Student-made T(et)ris pulled from App Store

by Stevie Smith - Aug 27 2008, 13:00

 

Following the recent copyright actions of international Scrabble rights holders Hasbro and Mattel, which ultimately led to the demise of popular Facebook word game Scrabulous, an impetuously fresh-faced and free-to-download Tetris clone on Apple’s App Store has also now met with a similar fate.

More pointedly, faced with the prospect of heavy-handed legal ramifications, cash-strapped Atlanta college student and budding software developer Noah Witherspoon has this week instructed the App Store to drop his “Tris” videogame after it prompted raised eyebrows from Apple Inc. and distinctly furrowed brows from The Tetris Company.

Although still clearly listed on the official iTunes App Store and attributed to Witherspoon, Tris is no longer available for download.

According to Witherspoon, his decision to withdraw the free game’s availability came after Tetris rights holder The Tetris Company contacted him with instructions to settle the copyright and trademark dispute by removing Tris from circulation or suffer the legal consequences.

“The trouble is, I’m a college student, and not an affluent one,” Witherspoon explained via a post on his Two Finger Play blog. “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.’”

Although the student developer appears admirably pragmatic in his reasoning for pulling Tris, clearly understanding that The Tetris Company is protecting its own interest, he does note that the rights holder’s complaint and Apple’s own threat to remove Tris amount to little more than “petty bullying.”

“To clarify: if Apple had not told me they’d “take action” of their own if I didn’t resolve the “dispute”, Tris would be staying up,” outlined a disappointed but defiant Witherspoon, who also said that The Tetris Company “have little to no legitimate legal claim, and are, presumably, relying on my being a small developer with insufficient resources to defend myself.”

In closing, Witherspoon intends to resurrect Tris at some point, but not before he has secured the services of a copyright lawyer. Until that time, the Tetris clone will remain offline.

Much as with the fall of Scrabulous and the flaccid Facebook introduction of Electronic Arts’ official Scrabble, Tetris lovers unlucky enough to have missed out on downloading Tris can purchase the official Tetris application (again developed by Electronic Arts) for $9.99 USD.

 

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