By Joe Hernandez

By Joe Hernandez

Wednesday, March 13, 2024 • 5:00 AM EDT

The New York Times has sent takedown notices to "hundreds" of coders
who've made clones of the popular word game, Wordle.

Wordle is a hit online sensation where players have to guess a
five-letter word in six tries. Since the newspaper bought it in 2022
from creator Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle, the word game has
spawned a litany of [1]spinoffs, from the more complex Quordle to the
irreverent Sweardle.

Now, the Times is accusing some Wordle clone creators of copyright
infringement violations and asking that their code be removed from the
website GitHub, a platform that lets developers publicly share their
code. The news was [2]first reported last week by 404 Media.

The Times has filed at least three Digital Millennium Copyright Act
takedown requests since January with coders on GitHub over allegations
related to Wordle, 404 Media reported. The law allows copyright holders
to request that any material infringing on their copyright be removed
from the internet, according to the [3]Copyright Alliance.

One of those takedown requests went to Minneapolis software engineer
Chase Wackerfuss, who created a clone called Reactle. Programmers could
use Reactle's code repository—the website's term for where code and
other files are stored—to create Wordle spinoffs of their own.

The notice requested that Reactle's code repository as well as any
repository created by a coder who used Reactle's code — or "forked" it
— be deleted.
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Related Story: [4]Here's what's behind the Wordle c-r-a-z-e
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Times spokesperson Jordan Cohen said "hundreds of people" were notified
via GitHub, and issued the following statement:

"The Times has no issue with individuals creating similar word games
that do not infringe The Times's "Wordle" trademarks or copyrighted
gameplay. 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 instructed
others how to create a knock-off version of The Times's Wordle game
featuring many of the same copyrighted elements. As a result,
hundreds of websites began popping up with knock-off "Wordle" games
that used The Times's "Wordle" trademark and copyrighted gameplay
without authorization or permission. GitHub provided the user with
an opportunity to alter his code and remove references to Wordle,
but he declined."

According to the takedown request posted by 404 Media, the Gray Lady
argued that some of those copyrighted elements include Wordle's green
and yellow tiles indicating correct letter guesses as well as its 5x6
grid.

Reactle's creator Wackerfuss told NPR in a statement that he removed
its repository from GitHub after receiving the takedown notice from the
Times, and that his heart went out to the developers who had used
Reactle to create word games of their own.
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Related Story: [5]Twitter boots a bot that revealed Wordle's upcoming
words to the game's players
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"Over the last two years, thousands of people have helped contribute,
either directly or indirectly, to Reactle. Whether their motivation was
to learn software engineering, contribute their skills to improving the
project, or fork the code and build a game, the intention was always to
learn and have fun," Wackerfuss said.

"It's just a shame we're losing this software and the community around
it."

The Times [6]said in a May 2022 press release of its financial results
that Wordle had enticed "an unprecedented tens of millions of new
users" to the outlet and it had had its "best quarter ever for net
subscriber additions to Games."

References

1. https://text.npr.org/2022/01/23/1075168693/youve-heard-of-wordle-now-get-ready-for-sweardle-and-absurdle
2. https://www.404media.co/nytimes-files-copyright-takedowns-against-hundreds-of-wordle-clones/
3. https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explained/the-digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca/dmca-notice-takedown-process/#:~:text=What Is a DMCA Takedown,websites and other internet sites.
4. https://text.npr.org/1071840091
5. https://text.npr.org/1075850159
6. https://s23.q4cdn.com/152113917/files/doc_news/2022/05/NYT-Press-Release-3.27.2022-Final-O2ACvs2.pdf