Talk:Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc./GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Colin M (talk · contribs) 00:01, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Stay tuned for initial thoughts/feedback. :) Colin M (talk) 00:01, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Hey. Nice work on the article! Initial comments below, roughly in order from beginning to end of the article. Most of these are just issues of wording/grammar/formatting which should be pretty easy to correct, though there are also a few areas where I think some more detail is required.

Feel free to reply inline if that's easier, and let me know if you disagree with the substance of any of these comments, or if you think they're outside the scope of WP:GACR.


 * Suggest mentioning the time and place in the intro (e.g. "is a 2012 US legal case..."). (I get that this is sort of redundant with the abbreviated info in the first sentence, but a lay reader might just gloss over "863 F.Supp.2d 394 (D.N.J. 2012)" as alphabet soup.)
 * Done. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Copyright should generally not be capitalized unless it's part of a title or named entity
 * Fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * to other game developers Does "other" make sense? My impression was that Tetris Holdings was not itself a game developer.
 * Fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * The District Court This should probably not be capitalized. Similar to "the president" vs. "President Biden".
 * Fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * the their art style
 * Fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * to manage the Tetris rights and licenses to other game developers in order to standardize certain game elements. Wording issue here. One doesn't usually talk about "managing a right to someone". Also second part of the sentence is confusing. It seems to be saying the reason for licensing the rights was "to standardize certain game elements". Isn't the reason for licensing an IP usually to make money?
 * This is based on their stated goals in an interview. You're right that this leaves out the obvious reasons you start a company and go to the trouble of protecting your IP rights. So I tried to rephrase in a way that is truer to reality while still being true to the source. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Golden carefully worded the marketing of the game to avoid all references to Tetris, outside of a disclaimer which read: "Mino and Xio Interactive are not affiliated with Tetris™ or the Tetris Company™". I see the quote in the cited source (on the first page), but is there a page number that verifies the part about the text not containing any other references to Tetris?
 * This is from a previous editor and is probably too much of an interpretation so I went closer to the source. Speaking of which I don't know how GA credit works but I would want to share credit if this passes. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Although Mino was not the first Tetris clone, it became one of the most successful with more than six million downloads. Just as a matter of course, statistics like this should be cited.
 * This part too. I've rephrased to be more careful. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Be mindful of overlinking. The "Legal principles" section has a few wikilinks that are a shade gratuitous, like gameplay, stock, and legal doctrine.
 * Cut this down. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * The Xio case emerged as the first major case in a long time to proceed to trial on this issue. Would be good to be a bit more specific than just "a long time". Are we talking years? Decades?
 * The source says "copyright cases were settled between the mid-90’s up and through the mid-2000’s, but the overall scarcity of these lawsuits still resulted in the releaseof countless  “clones”  of  formerly  released  games." I shall try to write the right wording. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * "District court" seems like sort of a weird heading - in that the section isn't talking about the court itself. Not sure what alternative would be best. "Ruling"? "Judgement"? "Court findings"?
 * Agree and fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * There's some inconsistency going on with italicization (or not) of the names of legal cases.
 * Fixed. Let me know if I missed any. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Judge Wolfson reviewed two of the five claims brought by Tetris What of the other 3?
 * I don't see this in the source and it seems unimportant. I removed it. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * and that prior to publishing the game, had sought a license I think you need a pronoun here
 * Rephrased. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * While the New Jersey district court was within the Third Circuit and which had... wording
 * Rephrased. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * were found to have been ruled in the same manner as the AFC test, according to Wolfson, and thus was applicable to the Mino case verb agreement issue here
 * Rephrased. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * The article only goes as far as saying that "details of the art style" were found to be infringing. I think it's important to give specifics on what some of those details were. For example, the Wired story mentions "same style of pieces, the same dimensions of the playing field and the same manner in which the pieces move and rotate". I imagine there might be further such specifics in other sources, including the judgement itself. (Actually, I just checked the judgement and it has an itemized list, so this should be easy.)
 * Added more detail. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * ...much more closely than a game like Dr. Mario, a game utilized the rules of Tetris in... missing word?
 * Rephrased. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Wolfson also agreed with Tetris Holdings that Mino's trade dress violated their trade dress, since the look and feel was too similar to Tetris but was not essential to the operation of the game. Is it possible to clarify how this differs from the other finding about copyright?
 * Added more detail. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Wolfson subsequently granted summary judgment in Tetris's favor on both counts in May 2012, which required Xio to withdraw the game from the App Store. Having a hard time verifying the second part of this sentence in either of the cited sources. Do you have page numbers or quotes? Also, just to be clear, is this saying that withdrawal from the App Store was the only consequence? i.e. no monetary damages?
 * Found a better source for this and tried to match its language. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Legal scholars have included this decision in a wave of cases that have pushed the boundaries of video game copyright protection, along with Electronic Arts Inc. v. Zynga Inc Since there's no wikilink for this case, I would include the year
 * Good point. I may create this article when I'm done here. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * For example, shortly after the decision in Xio,... Not clear how this "For example" relates to what came before.
 * Fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * that a specific selection or arrangement of those devices would quality as unique expression, and thus copyrightable. Minor parallelism issue here. I think "and thus be copyrightable" would be more grammatical and read more smoothly.
 * Good point and fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the wikilink to Counterfeit consumer goods on "knock off" is unnecessary. Video game clone seems like a more salient wikilink target. (It's already linked in the intro, but I don't mind a repeat link this far down. But also fine to just leave the text unlinked.)
 * Fixed. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Much of the RS coverage mentions certain aspects of Mino that differentiate it from baseline Tetris, particularly multiplayer. Probably worth mentioning this (probably in the "Facts" section?).
 * Added. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin M (talk) 19:30, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I have been looking forward to this for a while and I'm going to do my best. Starting in one at a time now. Jorahm (talk) 16:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the review. I will be busy for the next few days but I will try to be back if there are more notes. Jorahm (talk) 18:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the adjustments. The article is looking great. A few further tiny issues I noticed while doing a final pass:
 * Mino also admitted that they had sought a license to Tetris from Tetris Holdings, who turned them down. Do you really mean "Mino" here rather than Golden?
 * stressing that video games were only covered by through their expression wording
 * inconsistent italicization of scènes à faire

