There was lots of Wordle clones even before The New York Times received A real thing in 2022, so much so that they’ve become a common sight in app stores. It seems The Times has recently been trying to reduce the number of Wordle knockoffs by sending DMCA takedown notices to its developers. whom 404 Media According to reports, the latest notice sent by the news organization may not only remove the target game itself, but also thousands of other alternatives and spinoffs.
The Times The latest DMCA notice was filed against Chase Wackerfuss, the man behind the Wordle clone called Reactle. In its notice, the publication stated that GitHub should remove the offending repository and hundreds of forked repositories based on it. Wackerfuss has already fallen to the ground Reactle’s GitHub page – he said 404 Media It was not worth getting into a legal battle with The New York Times and just deleted the repository. According to the publication, however, it was forked 1,900 times before it was removed and was used to create versions of Wordle in dozens of different languages, as well as spinoffs with different twists. Some of these spinoffs have evolved Wordle into crossword puzzles and two-player games, while others have evolved it into guessing games that use emojis and other symbols instead of letters and words.
Upon request for removal The Times A newsletter sent to Reactle claims ownership of the Wordle name as well as its mechanics. “Wordle by The Times includes unique elements of its wildly popular game, such as a 5×6 grid, green tiles to indicate correct guesses, yellow tiles to indicate the correct letter but the wrong location within the word, and a keyboard directly below the grid,” the DMCA notice reads. . “This game is being copied exactly on the repository and the owner is teaching others how to stop the game and create the same pun.” Although Wordle has a fairly simple premise—I could easily create a simpler but similar word-guessing game when I took a basic programming course—this takedown request likely won’t end for its clones and alternatives.
