Takedown Letters For WP7 Tetris Clones 290
karios writes "Today I received a takedown letter from a law firm representing the Tetris Company for copyright violations involving my game Tetrada, which I published on the Windows Phone 7 marketplace. The witch hunt, after hitting Android, iOS and other platforms, continues on Windows Phone 7. It's a pity, since some of the tetromino games in the Marketplace were pretty decent."
This is called... (Score:3, Insightful)
...willful infrigement.
Re:This is called... (Score:5, Funny)
..willful infrigement.
Fortunately neither WP7 owner was particularly interested in the game, so not much was lost.
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Well, I had to look at this because I thought the "WP7" in the title would be WordPerfect 7. I don't know if WP even exists anymore, or what version is latest, but I remember my dad writing an accounting and payroll package in WP5.2 macros, so writing tetris didn't seem like much of a stretch.
I know I've met several people, lawyers mostly, who will not part with WP5 until they pry it from their cold dead fingers... be interesting to see the size of that userbase relative to Windows Phone...
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It's kind of a hard call don't you think? The Soviet Union pretty much paid for the first version to be developed and I don't believe it was ever protected under international copyright law because Russia only signed on to the Berne Convention after they dissolved.
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The Tetris Company doing something shady. Isn't there a surprise.
Oh wait, that's practically all they do. Steal other people's stuff and sue people.
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s/steal/take down/
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By copyright law, Tetris is barely a baby. It's from 1985. That's "only" 35 years.
35 years? It's 2020? Crap, I overslept....
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Isn't there precedent with other cases, I'm thinking the spreadsheet case, as well on one involving another video game (Frogger?)
WTF? (Score:2, Informative)
You copied the game and even made the name of the game sound similar to the original, and you call it a 'witch hunt' -- man, you need a reality check.
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Sometimes the hunted really ARE witches.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when game rules are copyrightable?
He didn't copy the code nor the graphics so he is clear of copyright, and the name is different enough to be clear of trademark. The Tetris company bastards are abusing the law, counting on people's inability to afford defending themselves.
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what's more is that the guy who invented tetris never invented anything else after that. the basic concept of the game is pretty obvious once you get to certain type of programming the idea would pop up(shapes would have differed, the concept not).
and if someone doesn't believe that, check some documentaries about the tetris guy and tetris - trolling for status and money whilst producing nothing of interest for the past 25 years(the docs paint a rosier picture of his accomplishments, but if you watch them y
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You're confusing Alexey Pajitnov [wikipedia.org] and The Tetris Company [wikipedia.org], co-founded and managed by Henk Rogers [wikipedia.org]
If you're not mistaken thinking that Henk Rogers is the author (as you didn't bother to give names), you're probably trolling. What are your sources ?
Along many Tetris variants, Alexey Pajitnov conceived El-Fish, Clockwerx, and other puzzle games.
Pajitnov didn't come up with Clockwerx (Score:2)
Alexey Pajitnov conceived El-Fish, Clockwerx, and other puzzle games.
Mr. Pajitnov didn't come up with Clockwerx. There was a period of time when he would put his endorsement on half of what Spectrum Holobyte published, which lasted roughly until 1996 when he and Mr. Rogers formed The Tetris Company. But that doesn't mean he was involved in the design of any of these products any more than he was involved with Panel de Pon.
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And with which genius idea and implementation did you come up the last 25 years?
angel'o'sphere
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
THIS VIDEO WILL BE FLAGGED (Score:2)
However, you have a game that looks like Tetris *AND* a game name similar to Tetris.
Would it be safe if the name of a Tetris clone didn't share any letters with Tetris, like Lockjaw [pineight.com]? You might think so, but The Tetris Company and one of its licensees (Arika Ltd.) went on several rampages of OCILLA takedown notices on YouTube. They even sent a takedown notice for a video criticizing Arika's behavior [youtube.com], which YouTube for some reason kept down for longer than the OCILLA maximum 14 business days after counter-notification.
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No matter how you would like to view things, this is not the intent of copyright. Copyright does not protect ideas. Even Patents don't. Let me say it one more time:
The Copying Of Ideas Are Completely Legal And You See It Everyday.
