A few days ago a brilliant documentary resurfaced on Digg that gives an inside look at the final years of the Soviet Union, and one of its first experiences with global capitalism and copyrights.
The BBC documentary Tetris – From Russia With Love (60 mins) covers the official history of one of the world’s most addictive video games. The story starts with the creation of the game by a scientist in the Computer Center of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Soon the drama begins as Atari, Nintendo and Mirrorsoft send representatives to Moscow to negotiate licensing rights during the era of glastnost. Each of the reps faces ELORG — the typical Soviet bureaucratic monolith — in a tense meeting all describe as being like an interrogation. It is all very cloak and dagger, an amazingly dramatic story, fun for both gamers and aspiring Sovietologists alike.
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