Is Tetr.io Legal? | Hacker News Reader

Is Tetr.io Legal?

blog.osk.sh

83 pointscglong45 comments

> I simply ensure it's not easy to strike me in a way that puts me at a disadvantage. I don't use software distribution platforms like Steam (despite even having been invited to such platforms), nor do I publish for mobile app stores. Doing so would put me at risk of becoming the underdog in a DMCA lawsuit, which is an impossible task to win unless you already have the assets.

> Instead, TTC would have to sue me directly, which would put us at equal footing.

I’m not certain of this, but aren’t the domain registrar (in this case Namecheap), DNS host (in this case Cloudflare) and web host (uncertain) also parties that DMCA takedown notices can be sent to, and who will consequently disable the domain in some way? Or at least one or two of these three?

Sure, it’s probably a slightly higher barrier, as the typical software distribution platforms often make takedowns easier than they need to be and the attacker is more familiar with their procedures, but you’re still using others’ platforms to distribute things.

Web host very likely (and cdn), DNS host depends on country and it's trivial to circumvent anyway, dns registrar not (unless there is direct trademark infringement).

Registrars and DNS providers are often wary of taking domains down and will look at the contents and legitimacy of any requests to do so. And for a registrar or DNS host to take tetr.io down, the domain name or content it points to would need to include the word 'tetris', which it does not.

> web host (uncertain)

I can attest it happens.

> it’s probably a slightly higher barrier

And the barrier isn’t that high. I’ve seen a web host company (Hetzner) take down an entire website because a company made a bogus claim about a single page amongst thousands. I don’t even think it was DMCA, they just had their lawyers send an email. Had a human at Hetzner taken the time to visit said website, they would’ve seen the company’s request wasn’t legitimate.

I'm a big Tetris fan. Some of my favorite articles are:

- Finesse, https://harddrop.com/wiki/Movement_Finesse

- Perfect clear(s opener), https://harddrop.com/wiki/Perfect_clear

- 180 spins, https://harddrop.com/wiki/Rotate#180_rotations

Check out King of Stackers, NullpoMino, and Cultris, too!

I believe this was 10 or 15 years ago, but TTC really went hard on getting rid of Tetris clones... Even the x86 bootable one from a couple years back got shut down. I wouldn't risk it personally.

They still do - earlier this year they had Apotris, an excellent homebrew version of modern Tetris for the GBA, removed from itch.io and GitHub.

https://itch.io/takedowns/1499978

They haven't managed to scare the developer into dropping the project though: https://akouzoukos.com/apotris/

some basic easy to do things deter many plaintiffs

basically you want to discourage filing any complaint at all

and then you want a summary judgement to be meaningless and ignorable to you

and then you want to be able to rationalize an argument in your favor

so forming a business entity with limited liability is the first step

the second step is not having publicly listed ownership, which is mostly just choosing the right jurisdiction to form your business

the third step is taking advantage of differences in states laws. one state might allow the business to be tied to a PO box, while the plaintiff’s state doesn't allow serving process to a PO box

for intermediaries in hosting your digital products, pick them wisely if you expect liability in a certain country

Can anyone recommend a good tetris game for iOS or just the web? I just want to play a quick round of normal tetris without ads, silly game modes etc.

Tetr.io is great — it does have ads (unless you have Adblock) but not impactful during gameplay at all and is usually the go-to for multiplayer games. Another normal Tetris game that’s more single-player oriented is jstris.

Tetr.io looks great but all the visual flair makes my laptop's fans go crazy and adds small but noticeable amounts of latency to the game.

Sure, my 2020 Intel Macbook Air is a bit pokey compared to the newest models, but shouldn't a 3 year old computer be more than enough to play 40 year old game?

Have you tried changing the graphics settings? I usually turn them down and have great performance.

Use an emulator and pick any retro variant.

That waffle maker with the 1x1 piece on the top right bugs the crap out of me…

Looks like a Z piece rotated to me. Check out the top of the waffle press clam shell, the outline doesn't have a 1x1 there. Do you mean the 1x1 in the middle between T and L without the block imprint?

