draw on real historical facts, which are not generally protected by copyright law. As a result, the suit relies heavily on arguing that Tetris copies the feel of The Tetris Effect. (He also argues that some potential inventions of the film -- like a guide who turns out to be a secret KGB agent -- are based on speculations in his narrative.) "Ackerman's book took a unique approach to writing about the real history of Tetris, as it not only applied the historical record, but also layered his own original research and ingenuity to create a compelling narrative non-fiction book in the style of a Cold War spy thriller," the suit says. "Mr. Ackerman's literary masterpiece, unlike other articles and writings, dispelled of the emphasis on the actual gameplay and fans, and instead concentrated on the surrounding narrative, action sequences, and adversarial relationship between the players ... This was the identical approach Defendants adopted for the Tetris Film, without notable material distinction."
Ackerman says that he reached out after the Tetris trailer's release and unsuccessfully requested Apple and the other defendants address legal issues before the film's release. His suit alleges copyright infringement and unfair competition, among other offenses.
Apple and the Tetris Company did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge. But Ackerman's case may be difficult given the fact that Tetris and The Tetris Effect both draw on real historical facts, which are not generally protected by copyright law. As a result, the suit relies heavily on arguing that Tetris copies the feel of The Tetris Effect. (He also argues that some potential inventions of the film -- like a guide who turns out to be a secret KGB agent -- are based on speculations in his narrative.) "Ackerman's book took a unique approach to writing about the real history of Tetris, as it not only applied the historical record, but also layered his own original research and ingenuity to create a compelling narrative non-fiction book in the style of a Cold War spy thriller," the suit says. "Mr. Ackerman's literary masterpiece, unlike other articles and writings, dispelled of the emphasis on the actual gameplay and fans, and instead concentrated on the surrounding narrative, action sequences, and adversarial relationship between the players ... This was the identical approach Defendants adopted for the Tetris Film, without notable material distinction."
Ackerman says that he reached out after the Tetris trailer's release and unsuccessfully requested Apple and the other defendants address legal issues before the film's release. His suit alleges copyright infringement and unfair competition, among other offenses.
2016 book? (Score:5, Interesting)
2016 Book, huh? Then what about the 2014 documentary, which IMO is the best one ever made, especially because it has actual live footage from some of the events (one of the devs actually took a video camera with him to Russia in the 1980s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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It basically insinuates that Tetris nearly caused World War III, so you tell me?
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A lot in movie was dramatized. The question is if it was dramatized similar to the book, or if what it shares with the book is what happened in the history books.
Re: 2016 book? (Score:5, Informative)
Can I assume that you, like nearly everyone else who will comment on this story, not only never took a class in law school on copyrights, but never even took the undergrad intro?
Re: 2016 book? (Score:4, Funny)
Or read the book or saw the movie in question.
This is slashdot, home of the know nothings with rock solid opinions that are more important than historic fact, law, logic, and reality.
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This is slashdot, home of the know nothings with rock solid opinions that are more important than historic fact, law, logic, and reality.
Your natural habitat.
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Yes, exactly. I am here to confront the hypocrisy and stupidity, educate the ignorant, and stand up for reality.
What are you here for? Tossing around ad hominem? You almost never post. I assume you're one of the knuckleheads who blindly hits the down down button because you have nothing intelligent to say. The only worse thing you could have done today was post AC.
Have a nice Wednesday.
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And here I thought reddit had a monopoly on arm chair experts ... /s =P
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Why should we doubt the facts and wisdom we read on the backs of cereal boxes? All these other documents and so-called facts just get in the way of my infallible intuition!
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Re: 2016 book? (Score:3)
Legal issues/narrative points are:
1. guy writes book
2. producers provably were 100% of book and copied key creative conceits (figuring they could do it safely while threatening dude not to make his own movie)
3. guy is now owed 50% of screenplay rights at least; screenplays = 25% of movie rights by industry convention, so guy has claim to 12.5% of movie
4. Apple settles for 12.5% of producers' fee plus 12.5% of producers' bonus plus legal, or Apple faces 12.5% plus triple damages (50% total loss) or injunctio
Whether he wins is irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
All he's looking for is some publicity for this book that no one has heard of until now.
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Just because you don't read books doesn't mean no one else does. Like have you seriously not seen this book on the shelves, or do you live somewhere where the only shop is Amazon.com?
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Just because you don't read books doesn't mean no one else does. Like have you seriously not seen this book on the shelves, or do you live somewhere where the only shop is Amazon.com?
Given that its sales rank is below 611K at Barnes & Noble (which puts it about 300K behind 2018’s far more popular A History of Video Games in 64 Objects, just for your reference), it’s highly unlikely that anyone here has ever seen it on store shelves.
Also, your choice to act as a gatekeeper on this topic is truly bizarre. Are you seriously implying that he shouldn’t be commenting on a lack of sales for a book unless he’s both well read and frequents physical book stores? Can he
Re:Whether he wins is irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
You could say perhaps because it's a shitty book, but I think the real reason is that when it comes to reading books, the market has been flooded to the point that it's hard to determine what to read, thus the reliance on book reviews, which are very hard to get.
