Abstract:
After being strongly criticized by the official Tetris company and receiving a severe copyright infringement warning, the US White House has quietly removed the web game called "Build the Wall" from its official website. The game previously aroused strong condemnation from the global gaming industry, civil rights organizations and legal experts for highly plagiarizing the classic game "Tetris" and incorporating extreme anti-immigrant and racist metaphors.
A few days ago, the White House launched a batch of low-resolution retro web games in the new online "arcade" section of its official website, aiming to use gamification to promote its politics and border policies. Among them, the block stacking game called "Build the Wall" caused the most controversy. The game directly applies the iconic four-connected falling block mechanism of "Tetris", but maliciously tampered with its core rules and art: falling blocks cannot be resolved by eliminating rows. Players must continue to stack the blocks into a wall at the bottom line marked "Southern Border" to block the approaching animated "zombie army" below. The operating instructions are blatantly filled with provocative slogans that dehumanize and demean immigrants, such as "Resist the incoming hordes."
This approach immediately led to a public counterattack by Tetris Company, the official intellectual property holder of "Tetris". The company issued a formal statement on social platforms to clearly draw a line, emphasizing that Tetris firmly believes in "the power of connection and unity between people, not division" and clearly clarified that the company has never participated in the development of the "Build the Wall" game, nor has it authorized or licensed any brand or intellectual property to the White House. The statement comes with a stern warning at the end of the article, stating bluntly that "we take copyright infringement extremely seriously," implying that we will not rule out taking legal measures to protect our rights.
In addition to copying the underlying gameplay and visual elements of "Tetris", the White House also appropriated SEGA's classic opening sound effects and spoofed them as political slogans when promoting the arcade project. It also copied classic and well-known IPs such as "Flappy Bird" and Snake in other mini-games, triggering a chain of controversies involving potential infringement by many major multinational game companies. At the same time, border human rights groups and ethnic minority rights protection organizations also protested, criticizing the official for turning a joke on immigration issues involving humanitarian care into cheap political propaganda to fight zombies, which seriously deviated from the ethical bottom line that government agencies should have.
Under the double pressure of the risk of legal proceedings and turbulent public opinion, the White House finally chose to end the matter in a low-key manner. At present, the copycat game has completely disappeared from the White House Arcade Zone. The original page has been redirected or offline. The White House official has not issued any further official statement on this removal. Legal observers point out that although government departments often try to defend themselves on the grounds of "parody" or political freedom of speech in their propaganda, unauthorized pixel-level copying of core graphic assets and proprietary interaction mechanisms that are strictly protected by commercial copyright laws still faces a huge risk of infringement and failure. This time, the White House quickly gave in and removed the product, indicating that in the face of mature digital copyright laws, even the country's top administrative agencies cannot cross the red line of intellectual property compliance.
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