Apple Wins Lawsuit Against Tech Writer Over Copyright Infringement Allegations Regarding Tetris Movie

Prime Highlights:

US District Judge Katherine Failla dismissed Dan Ackerman’s copyright lawsuit against Apple and the Tetris Company over the 2023 Tetris movie.

Ackerman claimed the film copied elements from his 2016 book, The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World, which covers the game’s Soviet origins and licensing battles.

Key Background:

Apple successfully secured a victory in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by tech journalist Dan Ackerman, who accused the company of using his 2016 book about the iconic video game Tetris as the basis for the 2023 movie adaptation. The lawsuit was dismissed by US District Judge Katherine Failla, who ruled that the similarities between Ackerman’s book and the film were insufficient to substantiate his claims of copyright violation.

Ackerman’s book, The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World, delves into the Soviet origins of the game and the political intrigue surrounding its licensing during the Cold War. In his complaint, Ackerman asserted that he shared a pre-publication version of his book with the Tetris Company, which holds the intellectual property rights to the game, only to have them refuse to license it for adaptations. The journalist further claimed that the company discouraged film producers from pursuing his book, even sending him a cease-and-desist letter. Ackerman alleged that in 2017, Tetris Company CEO Maya Rogers and screenwriter Noah Pink began incorporating substantial portions of his book into the screenplay for the 2023 Tetris movie, which was released on the Apple TV platform.

Judge Failla dismissed the case, emphasizing that the similarities between Ackerman’s book and the movie were primarily based on factual elements of the game’s history, which are not subject to copyright protection. She explained that because Ackerman’s work is non-fiction, the defendants were entitled to use the historical facts it presented in their film, provided they did not directly copy Ackerman’s unique expression of those facts. The ruling ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support Ackerman’s claims of copyright infringement. Neither Ackerman, Apple, nor the Tetris Company offered immediate comments on the court’s decision.