I did consider going with a publisher, but the publishers I approached told me they would not be doing any promotion and that I would have to do all the promotion and publicity. All they wanted to do was to get the book ran through a copy editor (fixes spelling errors only), type set it, create a cover and back, and have it available for printing, all for about $3K up front and 50% of the profit.
It wasn't helpful that I published in time for XMas 2019 and then COVID hit, so I couldn't do more book signing events. Speaking of book signings, one of the two book signings I did at a local bookstore happened in January 2020. I was there for 2 hours from 5:30-7:30 PM. The bookstore had emailed their subscribers about the book signing in advance. The ONLY people who showed up were my friends and coworkers. None of the 700+ patrons of the bookstore showed up. That shows you how much the market is flooded.
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I've also written a novel, gone the traditional publishing route looking for an agent, and the process was incredibly terrible. Rather than dwell on that, I'm willing to do a straight up critique swap if you're interested, feedback on my book for feedback on yours. My genre is supernatural (college) adventure, Stephen King meets Stranger things.
What I keep in mind is that we are trying to break into traditional, mainstream, professional entertainment. The competition and level of talent is ferocious...
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So the contact us form submit on your website isn't working! I'm using chrome. Please let me know another way to contact you!
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No problem! Message sent
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I did consider going with a publisher, but the publishers I approached told me they would not be doing any promotion and that I would have to do all the promotion and publicity. All they wanted to do was to get the book ran through a copy editor (fixes spelling errors only), type set it, create a cover and back, and have it available for printing, all for about $3K up front and 50% of the profit.
If you have to pay them up front, they're not a publisher, they're a vanity press.
Gizmodo? (Score:2)
Don't they owe Hulk Hogan like $200 million or something like that? If he gets paid, won't he have to cut Hulk Hogan a fat check too?
Re: Gizmodo? (Score:4, Informative)
That was Gawker.
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Which owned Gizmodo.
Re: Gizmodo? (Score:4, Informative)
And who also sold Gizmodo to Univision when they went bankrupt due to Bollea v. Gawker.
They're now owned by some vulture equity firm.
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vultures looking to get some apples...
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Don't they owe Hulk Hogan like $200 million or something like that? If he gets paid, won't he have to cut Hulk Hogan a fat check too?
Who is they? Gizmodo and Daniel Ackerman are not the same person. Heck one is not a person at all.
Re:Gizmodo? (Score:5, Funny)
one is not a person at all.
Citizens United has entered the chat.
There's a Tetris movie? (Score:3)
I knew the movie industry had run out of idea and exploiting any old franchise they can get their unimaginative paws on nowadays even it if's utter nonsense. But Lego, Barbie and now Tetris... What next? My Little Pony? Pacman?
I wouldn't mind a Duke Nukem movie though...
Re: There's a Tetris movie? (Score:2)
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Oh wow no way. I would never have imagined... It's like a tidal wave of stupid...
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It's like a tidal wave of stupid...
Pixels was a funny homage to the 80's. It was light-hearted, humorous, and entertaining.
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it was a good kids movie actually.
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Are you not familiar with Adam Sandler movies? He’s been cranking them out for 30 years now.
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The Tetris movie was entertaining and enjoyable.
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I knew the movie industry had run out of idea and exploiting any old franchise they can get their unimaginative paws on nowadays even it if's utter nonsense.
The Tetris movie is the background story about how the game was made and published. It was made by one programmer in Soviet Russia during 1980s Cold War. With that as the background, it was very complicated to get the publishing rights to the game. For me that is not utter nonsense but a fascinating topic.
But Lego, Barbie and now Tetris...
Have you watched any of the movies? The Lego movie had a decent and original plot but for me the creativity aspect was it did not follow the Pixar style of animation that Hollywood copies. Since it was fin
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> I want to say it really started with Lord of the Rings;
The 18 remakes of Robin Hood: [wikipedia.org] Hold my beer.
The 30 remakes of The Three Musketeers [wikipedia.org] Those are rookie numbers.
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Makes me wonder what stories Disney will rip off next? ;-)
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Gran Turismo the movie is based on a true story of a Gran Turismo player that got a chance to become a professional race car driver in real life. Tetris the movie is based on the true story of how the game was made and published. Because the programmer was in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, it was not easy for Nintendo to get rights to the game. I do not how true to facts the story is like all "Based on a true story" movies are. Neither movie is set in the game universe.
Of all the things... (Score:1)
If you stop an author making a movie of thier book (Score:3)
Don't then make a movie of their book ...
the movie wasn't mostly game footage (Score:2)
More claims than copyright (Score:3)
You guys are missing something. He's not just saying "their movie copied from my book" (a copyright claim). He's also alleging unfair competition and tortious interference; in other words, they used unfair means to prevent him from conducting business. Those claims are probably both stronger and more serious.
So that's what he was doing... (Score:2)
Seriously, they had good stories but I had to stop going there because they couldn't write a sentence without getting something wrong.