Remaking a classic with a twist.

So I've been thinking of new ideas today, and was thinking of remaking Tetris with a few twists to it. Name a side, what kind of legal issues would I have if I go ahead and release it? I browsed through Google Play and seen many different clones (Actual Tetris clones), I'm assuming it should be ok as long as the name differs?

 

As long as you don't use the Tetris name, assets or anything else associated with the Tetris trademark then you should be fine. It's 100% legal to straight up clone another game if you wished to do that, as long as it's your own work then there's nothing at all they can do about it.

 

What do we consider assets? A side from the name, theme song, and original logo, is everything else good to go?

 

Assets are any works from the original game. You cannot use graphics, sounds, code, images, etc from Tetris. You can make your own that look similar and function the same, but you cannot use their work. Basic common sense there, you do not have the rights to use those things.

As for trademark, things get a bit fuzzy and you might want to find a better source than me on this because I am definitely not a lawyer. Trademarks include the name Tetris, but also identifying markers. For example, if the Tetris logo used a stylized T and yours uses a very similar stylized T. Trademark protects a lot of things that aren't outright infringement, but could lead to a consumer reasonably assuming that your work is related to another work.

 

Cool, thank you for your input, I'm just trying to see if it's worth my time, I think I will go ahead and work on a prototype, I have some cool ideas.

Btw, how da heck did this pass by?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simopr.tetris

 

There's no copyright or trademark police looking at everything. These people could be sued at any moment though, and that's not something you want to risk.

 

By not being popular enough for them to take notice.

 

There's intellectual property, branding, trademarks, etc... Tetris is pretty heavily recognized and protected. That's why people aren't generally allowed to touch it with a barge pole. You can do something 'similar' if you change it in some significant enough way.

 

I think the twists I will put in the game will make it very different and unique, but the game mechanics should be very similar. That is assuming I like the prototype I make and I don't scrap it like the other million projects I scrapped in the past

 

By 'it' do you mean the trade marks or the game itself? You can do something straight up identical to the game as long as you don't use any of their assets, names or logos, you can't copyright or trademark a type of game. See Zynga vs Tiny Tower, they shamelessly copied the game dialog for dialog and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. Also see things like Giana Sisters vs Super Mario Brothers, there's just nothing Nintendo could have done in that case. It's essentially the same game, they even look very similar, but since no assets were copied and they're not trying to call themselves Super Mario Brothers, there's just nothing that could be done to stop them.

 

I seem to remember Tetris having some weird case law around it. Board size, piece configuration, even the position of the preview window.

I would suggest extra care for Tetris. It's particularly old, which means some of the existing provisions in law don't apply to it. And it's also the biggest game of all time. Minecraft is the only thing that comes close.

Both of these things mean there is some weird stuff around it.

 

I think my prototype looks different enough already

 

It is actually possible to use the Tetris music, without violating copyrights. You would just have to use a version that you had produced/performed yourself. But the actual Tetris music is comprised of Russian folk songs that are part of the public domain. (and can't be copyrighted) So as long as you aren't copying/pasting mp3 rips from an earlier version of Tetris, you can still use the original music.

 

I ended up scrapping the idea anyways, my twist was blocks either coming from the top or bottom (That's why there are buttons for top and bottom), the idea is to match 5 blocks of the same color (Horizontally or vertically) to eliminate them, and unlike Tetris, the area where the blocks land is around the score-sheet in the middle, so when the block come up or down you're basically flying it around the screen to find the best fit for it, but then there's the bar at the top which ticks down, so you have to land it before it times out.

I had developed it quite a bit but as I played it, I was not feeling it. Ohh well, at least I know what my options are legally if I want to tackle another classic