Noah Witherspoon, creator of the Tetris clone iPhone application, Tris, has decided to pull his contribution to the App store following recent legal pressure.
Apple has recently contacted the college sophomore, making him aware that the Tetris company has sent notification of copyright and trademark infringement claims against the application.
Witherspoon has since responded to the allegations on his blog noting, “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. ‘Trys,’ that would be much harder for them to argue.”
Copyright and trademark laws are always complicated when concerning the gaming world. An issue that has recently come to light with the Facebook application Scrabulous, an ‘unauthorized clone’ of the popular board game that had been pulled due to legal claims.
Witherspoon goes on to add, “I simply do not have the time, energy, or resources to fight this battle right now. There’s a point at which I am willing to give up and be practical, to let the world have its way with that ever-mistreated little ideal of ‘principle.’ Thus, it’s with great sadness that I must announce that I’ll be pulling Tris from the App Store on Wednesday, August 27th, to remain in Apple’s systems but publicly unavailable until I work out a solution to this.”
If you have already downloaded the application, you will be able keep it. The App will still be available for the remaining hours of the day, so if you don’t have it yet and are a Tetris enthusiast like myself, I highly suggest getting your hands on it.
And fear not as Tris creator Witherspoon has said he’s not quite through yet. “I don’t think this will be permanent; when I have the time and can find a good copyright lawyer, I’ll be figuring out exactly what my position is and how I can make Tris available again.”
[via CNet]
One Comment to “Tris Developer Speaks Out About Pulling His Application”
Tris is SO MUCH BETTER and not because it’s free, I would pay for it over Tetris any day! ;( My phone crashed (yes these phones do that, this is the second time) and I lost Tris and now it’s too late. So sad, I hope you fight this one!!
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