A sad day for fangame makers: Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc

[meow]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/defi...-gaming-clones/

[Magnanimous]

In defending Mino, lawyers for Xio Interactive didn't deny that they were heavily influenced by Tetris, copying almost all of the game's basic elements wholesale. The defense's main argument, instead, was that the things it copiedâ€"everything from the shape and color of the blocks and the way that they rotate to the dimensions of the playfieldâ€"were actually integral to the underlying rules of the game, and therefore not subject to copyright protection. The argument, basically, was that Tetris is so simple and abstract that every part of the game is a basic "rule" that can be legally copied.

Yeah... I'm not surprised that they lost. At least now we know what not to do.

I would love to have more (default) variations in field dimensions. 10-wide seems pretty much optimal imo, but playing with other sizes is still fun. Changing the dimensions in-game sounds interesting if it's handled right, and I don't think any TTC game has done that.

[Rosti_LFC]

I don't think TTC would do that - it makes it significantly harder to defend the Tetris brand if you broaden what actually constitutes an official Tetris game.

The main thinking behind the guideline was almost certainly to try and unify for the players what a Tetris game is, but the creation of the guideline also makes it significantly easier to defend games on account of it being a very specific thing. Generally Tetris-y gameplay is hard to defend, but if someone copies the exact specifics of the guideline then it's a far more obvious infringement on intellectual property. Any time they deviate from the guideline they blur what makes an official game.

[zaphod77]

A field twice as high as it is wide is scenes a faire. That much is obvious.

THe width of ten for tetris is actually very important.

A multiple of four makes the game foreverable under memoryless randomiser.  Hence, 8 or 12 wide is out.

If you make the field width odd, then you are vulnerable to a run of squares ending the game.

So 9 or 11 is out.

So 10 wide and 20 tall really does appear to be the best.

You can tweak the randomizer to make other field widths playable, but the core game was developed with a memoryless one, and said randomizer influences the design.

AS long as the mechanic of clearing horizontal lines by filling them in, which is a core rule of tetris is used, the seven basic shapes and 90 degree rotation are a requirement to have a game that is playable, but not trivial.

The following things are, in my opinion, expression in a tetris style game.

1) rotation system. 90 degree rotation itself is scenes' a faire, but ARS and SRS are very different. The former is not part of the guideline, and is thus fair game i think.   Alterntive rotation systems, such as DRS have also been made.
2) piece colors.  You can make them different easily enough, though making them bright and distinctive is scenes a faire.
3) lockdown system. We have move reset, step reset, entry reset, zero lock delay, etc. Move reset is what the guideline demands currently.
4) Number plus exact position of the piece previews. Moving them elsewhere OR changing the number is not a core rule.
5) scoring system.  Scoring is not part of the core rules.
6) level system.


Note that TTC themselves has messed around with a lot of these.

The following are pretty much required for an implementation of the core tetris rules to be any good.

10x20 field
use of the seven tetrominos.
90 degree rotation
At least one piece preview
Lock delay (the days of gravity lock are long past, and nothing without lock delay can compete now)

Notably, the TGM series changes enough to be distinct from Guideline Tetris, and should not require a license from TTC. It shows the creativeity and redesign that Xio claims is not needed, yet still contains the seven basic shapes, the same field size, and all the core rules.  HOWEVER, the TGM series is also an authentic tetris game, and thus under their protection somehow.

A game that clones neither the guideline, nor tgm should be in the clear, even if it contains only the seven minos.

The impression I got now was they cloned the guideline, and changes some of the colors.  And if that's really all they did, then yeah I can see them losing.

[XaeL]

A multiple of four makes the game foreverable under memoryless randomiser.  Hence, 8 or 12 wide is out.

plz explain

[Magnanimous]

THe width of ten for tetris is actually very important.

A multiple of four makes the game foreverable under memoryless randomiser.  Hence, 8 or 12 wide is out.

If you make the field width odd, then you are vulnerable to a run of squares ending the game.

So 9 or 11 is out.

So 10 wide and 20 tall really does appear to be the best.

lolwat. These are only important if your game lasts millions of pieces... Getting even five squares in a row is super rare with memoryless.

The rest of your post, I agree with.

