NEW YORK — The New York Times is fighting Wordle’s “clones” – arguing that numerous games inspired by the mega-popular word guessing game infringe on its copyright protection.
Hundreds of copycats have emerged since Wordle rose to internet fame less than three years ago. And now the Times, which bought the game in 2022, is sending takedown notices to the people behind some of the look-alikes.
The Times has filed several Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA) takedown notices with developers of Wordle-inspired games, alleging infringement of the Times’ ownership of the Wordle name, as well as its look and feel, such as the lay -out and the color. scheme of green, gray and yellow tiles.
In a prepared statement, a spokesperson for the New York Times Co. said. that the company has no problem with people creating similar word games that do not infringe on Wordle’s “trademarks or copyrighted gameplay.” But the company took action against one user on the software development platform GitHub who created a “Wordle clone” project with instructions for creating a “imitation version” of Wordle, and against others who shared his code.
“As a result, hundreds of websites appeared offering fake ‘Wordle’ games using The Times’ ‘Wordle’ trademark and copyrighted gameplay without permission or permission,” the spokesperson said.
GitHub gave the user the option to change the code and remove Wordle references, the spokesperson added, but he declined.
The Times’ DMCA takedown notices were first reported last week by tech outlet 404. Numerous affected developers have also taken to social media to share their frustrations. Many said their games, ranging from Wordle-like offerings in other languages to more guessing games, would be removed as a result.
Vignesh Venkat, a California-based software engineer, said he built his variant of Wordle several years ago, when the game first became popular. His game, Hardle, was initially created for a friend’s gender reveal event, where guests encouraged him to post it online for public consumption.
Venkat said he had forgotten his game since then and only played it sporadically in recent years when friends were reminded.
“I don’t know what they’re really going to get out of this,” he said. “I mean, (the Times) probably has millions of people playing their game, and there are hundreds or thousands of people playing mine.”
Robert Brauneis, a professor of intellectual property law at George Washington University’s law school, added that a German-language Wordle spinoff he and his wife played that was once found on “wordle.at” appears to have been removed in the last two weeks – indicating that a takedown request may have also been received.
As of Monday, a message on the wordle.at site, now called “Gridgames,” states that the game has been voluntarily removed after receiving a “complaint citing U.S. trademark law.”
The Times spokesperson told The Associated Press on Monday that the company first contacted GitHub about the breach issues on Jan. 2, noting that hundreds of people have since been notified through GitHub.
In a statement to the AP, a GitHub spokesperson said the platform “thoroughly reviews all DMCA takedown requests” and gives affected users a chance to make changes before processing them.
DMCA notices act as a tool for copyright holders to remove content that infringes on their intellectual property. Affected users can still fight to keep what they published, but that opens up the possibility of costly lawsuits. As a result, many do not contest the takedowns.
Still, Brauneis says he believes the Times’ arguments for Wordle’s copyright infringement are on “a bit of shaky ground” for several reasons. For example, the rules of a game are not subject to copyright – and that can include the layout of the game. himself, he said.
“If you use that six-by-five grid to implement game rules (for correctly guessing a word) … I don’t think that grid is copyrightable,” Brauneis, who specializes in intellectual property law, told the AP. “It is determined by the rules of the game.”
Which brings us to a game’s color scheme, which some media companies have successfully copyrighted in the past. Still, Brauneis notes that Wordle’s registration with the U.S. Copyright Office lists only the computer code and specific text instructions, but not colors or images.
Copyrighted code “doesn’t protect you from someone who would just write their own code to implement a similar game,” Brauneis said. And while it’s possible an application is in the works to extend Wordle’s copyright, the current absence of color or images in the registration means potential lawsuits are “a little thinner,” he said.
Brauneis added that the trademark on Wordle’s name, while enforceable, does not belong in a DMCA notice because copyright is separate from trademark law.
Software engineer Josh Wardle created the daily puzzle game and made it public in 2021. In January 2022, he sold Wordle to the Times for a reported seven-figure payday.
The game grew in popularity and became a viral sensation that inspired other games such as ‘Heardle’, the music version of Wordle, where you guess the name of a song within six listens, and ‘Queerdle’, which uses words related to the queer community.
On Friday, the Times will celebrate the 1,000 Wordle puzzle with what they’re calling a “nationwide PARTY,” inspired by previous Wordle answers.