If the mere copying of ideas were against copyright, any company that makes pretty much anything is liable for lawsuits.
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Since when game rules are copyrightable?
This is not the word you're looking for *hand wave*
This is a pretty clear trademark issue.
Even if it wasn't a trademark issue, just going to the tetris Wiki page reveals it to be "owned" by a very litigious company [wikipedia.org].
I'm starting to wonder if the people making these clones have a business plan which goes something like this:
1) Copy someone's "here's how to make tetris" sample code (there's countless samples out there)
2) Post the game to the latest appstore
3) Wait for takedown notice
4) Put up a "donation" page
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You mean squares and rectangles belong to Tetris ? >:(
Quick, someone patents circles.
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Pleas stop using my Alphabet ©
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They could've included shapes with 3,5 or whatever squares, they could've made them only connected by corners. Just because they follow a pattern doesn't mean design considerations didn't go into them. The design documents for Tetris showed they considered putting in other shapes.
Copyright is all about context and if enough has been done to consider something an original work. I cannot, for example, copyright the first 1000 prime numbers. If, however I put them into a book in
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure Lego has 1x4s too...
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No, but a square shape, along with an L, an I and 2 elbow shapes, used in the context of a game where the aim is to line up these particular shapes to form an unbroken line may well be.
Nope. In theory not. You can make tetris-like, quake-like, bejewel-like. I guess in US you could patent some aspects of the game, but you can't copyright a set of rules.
Anyway, IP rights are a very very strange domain of the law. They are incoherent, often unenforceable and open to multiple interpretations.
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Is this going to be new norm on Slashdot. A single developer company makes a cheap ripoff of a Copyrighted game. They post the program on a popular store platform, where the copyright holders can easily check on. They get a letter telling them to stop. Then they post whining to Slashdot because they figure just because we support open source software movement we feel it is OK to break copyrights. Open Source and FSF isn't about breaking the laws it is about making and releasing products with rules where
Microsoft vs Apple (Score:2)
There is no space in ICT for individuals (Score:2)
I am a small consultant, finding work is more and more difficult. ...
Big companies do not consider me since I am too small, small companies have not much cash left for ICT and when they spend they wish to have "guarantees" that I cannot give...
Yes, someone made some money on ipad or android market, what is the probability that you are one of the lucky ones ?
Add the fact that every year half of the knowledge you had is just become useless and
The constant threat to be offsourced to china or india and...
The in
Re:There is no space in ICT for individuals (Score:4, Informative)
If that is the case for you ... then frankly I have to say: "you seem not to know much!"
A solid IT background never gets obsolet, only technologies / languages / paradigmas do. And the latter only in limited cases.
There are hundreds of working opportunities in IT which NEVER get obsolet and are completely disconnected from technologies. E.g. requirements engineering, software processes (like SCRUM or XP), software architectures (finding a suiting one, describing it in UML or something else), the art of programming, may it be assembler or an oo language or the fancy languages we have right now like functional or functional / oo hybrids (Scala e.g.)
All that knowledge will never be obsolet. Knowing how a relational data base works, how to design a data base, the limits of it, the options for using No-SQL DBs or prevalent Systems (in memory databases) will never be obsolet.
Understanding the differences between REST / SOAP / Corba or any other "distribution" technology ... that will never be obsolet, regardless what "App Server" you use, if any.
System Architecture, Software Architecture, Architecture Patterns, Design Patterns, Language Idioms ... that won't ever die out, it only will fluctuate slightly.
The way how a unix like operation system works (my it be a comercial one or linux or a future one like Plan 9 or Hurd) ... that knowledge will never be obsolet.
Sorry ... I just scratched the surface. There dozens if not hundreds of "knowledge areas" which will always be useful for an "developer" ...
angel'o'sphere
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Yeah, sure.... trying to impress ? :-) .... beside the latest buzzword bingo no new concept... nice idea "functional programming" but who wants it ? ... are you kidding ? they are variations on client server programmin
Seriously, it is at least 20 years that no new concept has come out of ICT.
Packet transmission is as old as X.25 and Ham packet radio
Languages
The web... twitter... ever had a BBS ?
