Aug 8 (Reuters) - Dan Ackerman, editor in chief of the tech-news website Gizmodo, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on Monday accusing Apple (AAPL.O), the Tetris Company and others of adapting his book about the landmark video game “Tetris” into a feature film without his permission.
The book describes the Soviet history of the popular puzzle game and the fight for its global licensing rights as a “Cold War thriller with a political intrigue angle,” according to Ackerman’s lawsuit.
He said the company refused to license its intellectual property for projects related to his book, dissuading producers who were interested in adapting it, and sent him a “strongly worded cease and desist letter.”
According to the complaint, the company’s CEO Maya Rogers and screenwriter Noah Pink began copying Ackerman’s book for the “Tetris” screenplay starting in 2017.
Ackerman said the film “liberally borrowed numerous specific sections and events of the book” and was “similar in almost all material respects” to it.
Ackerman accused Apple and the Tetris Company of copyright infringement, unfair competition, and illegally interfering with his business relations.