There's Tetris clones everywhere, right? Well, not on iTunes. The free clone Tris is being pulled after its creator found out that the The Tetris Company isn't digging his version.
Noah Witherspoon, the free game's creator, received a letter from Apple, who passed the word along from The Tetris Company. They told Witherspoon that he should either settle the "dispute" on his own or face legal action, according to Opposable Thumbs.
"The trouble is, I'm a college student, and not an affluent one," Witherspoon wrote on his blog, "and I simply do not have the time, energy, or resources to fight this battle right now. There's a point at which I am willing to give up and be practical, to let the world have its way with that ever-mistreated little ideal of 'principle'."
While Witherspoon is backing down, he's not giving up. He says, "when I have the time and can find a good copyright lawyer, I'll be figuring out exactly what my position is and how I can make Tris available again."
Now the only alternative is a pay version, EA Mobile's Tetris, for $9.99.
Contest:
1:43 PM on 08.27.2008
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WTF?
surely even a retarded copyright lawyer could explain that he has obviously ripped off tetris...
I think The Tetris Company has a good argument that the name "Tris" infringes on their trademark.
I've always wondered about the legality of various Tetris clones. Plenty of free versions proliferate on PC, and I haven't heard of any legal action. I'm sure part of the reason TTC took action here is because the game is on a mobile device. The other part of it is they have Apple to back them up, with absolute control of the platform.
I think that rather than that the game is on a mobile device, it's that it's being offered next to a version that the company stands to at least make royalties on, or whatever. You see, free almost always trumps something that costs money, and when it doesn't, it's because it sucks. Why pay $9.99 for the game when you can get a version of it for free?
That's true, but then why haven't they threatened/successfully threatened the PC clones? They make official Tetris games for PC. Perhaps those are simply less visible, or it would be a Pyrrhic victory to fight them. Tris' position and relative visibility on the iPhone was a factor, I believe-- which isn't the same as what I said above, but I think it's what I was trying to get at.
Also, the trademark, as jrwolv reiterates. Calling it "Bricklines" might have kept TTC from doing anything. I'm actually uncertain as to how much of a legal monopoly there is on the Tetris concept--patent, copyright, and what each of those covers, although if there ever was a patent awarded then it has expired or is on the verge of expiring--and this may be why the clones are able to proliferate, as long as they don't conflate their gameplay with the Tetris name.
Being nearly illiterate, and also semi-retarded, I lack the ability to articulate the concept. All I can say is that it would be like offering the game for free in a brick-and-mortar store, and then placing it near a copy of a similar game that they're asking money for. Nobody is going to pay for what they can get for free, which is what I think the issue is here more than anything else.
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