Photo: Apple/The Tetris Company
‘Legal Action Launched Against Apple and the Tetris Company’
The upcoming Apple TV+ film Tetris has been accused of being a copy of a book written several years ago, according to a lawsuit filed against Apple and the Tetris Company. Dan Ackerman, the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, claims that the plaintiffs plagiarized his book The Tetris Effect, which presents the game’s history as a Cold War-era thriller. In a lawsuit filed against the tech giant and the Tetris Company, Ackerman alleges that he shared a pre-publication copy of his book with the company’s CEO, Maya Rogers, in 2016. However, he later received a cease and desist letter preventing him from pursuing film and TV opportunities.
Ackerman further accuses Rogers of collaborating with screenwriter Noah Pink to develop a screenplay based on his book without his knowledge or consent. Despite interest from multiple producers, the Tetris Company refused to grant a license for the project. The lawsuit claims that this was done intentionally to allow Rogers and the Tetris Company to profit from Ackerman’s work without compensating him.
In his complaint, Ackerman highlights that licensing their work for film and TV is usually a significant source of revenue for writers. Therefore, he perceives the Tetris Company’s actions as an “economic attack” on his business rather than an attempt to protect their intellectual property. To support his claim, Ackerman provides a detailed list of similarities between his book and the film in the lawsuit. While some of these similarities are based on real-life events, it remains to be seen if the court will side with Ackerman. He is seeking actual, compensatory, and punitive damages amounting to 6 percent of the film’s $80 million production budget.