Apple Sued Over ‘Tetris’ by Gizmodo Editor, Who Alleges Film Stole From His Book About Soviet Game
09.08.2023 - 00:09
/ variety.com
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Dan Ackerman, editor in chief of tech news site Gizmodo, alleges Apple TV+ film “Tetris” illegally copied from his book on the popular video game, in a lawsuit he filed seeking at least $4.8 million in damages from Apple and others. Ackerman’s “The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World,” published in 2016, is about the game’s origins in the former Soviet Union and the fight for its global licensing rights. The lawsuit touted the book as a “literary masterpiece” and described it as “in the style of Cold War spy thriller.” According to the lawsuit, Ackerman sent a pre-publication copy of the book to the Tetris Co.
in 2016 but that the company refused to engage in a deal with him for any projects related to the book — and sent him a “strongly worded cease-and-desist letter.” In the lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Ackerman asked the court for total monetary damages of at least 6% of the film’s estimated $80 million production budget, which works out to $4.8 million. Alternatively, the suit said, Ackerman is entitled to recover from “statutory damages up to $150,000.00 per copyright infringed” from the defendants for “willful copyright infringement” along with attorney’s fees and costs.
The lawsuit accuses Apple and the other defendants of copyright infringement, and alleges unfair competition by screenwriter Noah Pink, Tetris Co. and Tetris CEO Maya Rogers. Reps for Apple, Tetris Co.
and Pink did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit was first reported by Reuters. “The ‘Tetris’ film is substantially similar in almost all material respects including specific chapters and pages of said book that were simply adopted from the book to
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