[necrosaro]

In my (non-legal-professional) opinion, this case was effectively decided by a few quite basic decisions by the judge. First, here is a reminder of the official statement on how copyright applies to games, from the US Copyright Office (my emphasis):

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.[/quote]

So the question is: What is this unprotected 'idea for a game' that TTC's "Tetris" embodies, the 'similar principles' that copyright law doesn't prevent others from developing similar games based on? Isn't the idea of the game that TTC's "Tetris" expresses something along the lines of a computer game where you stack a randomly-ordered one-by-one string of the "free tetrominoes" in a vertical rectangular well to form horizontal lines?

Apparently not, said the judge. According to the judge's opinion, the concept of using tetrominoes as game pieces, along with a vertical well, are not part of the general idea for (TTC-brand) Tetris, but rather, form its copyrighted expression. This (in my opinion, overly broad) determination allowed the judge to decide that the unique shape of the (TTC-brand) Tetris pieces and the playfield size are part of its distinctive visual expression, allowing an "ordinary observer" to find "substantial similarity" between (TTC-brand) Tetris and Mino, and thus copyright infringement.

The interesting thing is that there is no evidence or argument behind the judge's decision whether or not to include the set of free tetrominoes or the general shape of the playfield in the 'idea' of TTC-brand Tetris. There was no method cited to determine their inclusion or exclusion, the judge just stated (paraphrase) 'OK guys, I have decided, this is the idea for the game that (TTC-brand) Tetris expresses', leaving no room to scrutinize or argue about the details of what should or should not be the idea.

I expect the process behind the particular determination of this 'idea' to be the main contention of any possible circuit court appeal in this case. If the use of tetromino game pieces was in fact determined to be part of the game's 'idea', I don't think a finding of substantial similarity would have been quite as obvious (because so much of the 'ordinary observer' similarity of the two games at first glance has to do with the shape of the pieces themselves).

There is another contentious point in relation to the 'scenes a faire' concept of the doctrine of merger defense that Xio raised. The judge basically said (paraphrase) "the scenes a faire case law doesn't apply at all here, because Tetris has no relation to the real world and is thus purely fanciful". This statement misinterprets 'fanciful' in the case law to mean 'having no real world representation', where it is actually intended to mean 'more unique and original than a stock or commonplace concept'. This eliminated any consideration of the 'scenes a faire' within commonplace, but non-representational, concepts derived from any existing physical or computer puzzle game genres as having any bearing on this case, which I think was an oversight that we will probably also see Xio argue against in any possible appeal.

[caffeine]

plz explain

See Brzustowski's thesis for an explanation of why it is impossible to play forever in a 10 wide field. It has to do with how, inevitably, the memoryless randomizer will produce a sequence of SZSZSZ pieces. You can't just stack them vertically on top of each other since you'll make an odd number of towers for one piece and an even number for the other. This causes an imbalance which isn't sustainable.
[fumen]110@7eJMLWdAFLDmClcJSAVDEHBEooRBaoAVBzHkFDzHkF?DzAAAAviBMhB/gBcfB/bBcaBvdBMcBXnb[/fumen]
Further Tetris maths show that no matter how you stack them, you'll keep making holes until you die (see the thesis for proof). However, if the field is 8 or 12 columns wide, you'll create an even number of S-towers and an even number of Z-towers. You'll be able to survive this particular death sequence.

[zaphod77]

plz explain

What he said.

and, well i've gotten long strings of squares in a few older tetris games, especially ones that collect entropy during gameplay instead of just power through their LCG one step at a time.

[Wojtek]

Tetris Holding argues that Mino infringed the following copyrightable elements:
...
The display of a "shadow" piece beneath the Tetriminos as they fall;
funny because this game do not even have piece shadow
The color change when the Tetriminos enter lock-down mode
if you look closely you will notice that color do not change, but instead there is little glow around active piece (in judge's language "it is different way to express the idea")
The bright, distinct colors used for each of the Tetrimino pieces;
actually in one of two available modes (that's like half of a game, no?) all pieces are in different shades of blue
The way the Tetrimino pieces appear to move and rotate in the playfield;
(not like there is big problem with this one, but rather to made things clear) this game is not any close to SRS (but it has some kind of wallckicks and guideline like initial orientation)

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]The interesting thing is that there is no evidence or argument behind the judge's decision whether or not to include the set of free tetrominoes or the general shape of the playfield in the 'idea' of TTC-brand Tetris. There was no method cited to determine their inclusion or exclusion, the judge just stated (paraphrase) 'OK guys, I have decided, this is the idea for the game that (TTC-brand) Tetris expresses', leaving no room to scrutinize or argue about the details of what should or should not be the idea.[/quote]
This is exactly biggest problem i see in judge's reasoning. since when idea of tetris game do not include use of tetrominos? also this definition clearly comes from nowhere.

