Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!bellcore!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!rex!ukma!sean From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Tetris variants Message-ID: Date: 16 Jun 90 17:02:18 GMT References: <21774@snow-white.udel.EDU> <4091@milton.acs.washington.edu> Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY Lines: 38 gwangung@milton.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) writes: |>It appears fairly clear we have witnessed in the recent withdrawal |>of Tetris variants by Fred Fish a case of (to this point) successful |>legal bullying. | Politely, in a word, no. Even more politely, yes. | Let's make this clear. SH is working on behalf of the original |author. It's more accurate to say that the original author is working to |deprive these clone authors of the benefits of the derived games. Clear as mud. The games are not derived from the original. They are reinvented, using only the general idea of the original. Not one bit of code or artwork was copied and reworked from the original. | Sorry, but SH >>MUST<< take on any and all distributors of |potential violators of their rights. Or else they lose them. It was |hardly a cheap hit; it was a necessary step on behalf of the Russian author. It's a cheap hit if they try to protect rights they know they don't have. Trademark violation, definitely. Copyright violation, no way. |Clearly, SH has the right |to stop distribution of a play-alike shareware game calling itself |Tetrix; it's not too hard to argue that it has the right to stop distribution |of PD software calling itself Tetrix. Saying "Clearly, something is true" doesn't make me any more convinced one is speaking the truth. SH does not have a trademark on the game Tetrix, and thus haas no rights to protect. The name is "Tetris", not "Tetrix". Sean -- *** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean