Subscribe
TouchArcade reported that the developer of Tris (Free) was told that Apple received a copyright notice from The Tetris Company. Since the developer is a college student, he doesn’t have the resources to defend himself, though he feels he had done no wrong, so as a result the free game will be removed from the App Store to protect himself. Tris had great control and has simple but smooth visuals, and being free it was very popular.
Well — I’ve received notice from Apple that they’ve been contacted by The Tetris® Company about Tris. That, I’m afraid, is essentially game over. Do they have a case? No. Not really. I am convinced that if it went to court, the “copyright†claim would get thrown out completely. The trademark, perhaps not — but if I changed the name, to e.g. “Trysâ€, that would be much harder for them to argue.
Recently we saw the French developer of Flying Rider, which was a clone of Line Rider, go through the same situation when the Line Rider developer told him to remove his game. Apple’s App Store is a lucrative new business model, companies want in on the money-making, while game developers just want to make fun games. I don’t think these kind of situations will be going away anytime soon, sadly.
