This is crazy. All the star wars games that were previously licensed by one company or another can still be played. Why is Tetris different?
In May 2010, lawyers representing The Tetris Company sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act Violation Notice regarding Tetris clones available for Android.[15] Google responded by removing the 35 games listed in the notice as it was legally obliged to do, even though, according to one developer, the games contained no references to Tetris.[16][17][18]
In February 2011, The Tetris Company continued to make copyright claims against independently developed Tetris clones, most notably against Tetrada on the Windows Phone 7 marketplace. The developer, Mario Karagiannis, rejected the claims of copyright infringement on the grounds that copyright does not cover gameplay design, but still removed the game, citing lack of resources to fight what he called "bullying".[19][20]
A US District Court judge ruled in June 2012, that the Tetris clone Mino from Xio Interactive infringed on the Tetris Company's copyrights by replicating elements such as the playfield dimensions and the shapes of the blocks.[21]
Why is this still going on in 2020? Is the copyright on a falling blocks game concept never going to expire? This is a poster child case for why current copyright law is harmful to everyone.
Whole thing is rotten to the core. Megarich proponents arguing that copyright in its current form encourages competition is about as laughable as megarich proponents arguing for trickle down economics.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-i...
The game rules? No.
They're a smart business, and very tactical. I think when they do decide to drop the hammer on someone it's because they know they can win.
They also don't do it if they don't need to. If you beat them in a search engine ranking, you better believe they'll come knocking.
The thing is that they don't have copyrights on playfield dimensions and the shapes of the blocks, since those are actually functional elements of the game. However, they have been able to protect their brand by claiming that these things fall under trade dress.
What they've argued in court is like Ford saying that Chevy infringed on their trade dress by also using wheels, an engine, a steering wheel, etc.
DMCA is a bad copyright-related law, but it's not the core of copyright law