Gizmodo Editor-in-Chief Dan Ackerman Sues Apple, Alleging ‘Tetris’ Movie Ripped Off His E book

Aug 8 (Reuters) – Dan Ackerman, editor in chief of the tech-news online page online Gizmodo, filed a lawsuit in Ny federal courtroom on Monday accusing Apple (AAPL.O), the Tetris Firm and others of adapting his e-book about the landmark on-line game “Tetris” proper into a feature movie with out his permission.

Ackerman said he despatched his e-book “The Tetris Develop” in 2016 to the Tetris Firm, which allegedly copied it for the movie and threatened to sue him if he pursued his have movie or tv spinoffs.

The “Tetris” movie premiered on the Apple TV platform in March. Ackerman requested the courtroom for money damages equaling at least 6% of the movie’s $80 million production funds.

Representatives for Apple and the Tetris Firm did not straight away reply to requests for comment on the lawsuit on Tuesday.

Ackerman’s attorney Kevin Landau said on Tuesday that the lawsuit “targets to apt a defective and provide the dignity and justice to the work, diligence and possession of any individual who is entitled to such respect and acknowledgment below the law.”

Ackerman’s “The Tetris Develop: The Sport That Hypnotized the World” used to be printed in 2016. The e-book describes the Soviet historic past of the favored puzzle game and the fight for its global licensing rights as a “Cool War thriller with a political intrigue perspective,” in keeping with Ackerman’s lawsuit.

The lawsuit said that Ackerman despatched a pre-publication reproduction of the e-book to the Tetris Firm earlier that year. He said the corporate refused to license its mental property for tasks linked to his e-book, dissuading producers who were drawn to adapting it, and despatched him a “strongly worded discontinue and desist letter.”

In step with the complaint, the corporate’s CEO Maya Rogers and screenwriter Noah Crimson started copying Ackerman’s e-book for the “Tetris” screenplay starting up in 2017. Ackerman said the movie “liberally borrowed hundreds of particular sections and events of the e-book” and used to be “the same in virtually all cloth respects” to it.

Ackerman accused Apple and the Tetris Firm of copyright infringement, unfair competitors, and illegally interfering with his enterprise family.

The case is Ackerman v. Crimson, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:23-cv-06952.

For Ackerman: Kevin Landau of the Landau Neighborhood

For the defendants: attorney data no longer yet readily accessible

Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington

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