Now, the new great buzzword, ipad iphone programming, new concept ? naaa
The difference between REST and POST, SOAP
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You are correct that as a small consultant you don't live with concepts. However why are you trying to sell them? Just learn a couple very well and keep an open mind to anything new that comes along.
As a small who
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If you know all that, why are you claiming your knowledge would become obsolet every half year?
angel'o'sphere
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Add the fact that every year half of the knowledge you had is just become useless and ...
If that's the case for you, then frankly, either you don't know much, or else you're doing it wrong. (i.e. constantly jumping on the latest fad, and having few or no skills in the underlying fundamentals)
Algorithms. Program-organization. OO-principles. Functional programming. MVC. Data-structures. Relational databases. Key-value-stores. User-interface-principles.
Most of what you need to know about any of these, is lite
Re:There is no space in ICT for individuals (Score:4, Funny)
I am a small consultant, finding work is more and more difficult. Big companies do not consider me since I am too small...
Its a sad day when even oompa loompa's are being laid off.
Trademark confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
You deliberately chose "Tetrada" to sound similar to "Tetris" and on alone the basis that the software is a video game (no matter what else it does), that's grounds for a take down letter, and a civil court case if you don't comply. You are deluded if you think you can play the victim here, and adding your tragic story to the Wikipedia article on the Tetris Company doesn't make your case stronger.
Is it really so difficult to be original?
Honestly, it really annoys me to see your mediocrity dressed up in self-justification and misplaced outrage. You are not a victim, you are an idiot.
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He isn't even the first person to come whining to /. after rightfully getting smacked for this. See http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/12/05/1736246/avoiding-dmca-woes-as-an-indy-game-developer [slashdot.org]
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Is it really so difficult to be original?
Well, yes :-)
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You are deluded if you think you can play the victim here, and adding your tragic story to the Wikipedia article on the Tetris Company doesn't make your case stronger.
It is kinda sad [wikipedia.org], isn't it? Oh well, it didn't even last a day.
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So you're saying that any word with the numerical prefix Tetra [wikipedia.org] should count as an infringement of the Tetris trademark simply for the name, even if the gameplay is completely unrelated to Tetris? That seems a little strange. The fact that it is an actual Tetris clone is what makes the name a bad idea, not simply the fact that the name has Tetra in it.
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It's pretty simple: if you make a product who's name is close enough to potentially confuse customers, and your product is in the same market as the trademarked product, you are on the wrong side of the law. I can make jeans called "Apple" but I cannot make computers called "Appla", "Applish", "Ipple", "Opple", or any name that is potentially confusing. My own company, "iMatix", was close enough to the existing "iMation" that we signed an agreement to never product floppy disks.
Of course like any such case,
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Tetris derives its name from the word tetra, the ancient Greek word for four. The Tetris Company should not be allowed to have a trademark on the number four, or the word four, in any language.
I haven't seen the game, so I can't comment as to its originality, but it seems to me that there are potentially many variants of tetris rules which are sufficiently original that they should be allowed to stand on their own.
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Tetris derives its name from the word tetra, the ancient Greek word for four. The Tetris Company should not be allowed to have a trademark on the number four, or the word four, in any language.
"Tetris" is a portmanteau of "tetra-" and "tennis". Saying Tetris Holding can't own this trademark is like saying another company can't own "Foursquare".
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"Tetra" as a prefix means four in English usage, heck tetrada means four in Greek and Spanish (well it's a romanization of), and the game is based upon all the shapes you can make out of 4 squares. I can see an argument that "Tetrada" is thus a perfectly ok name, I don't expect a court to buy it though.
The Tetris Company is famous for this, if you are releasing a Tetris clone with a name that is even vaguely similar you had better be doing to because you want to end up in court to make a point.
If you just w
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"You don't understand trademark law at all"
Care to back up that assertion with something tangible?
newbie error (Score:2, Interesting)
Atari v. Philips and Capcom v. Data East (Score:3)
Copyright and Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Seeing the flurry of comments mocking the submitter of his copying Tetris makes me realize how successful the corporations have been in their propaganda.