I suggest mental excercise. Take list of allegy infinging elsemets. remove items that do not apply to mino (like piece shadow), remove items that judge said are core idea of tetris thus not copyrightable (like clearing complete lines), remove things that are also core idea of tetris just for some wierd reason not in judge's tetris definition (use of tetrominos), remove things that apply to most-if-not-all falling puzzle genre (like display of next piece), remove things that can be only done in limited number of ways and ttc used most or all in diffrent products already (like the visual delineation of individual blocks). what lefts?

copyright trolls will troll over copyright. and Rosti will troll in topics like this.

[necrosaro]

I also find it worth mentioning in detail (although Xio did not assert this in their official defense): Many of the specific items that TTC claimed their game(s) were being infringed were in fact not their original creation, i.e. they were originally introduced in unlicensed or third-party Tetris variants that TTC does not own the copyrights to.

I wanted to make a detailed list of these, so here is a list of the specific copyright infringements TTC claimed in their lawsuit, and the first Tetris game copyrights they were associated with:

• "Brightly colored" tetrominoes (Tetris v3.12) - Mirrorsoft/Andromeda Tetris was the first officially published game to feature colored tetrominoes (the PC '3.12' version had a later official publication date). There were also several unlicensed versions unofficially released in 1986 that featured color. (One could argue here that the use of 'brightly colored' tetrominoes was not original, given the design of existing pentomino puzzle games at the time)
• Individually delineated blocks (Tetris NES) - unlicensed versions released in 1986, such as the V.A.Baliasov ZX Spectrum version feature individually delineated blocks. (One could argue that since there are copyrighted variants of Tetris featuring both delineated and undelineated blocks, one has no choice but to copy one way or another on this point.)
• the display of ‘garbage lines’ with at least one missing block (Tetris Game Boy) - Tengen Tetris NES, published prior to the Game Boy version, featured 'garbage lines' with at least one missing block in some of its levels.
• change in color of the playing pieces when they are in lock-down mode (Tetris Zone) - Tengen Tetris NES, published prior to Tetris Zone, featured a change in color of the playing pieces in lock-down mode.
• The screen layout in multiplayer versions with the player’s matrix appearing most prominently on the screen and the opponents’ matrixes appearing smaller than the player’s matrix and to the side of the player’s matrix (Tetris EA Multiplayer) - TetriNET, which was published prior to Tetris EA Multiplayer, had this feature.
• the display of the next playing piece that will fall down the matrix above the playing field (Tetris Evolution XBox360) - I can only assume the specific copyright associated with this assertion was misplaced, because almost every variant of Tetris other than the original contains this feature. For example, this version by Andic Software released in 1986 has this feature, which would have predated the v3.12 publication.

Here are some of the other copyrighted features asserted by TTC, and the first versions in which they were asserted (does anyone know of examples of any Tetris variants with these features that predate the games mentioned here?):

• appearance of minos automatically filling in the matrix from the bottom to the top when the game is over (Game Boy) - (although Xio claimed that this feature had been removed in recent versions of Mino)
• appearance of “ghost” piece or shadow piece under the playing piece (Tetris Zone)
• display of ‘incoming lines’ with at least one missing block in random order that appear during game play (Tetris Pop) - (did TetriNET have this feature?)

And here are the 'core' copyright assertions, that TTC asserted in every variant of Tetris from its inception:

• The seven tetrominoes
• The long vertical rectangle playing field, higher than wide
• Playing pieces at the top (x)
• Downward, lateral and rotating movements (x)
• Starting orientation of the playing pieces (this one could be disputed as it's not entirely consistent across variants)
• Disappearance of any completed horizontal line (x)
• Subsequent consolidation of the playing pieces remaining on the playing field as a result of the downward shift into the space vacated by the disappearing line (x)

Note that even the judge's (imo overly broad) description of the 'idea' of Tetris implicitly discards most (but not all) of these 'core' assertions from copyright protection (marked with 'x' above):

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Tetris is a puzzle game where a user manipulates pieces composed of square blocks, each made into a different geometric shape, that fall from the top of the game board to the bottom where the pieces accumulate. The user is given a new piece after the current one reaches the bottom of the available game space. While a piece is falling, the user rotates it in order to fit it in with the accumulated pieces. The object of the puzzle is to fill all spaces along a horizontal line. If that is accomplished, the line is erased, points are earned, and more of the game board is available for play. But if the pieces accumulate and reach the top of the screen, then the game is over. These then are the general, abstract ideas underlying Tetris and cannot be protected by copyright nor can expressive elements that are inseparable from them.[/quote]

Taking all of this into account, you can see that the real proper deciding factor in this case is whether the seven tetrominoes, and the long vertical rectangle playing field are properly part of the 'idea' of tetris or only part of its copyrighted expression.

