Comments on: Only the Obvious can be Protected – on Games and Copyright

By: Patch Wednesday #4: Where did Threes come from? A History Example | The Ludologist

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 20:27:45 +0000

[…] Life is not fair, of course, and it seems a shame that someone can borrow from the game that someone else developed and through a minor change reap the seeds of the iterative design process of someone else. But you cannot copyright game ideas, only their expression. […]

By: The Ludologist » More protection for game design

The Ludologist » More protection for game design — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:06:48 +0000

[…] protection for game design Following the Tetris lawsuit and the ongoing EA-Zynga lawsuit, Greg Lastowka comments on the ruling in the Triple Town / Yeti Town cloning […]

By: Jesper

Jesper — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 02:00:30 +0000

@Carl The principal stance is that game ideas cannot be patented though it probably has happened – what patents are you thinking of?

@Justin I agree, but that’s the basic problem of distinguishing between idea and expression.
Between Chess and Tetris though, there is a difference in what we think of being *that* game. Chess is a very narrow game in which you cannot really change any rule and still call it Chess. Tetris is much broader – we will accept a lot more variation while still calling it Tetris.

By: Justin Alexander

Justin Alexander — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:29:19 +0000

I find the Tetris decision really hard to swallow. Because while some of the things the judge cites seem like potentially protected expression (the changing colors for locked pieces and the appearance of squares automatically filling the game board), the vast majority of what he cites as protected expression is clearly and (I would have thought) self-evidently part of the rules of the game. These include:

– the dimensions of the playing field
– the appearance of “garbage” lines
– the display of the next piece to fall

If you’re going to maintain that, for example, the dimensions of a Chess board aren’t part of the rules of Chess, then it seems that the principle of “you can’t copyright the rules of a game” doesn’t really mean anything at all.

By: Carl Muckenhoupt

Carl Muckenhoupt — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:38:22 +0000

Doesn’t this just mean that patent and copyright are basically complementary, though? Game ideas can be and have been patented, so it’s not like the “core” is without possibility of legal protection.