Copyright has evolved from a concept conceived to protect the temporary financial incentive of inventors as encouragement of advancing humanities to a god-give right for corporations to hold indefinitely the exclusive right to monetary gains regarding anything they find a way to copyright or patent. Musicians pride themselves in their own rendition of Fantaisie-Impromptu, but programmers cannot be allowed to remake a game that has been known and enjoyed world-wide for decades. Is there anyone on Slashdot that doesn't know the basic formula to a Tetris game? Once something has become as common place as Tetris is, you have to step back and realize that it has become the possession of man-kind. Using copyright as a tool to limit people's freedom to reinvent or recreate a knowledge known to all is exactly the opposite of what copyright laws should have been made to protect.
Re:Copyright and Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and no.
I think you're absolutely right to say that copyright has gotten out of control. I think pretty much anybody who reads slashdot regularly would acknowledge that.
However, that's not to say that there isn't a case for copyright, in its original form. I think what the comments on this thread - which at first glance look quite uncharacteristic for slashdot - show is that a lot of people have a gut instinct for what is right and wrong in relation to copyright (which may vary from person to person) and that for most people, the submitter falls on the wrong side of it.
Tetris is still relatively recent (less than 30 years old) and the submitter doesn't seem to have actually tried to add any value. My instinct is that in a world with good and sensible copyright laws, this would fall on the wrong side of them. The problem is that in the absence of such laws and the absence of a sensible political debate on said laws, we're left just feeling a bit muddled about it.
Patents last 20 years (Score:2)
Tetris is still relatively recent (less than 30 years old)
And in a decade, you'll be saying it's "still relatively recent (less than 40 years old)". The rules of a game are properly the subject of patent law, not copyright law [copyright.gov], and patents last 20 years. Oh, Mr. Pajitnov didn't apply for a patent? Tough poop.
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To be honest, I see this mostly as a trademark issue as the software is named Tetrada, which is very close to Tetris, and given that Tetris is a legal trademark of the Tetris Company, this situation is not merit-less.
I do not believe the Tetris Company has won any copyright cases against clones because you can't copyright gameplay and they did not invent the tetromino, so they shouldn't have any legal claims over their use alone.
File a counter-notice (Score:2)
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I will not win anything concrete, but fame and glory:)
If you manage to show in court in one or more countries that the rules of a game like Tetris are uncopyrightable, hell yeah you'll have fame and glory at least on sites like harddrop.com.
The only concern is the expenses if there is a legal battle down the road.
Post about your plight on harddrop.com and see how much you can raise. Also contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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There are many, many great shape-dropping games that bring a lot to the world of game design. Columns, Puyo Puyo, Drop7, and the rest. Direct Tetris clones, as a class, typically bring absolutely nothing to the table.
Ah, so Tetris belongs to the world? (Score:2)
Then this clown should have released his code for free because he based it on something that apparantly belongs to the public. But oh no, he filled it with DRM and put it up for a sale on a DRM riddled platform.
Don't claim information wants to be free if you are trying to sell your rip-off.
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Then this clown should have released his code for free because he based it on something that apparantly belongs to the public. But oh no, he filled it with DRM and put it up for a sale on a DRM riddled platform.
Don't claim information wants to be free if you are trying to sell your rip-off.
That depends on your definition of freedom, it's the classic BSD vs GPL discussion.
DRM riddled platforms (Score:2)
But oh no, he filled it with DRM and put it up for a sale on a DRM riddled platform.
What major handheld video gaming platform isn't DRM riddled? Nintendo and Sony handhelds enforce a digital imprimatur, as do iPhone, iPod touch, Windows Phone 7, and "feature phones" that run the BREW environment. It's impossible to distribute code for these platforms that isn't DRM riddled. Even Android isn't immune, with AT&T hiding the checkbox to install apk files from "Unknown sources".
Don't claim information wants to be free if you are trying to sell your rip-off.
Yet Red Hat and Canonical sell Linux, a rip-off of Novell's UNIX.
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Once something has become as common place as Tetris is, you have to step back and realize that it has become the possession of man-kind
You can't be serious, can you? under your reasoning, Microsoft Windows is now a possession of mankind, because it is commonplace. Namco's Pacman is a possession of mankind, despite the fact that Namco still puts out Pacman games, because it is commonplace. Mario Bros is a possession of mankind, because it is commonplace...Star Trek is not Paramount's, it's mankind's, because it's common place...
