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US District Court: Game Elements In Tetris Clone Infringe Tetris Co.'s Copyright
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."
Tetris itself is not new. It's based on a very old Russian toy/puzzle.
easy, make your own shapes, colors, dimensions and game play. instead of falling have them come in from all directions.
there have been so many Sim City/Civilization clones over the years and each one has been unique. it just takes a little work
I think you need to read the history of Tetris to understand the irony of the situation.
The Tetris pieces are just tetrominos - they're every possible shape you can create by joining four squares together. You can't come up with your own similar shapes because there aren't any more of them.
Tetris itself is not new. It's based on a very old Russian toy/puzzle.
Source, please.
http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/smmg/archive/1997/radin.html
It may not be Russian, but polyomino tiling puzzles are at least 100 years old.
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