US District Court: Game Elements In Tetris Clone Infringe Tetris Co.'s Copyright

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 21, 2012 @12:50AM from the there's-a-tetris-company?! dept.

elegie writes "In the US, a District Court has ruled that the Tetris clone "Mino" infringes the Tetris Company's copyrights with regard to elements of the Tetris game design and gameplay. On one hand, a lawyer said that 'a puzzle game where a user manipulates blocks to form lines which disappear' would be noninfringing. At the same time, the Mino game's reuse of such Tetris elements as the dimensions of the playing field and the shape of the blocks constituted infringement. In addition, the Tetris game's artistic elements were not inseparably linked to the underlying mechanics and replicating an underlying idea and/or functionality (which would likely be uncopyrighted) would not justify copying visual expression from an existing game."

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Oh good by jesseck · 2012-06-21 00:56 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm glad we can make a non-infringing block game, now we just need to figure out how to get those blocks to not infringe.
1. Re:Oh good by zzyzyx · 2012-06-21 02:30 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, all they had to do was come up with their own arrangements of 4 square block pieces.
Re:The Real Crime by Yvanhoe · 2012-06-21 01:10 · Score: 4, Funny

You say it like copyright was supposed to expire one day...

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