I am sorry, but your argument is totally illogical. It's the most pathetic excuse I have heard about copyright i
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Disney extended the copyright term because they wanted to not lose copyright on their characters. It was originally something like 14 years. This is stupid; and doubly so since Disney still puts out cool shit. It's time Beauty and the Beast goes into the public domain, while people still pay every 10 years for a Disney official collector's edition from the vault. People still pay [amazon.com] for 1984 when you can read it for free [george-orwell.org].
Disney's core business should be Disney Land (because hey, Cinderella is authentic Di
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This is stupid
Why is it stupid? according to you, it's stupid because you can't get it for free, right? well, it is not stupid at all. You don't have any rights to other people's works.
Disney's core business should be Disney Land
You don't have the right to dictate a business strategy to a business. The most you can do is not buy their products.
Tetris is quite old, and old things become part of our culture.
So? who says you don't have to pay for things in our culture?
We're allowed to perform Shakespeare and The Crucible and other old plays freely; we're not allowed to perform Beauty and the Beast (yes, this is a play, Disney owns it) without paying a lot of money. Pink Floyd's songs should be folk songs by now, covered by lots of cover bands
There is still demand for Beauty and the Beast, or Pink Floyd songs, isn't it? and these works are relatively young, compared to Shakespeare's works. So, I don't s
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This is stupid
Why is it stupid? according to you, it's stupid because you can't get it for free, right? well, it is not stupid at all. You don't have any rights to other people's works.
No, it's stupid because they want to continue to make money on what they did ages ago. I want to continue to make money on an IT infrastructure I set up for a business I worked for 5 years ago-- they're still using the server I installed some software on, so they're still benefiting from the work I did, and so they should still be paying me royalties, right? Just like Disney released Beauty and the Beast in 1991, and in 2006 has been making money from it for 15 years; originally the copyright term was 14
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Re-making, innovating, art != selling clones of old games.
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Is there anyone on Slashdot that doesn't know the basic formula to a Tetris game? Once something has become as common place as Tetris is, you have to step back and realize that it has become the possession of man-kind.
This isn't a case about programming a tetris game, it's about programming a tetris game and naming something very simliar to tetris. Anyone can sell cars, but they can't call it a "Frod" or a
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I suspect astroturfing has taken over slashdot by over 50%.
Lately I've seen opinions that have no basis in either ethics or even the f-leter of the law. The only purpose now seems to be corporate encroachment. Tetris -the concept- does not belong to the tetris company, the ruleset is not copyrightable. The trademark is not confusing. Tey have no right to this except the right that is bought.
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I'm neither of those yet I still think the op was an idiot.
If he'd simply called it something not so similar to tetris he'd have had a good argument but this is pretty much what trademarks are for.
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WP7 (Score:2, Interesting)
Word Perfect 7? WordPress 7? Oh. Windows Phone 7. I'll file that one under irrelevant.
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Tetris company should pay its own dues first. (Score:2)
read the true story of tetris.
Alexey Pajitnov is the infringer here. he grabbed what three people have created together for himself, without giving them credit, leave aside their proper shares.
average street pimp has more ethics. it doesnt strike me odd that, the legal system is exploited most by aggressive exploiters to attack others, even though they should be the ones in defense.
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Did we read the same article? Gerasimov states pretty unambiguiously that Pajitnov created the game, he (Gerasimov) ported it, the two collaborated on it for some time, and then Pajitnov left to create the Tetris Company commercialising it. The ill will is about Pajitnov cashing in on the idea and not paying him their fair share, but not authorship. The third collaborator is sore that Pajitnov abandoned the other projects they were working on, not Pajitnov stole the idea or something.
Personal vs commercial infringement. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot in general is fairly sympathetic towards individual copyright infringement for personal use. However that does not mean any significant portion of readers is sympathetic to wilful copyright infringement for commercial purposes, especially if you are dumb enough to drag trademark infringement into it as well.
Releasing an open source clone of an old game will get a completely different response then making a commercial clone of an old game.
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if they did it for android (Score:2)
why would you think they would not come after you on wp7?
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why would you think they would not come after you on wp7?