Also, the following are just some suggestions on how I think the article could be improved even further, but these are not requirements for GA: Colin M (talk) 16:39, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * it might be helpful to add a link to the opinion in an "External links" section at the end. I see it's already linked in the infobox, but I think it could be easily missed, and in my experience it's pretty common for links in infoboxes to be repeated in an EL section.
 * this is the most picayune of nitpicks, but I would recommend avoiding generic auto-generated ref names like ":0", ":1", ":2", etc. Having a name that's related to the source (e.g. "gamasutra 6 cases") makes it easier to read and edit the wikitext. And it's not uncommon to have a case where a citation ends up pointing to a completely unrelated source because an editor removed the source that was labelled, say, ":0", and then someone added a new source which got automatically assigned the ":0" label again.
 * I think perhaps the "Impact" section could be condensed to around half of its current length. Some of the broader content (e.g. the second paragraph) feels like it might be more at home in an article like Intellectual property protection of video games, and the first and third paragraphs feel a little repetitive to me. But it's really a matter of taste.
 * I took your suggestions for improving the article further. I didn't try to fix the auto-generated refs because I have used them a lot and I wouldn't want to break anything. Let me know if there's anything else. Thanks again. Jorahm (talk) 20:57, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm satisfied that this meets all the GA criteria. Thanks for your responsiveness and spirit of cooperation and collaboration during the review - it's been a pleasure. Nice work! Colin M (talk) 15:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm satisfied that this meets all the GA criteria. Thanks for your responsiveness and spirit of cooperation and collaboration during the review - it's been a pleasure. Nice work! Colin M (talk) 15:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)