- The New York Times filed a copyright claim against Wordle parodies, citing its ownership of the Wordle name and playing style.
- The New York Times, which acquired Wordle in 2022, filed several DMCA notices about Wordle clones created by GitHub coders, citing its ownership of the Wordle name and copyrighted gameplay, including its 5×6 tile layout and gray, yellow and green color scheme. found.
- Ironically, Wordle itself has been criticized for the striking similarities it shares with the 1980s game program Lingo, which relied on players guessing five-letter words and changing colors based on accuracy.
Hundreds of games inspired by the popular web-based word puzzle Wordle are at risk of being deleted due to copyright strikes by The New York Times. As reported by 404 Media The New York Times, which acquired Wordle in 2022, filed several DMCA notices about Wordle clones created by GitHub coders, citing its ownership of the Wordle name and copyrighted gameplay, including its 5×6 tile layout and gray, yellow and green color scheme. found.
Unofficial launch of the game in January Korean And Bosnian Two takedown requests were filed against its versions. This week, additional requests were made for Wirdle, created by the dialect group I Hear Dee to promote the Shaetlan language in 2022, and Reactle, an open-source Wordle clone built using React, TypeScript and Tailwind. According to its developer, Chase Wackerfuss, this game was developed before the Times acquired the game.
According to GitHub, Reactle code has been copied approximately 1,900 times, allowing developers to create a wide variety of Wordle-inspired games that use different languages, themes, and visual styles. Some of them say 404 Media is “significantly different” from Wordle. The DMCA notice against Reactle also takes aim at all those games on GitHub that were forked from the original Reactle code, claiming that spin-offs containing the Wordle name were made “in bad faith” and that the Reactle repository “copied the game verbatim.” Multiple developers commenting on a Hacker News thread also claim to have been targeted with DMCA takedowns.
Reactle coder Wackerfuss removed the game, telling 404 Media that he didn’t want to get into a legal battle with the Times.
The Times said in a statement to 404 Media:
The Times has no problem with people creating similar word games that do not infringe the Times’ “Wordle” trademarks or copyrighted games. The Times took action against a GitHub user and others who shared his code to defend its intellectual property rights in Wordle. The user created a “Wordle clone” project that taught others how to create a knockoff version of Times’ Wordle game that included many of the same copyrighted elements. As a result, hundreds of websites began to appear featuring copycat ‘Wordle’ games that used the Times’ ‘Wordle’ trademark and copyrighted game without authorization or permission.
Ironically, Wordle itself has been criticized for the striking similarities it shares with the 1980s game program Lingo, which relied on players guessing five-letter words and changing colors based on accuracy.
Compiled by: Alp Eren Gümüş