Would they go after someone that wrote it for the neo geo? There's probably more users of the later.
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Someone needs to fight these morons (Score:3)
Everything I've read indicates these cases have no basis in law to support them. They're going after the little guys that can't afford a lawsuit.
I hope someone chokes up the money to fight these guys.
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I can't support the OP... (Score:2)
The original idea of copyright was, if I am not mistaken (and of course IANAL), was extended to physical objects after the infringement against Elijah McCoy. I know there is debate about this, and that's fine since the story provides a suitable analogy and that is all I'm going for. Also, please excuse my interchangeable use of patent/copyright. While I understand that copyright is generally for media and patent is for physical inventions, I am also under the distinct impression that either can be applie
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Patents protect inventions like McCoy's. Copyrights protect works of creative expression, such as books and music. They're two very different things.
Since a copyright protects only a specific expression (rather than an "idea"), a Tetris-like game shouldn't infringe Tetris copyrights unless the developer copied actual graphics, music, code, etc. from the original Tetris game. A patent on falling-block games, if one existed, would cover Tetris clones, but this isn't an allegation of patent infringement.
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Snopes has an updated article on "The real McCoy"'s origins right now, actually. It seems it's a distortion of an old advertising slogan for McKay's whisky. McCoy and his oiling machine existed but that seems to be about it.
forget tetris (Score:2)
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Cola is a generic term. Simply Cola would not infringe on Coca Cola in any way. More accurately for this instance the other cola product would be called Cocade Cola, and use the same can designs and font as Coca Cola.
If he had called it Block Stocker 2000 or something then they wouldn't have been able to do anything against him unless it could be shown he was actually using their code.
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Look and feel cannot be copyrighted. See: Apple desktop vs Windows.
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IANAL... not legal advice... etc.
(patent) Even if the game rules of Tetris were patented, that would have expired by now.
(copyright) I remember Scrabble clones having problems because they copied the game board too closely, used the same layout, colors or fonts or something. This might be a problem here... maybe not.
(trademark) The strongest argument they (Tetris IP owners) probably have is that the name is too similar and refers to a video game.
So, pull it down, rename it and put it back up.
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Imagine if you actually came up with an ORIGINAL game, the Tetris Company blatantly "cloned" it, and released it in the same marketplace... would that be fair?
If they did it 25+ years from now I would probably consider it fair game, yes.
Feevo (Score:2)
Imagine if you actually came up with an ORIGINAL game, the Tetris Company blatantly "cloned" it, and released it in the same marketplace
In fact, Tetris is already cloning other people's games: see Feevo [harddrop.com], which is essentially Bejeweled with Puyo Pop's line clear rules.
would that be fair?
As long as only the game rules and not the graphics were copied, yes. Do you think Atari should have owned the exclusive right to first-person shooters after having developed and published Battlezone [wikipedia.org]? Or should Namco and Midway have owned the exclusive rights to scrolling platformers after having developed and published Pac-Land [wikipedia.org], to exclude Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. from the
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Nah, then Capcom would sue them for infringing on their business practices?
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It's not when he names his clone Tetrada which looks very similar to Tetris in the hopes that people will make that connection, exactly the sort of thing trademarks are supposed to protect against. His attempts at bringing up the definition of "Tetrada" was silly to say the least. No one is going to think "Oh, that means four of a kind!" instead of "Tetris".
This is typical bullshit that's spewed when they get caught with their pants down. Now he's trying to play the victim.
Has Tetris lost a court case yet? (Score:2)
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I don't think it applied to game play, just the actual rules.
Also, I keep thinking it was with regards to Hasbro, even though that wouldn't narrow it up much.
Sorry, but it's 2:30 am here, I'm very tired, and too lazy to try and do the searches to find the citations the A.C. wanted, what's his excuse...
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Then initiate a lawsuit. You *know* you will win, so where's the harm? You'll probably get damages and lost sales paid on top of costs if the court thinks that the lawsuit was baseless and malicious.
The fact is that you *might* be right. But if you're *THAT* certain, there's nothing to stop you or any one of a million people who have received similar letters from similar companies asserting similar nonsense from going to court. In fact, by immediately agreeing to any legal-looking paper you get and then
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