You can't get the entire space filled with perfectly aligned tetrominoes. It would make everything disappear.

You might get a good score, whatever it means, but no waffle.

The home page and the game both look incredible visually. Is this using a library or manually coded?

A bit off topic: To me the Tetr.io rules page comes across as condescending/paternalistic? I really don't like this.

https://tetr.io/about/rules/

This seems entirely standard for that kind of game. Trolls absolutely will try to rules lawyer so articulating points clearly that ought to be common sense makes it simpler to moderate transparently. What points do you take issue with?

The first bunch are "Would you jerks cut it out" and the rest is "How not to be a jerk", both seem pretty important.

I don't find it condescending because I think I'm not a jerk but I'm aware that a lot of people are jerks.

> I am not a lawyer, and this blogpost does not constitute legal advice.

And here I was about to do just that - get some professional legal advice from a random blog post...

Don't try to apply standards of common sense to legal protections. You and I, and any sensible person, know if would be foolish to interpret a random blog post as legal advice. But a bad actor acting in bad faith could _pretend_ that they were misled by that advice, and conduct a frivolous lawsuit (or, more likely, the _threat_ of a frivolous lawsuit) for profit. By the simple act of putting ~20 words at the top of the article, the author has protected themselves from this. Simple Cost-Benefit Analysis makes this clearly worthwhile.

> the author has protected themselves from this

that's obviously false, nothing could protect anyone from being threatened (nor from some frivolous lawsuit), and to do CBA you'd need to actually do analysis of what the benefit is

(also, where is your legal liability disclaimer if it's clearly worthwhile? You've made a public legal assessment of the op's legal liability disclaimer)

> that's obviously false, nothing could protect anyone from being threatened (nor from some frivolous lawsuit)

Apologies - I assumed you had the ability to read between the lines that they were "protected" in the sense that they could safely ignore any such threat because they could be confident that it would fail, whereas without this protection they might feel vulnerable enough to need to defend themselves with it.

You could try reading the lines before impugning someone's ability to read between them. Frivolous lawsuit by definition doesn't care about legal merits, including your own fail criterion:

"[frivolous litigation] includes presenting an argument with reason to know that it would certainly faill (Wikipedia)

So again, no magic disclaimers can help you here, you still face the risks that someone is going to impose (or threat to impose) the burden of legal proceedings regardless of legal merit on you

Perhaps you should read up on what "legal advice" means. https://www.findlaw.com/hirealawyer/do-you-need-a-lawyer/wha... https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/48016/are-the-abbrev...

> Legal advice requires:

> Education, knowledge, and experience in areas of the law

> The ability and experience to apply that knowledge to specific fact patterns

> An understanding of how the application of the law affects the client's legal rights

> Practical expertise in writing legal documents or other documents to support the client's position

> State or federal licenses that allow legal representation in court

Whether you write "this is not legal advice" or not has absolutely no bearing on whether it actually is legal advice or not. The phrase is used by actual lawyers when they don't want to mislead the general public about thinking that the legal information they provide is legal advice. Non-lawyers use it to feel fancy and sophisticated.

TIL, thank you!

Still, though - the original statement wasn't false, it _wasn't_ legal advice, and the clarification did make that clear in such a way that a reader couldn't be confused into thinking that it was reliable. So - it wasn't a _useless_ thing to write, as the original commenter implied, even if it doesn't have legal weight as I mistakenly thought.

Nice goal post shifting, though you're still mistaken in how low you assess the intelligence of the readers (and even real "legal advice" can be unreliable, so you're a bit confused here as well)

(Can't edit an old comment, but - I have been informed below that this is incorrect! Still, though - it doesn't _hurt_ to clarify that you are not an expert in an area when describing your choices so that a reader can make an appropriate evaluation, even if that clarification doesn't provide legal protection in the way that I mistakenly thought it did)

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