The New York Times is looking for copies of Wordle, a word-guessing game Acquired for seven figures in 2022. It also used takedown notifications to remove 1,900 versions of the game on GitHub.
At the heart of the situation is the game “reaction,” Wordle impersonator created in React JavaScript by developer Chase Wackerfuss. The New York Times this week sent a DMCA takedown request to Wackerfuss, claiming it violated its Wordle copyright, the Times reported. 404 media. While Wackerfuss didn’t mention Wordle by name, he described Reactle as “an open source version of the word guessing game we all know and love” and uploaded the code to a GitHub repository. (Wackerfuss claims that he wrote Reactle with a friend before The New York Times acquired Wordle in 2022).
Since then, Reactle’s code has been forked or copied by other developers to make their own versions of the game more than 1,900 times. Some developers have created versions of the game in different languages, including Hungarian and Farsi. Others create versions based on specific themes. For example, “Birdle”, a fork of Reactle, is a clone of Wordle where users have to guess the name of a specific bird.
The Times isn’t happy with Reactle or its hundreds of forks—and for good reason. Gaming has become an increasingly important part of media organizations, and Wordle is one of the biggest hits. Earlier this year, axios reports Wordle was played 4.8 billion times last year. Times executives told Axios that the company is committed to becoming “the premier puzzle subscription destination.” Currently, it only sells game subscriptions for $6 a month, but Wordle remains free.
The New York Times said in its DMCA takedown request that its copyright covers unique elements of Wordle’s gameplay, and claimed that Wackerfuss copied those elements in full. It also asked GitHub to delete all forks of Reactle.
“The Times’ copyright for Wordle includes unique elements of its popular game, such as a 5×6 grid, green squares for correct guesses, yellow squares for correct letters but in the wrong position in the word, and a 5×6 grid just below the grid. Keyboard,” a New York Times lawyer wrote in the request, which was sent to GitHub and then to Wackerfuss. “This gameplay is copied exactly into the repository and the owner instructs others on how to complete the game and create an identical word game.”
To be fair, the archived version of Reactle saved to the Internet Archive does look like Wordle, just without the sleek, period-style design. Wackerfuss told 404 Media that he decided to remove Reactle from GitHub after learning of the removal request.
“GitHub sent me a message and I was like, you know what, fuck this. I’m not going to litigate with the New York Times, so it’s not worth it to me, I just deleted the game,” Wackerfer said Si told the media.
When contacted by Gizmodo, Wackerfuss declined to comment on the situation with Reactle and The Times. However, he told 404 Media that his actions were not “malicious.”
“To me, Wordle is like Tetris or a deck of cards. It’s such a simple premise,” Wackerfuss said. “You look at what people do with GitHub repositories, it’s like a Taylor Swift version of all different types of languages. The New York Times will never build those, so I’m not sure Why do they feel we have violated their intellectual property rights?”
Meanwhile, The Times sent Gizmodo the following statement when asked about Reactle, specifically requesting that its statement be printed in full:
“The New York Times has no objection to individuals creating similar word games that do not infringe The New York Times’ ‘Wordle’ trademark or copyrighted gameplay. The New York Times took action against a GitHub user and others who shared their code action to defend its intellectual property rights in Wordle. The user created a “Wordle clone” project to instruct others on how to create knock-off versions of the Times Wordle game that contained many of the same copyrighted elements. Results , copycat “Wordle” games began popping up on hundreds of sites that used The Times’ “Wordle” trademark and copyrighted gameplay without authorization or permission. GitHub offers users a way to change their code and remove the reference to Wordle, but he declined.”
It’s unclear whether the 1,900 Wordle clones based on Wackerfuss’ code will also disappear anytime soon. GitHub declined to comment on whether it was taking action on the Reactle fork.
“We thoroughly review all DMCA takedown requests,” GitHub told Gizmodo in an emailed statement. “If we find that the request is sufficiently detailed, we will publish it to our public repository and provide affected users the opportunity to make changes before processing.”