[bigwig]

Although I do not know when the rule went into effect, the license agreement currently used to allow third party developers to make their own variants stipulates that any innovation in game mode or feature can be used by any other licensed developer.

[Wojtek]

Although I do not know when the rule went into effect, the license agreement currently used to allow third party developers to make their own variants stipulates that any innovation in game mode or feature can be used by any other licensed developer.

necrosaro say about unlicenced games in pre-TTC times.

[XaeL]

Many of the specific items that TTC claimed their game(s) were being infringed were in fact not their original creation, i.e. they were originally introduced in unlicensed or third-party Tetris variants that TTC does not own the copyrights to.

I'm pretty sure stealing someones idea and then copyrighting it before they do is fair game.
[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]
(One could argue that since there are copyrighted variants of Tetris featuring both delineated and undelineated blocks, one has no choice but to copy one way or another on this point.)
[/quote]

This is EXACTLY TTC's strategy. Copyright EVERYTHING individually, and no matter what "infinite combination" you come up with, TTC has done it before. E.g. Individually delineated (NES) vs non-delineated (GameBoy).

Say hypothetically you have previews. They sue you for having previews because their tetris games have previews.
Say you don't have previews. They sue you for having no previews because they say that their tetris games have no previews, and show a picture of the original tetris.

They have a CRAPLoad of orientation systems: SRS,ARS, NES, Original, etc.
Since they only need to show say 4 to 5 out of 7 of ur starting orientations are the same as yours, and SRS+ARS have already taken all the logical 2-step finesse versions, You can't even make a useful starting orientation without getting sued for that too.
E.g. for 2 step finesse to work, you need flat spawns. Oh wait thats taken by SRS. ok we'll just flip them. OH F*** THATS TAKEN BY ARS.


Well width -> they've got several ranging from 16 to 20. BAM Sue. Goodluck trying to choose something thats 10 wide.

Garbage -> None of their multiplayer games have more than 1 hole, but in the sample case, they claim "garbage with 1 or more holes". Also they use 60% change, change on attack, basically every useful combination has been done in a game so you can't even choose a fair garbage system without infringing.

[necrosaro]

Although I do not know when the rule went into effect, the license agreement currently used to allow third party developers to make their own variants stipulates that any innovation in game mode or feature can be used by any other licensed developer.

This may be the case (I haven't read the actual licensing agreement contract being referred to), but unless TTC required the third-party developer to assign the relevant copyright to them (which would be extremely surprising), it would still make it impossible for TTC to include a copyright infringement claim on such feature without ownership of the original copyrighted work in which the feature first appeared. The other possible thing TTC could do in their licensing agreement is force any third-party developer to join TTC in a lawsuit with their respective infringement claims (this might be more plausible, but didn't happen in this case).

I'm pretty sure stealing someones idea and then copyrighting it before they do is fair game.

Actually no, it's not fair game, nobody can 'copyright an idea before they do'. First of all, an 'idea' can't be copyrighted in the first place (see my previous post on idea vs. expression). But more to the point, these days, copyright is automatic and happens the moment an idea is first set down in a fixed work. The US keeps a copyright registration database, but registering a copyright only gives you extra certification that your work was created / published on certain dates. Even without an official copyright registration, if it can be proved that the original work was indeed created/published first, then the latter work loses any claim to originality it might have asserted.

Something interesting about the Tetris copyrights is that Mirrorsoft has a registered US copyright for their 1988 dubiously-licensed "Tetris: The Soviet Challenge" game, with a publication date (1988-01-28) that actually predates Pajitnov's "Tetris v3.12" (1988-09-01) and "Tetris version 2" (1988-02-24) publication dates (The original "Tetris Version 0" and "Tetris version 1" copyright registrations don't have publication dates, though their creation date is listed as 1985.) This means that according to the US copyright office, the earliest published Tetris game actually belongs to Mirrorsoft, not TTC.