The New York Times has requested that I shut the archive down(devangthakkar.com)
devangthakkar.com
The New York Times has requested that I shut the archive down
https://www.devangthakkar.com/wordle_archive/
106 comments
> ...update the JS each day with the new word
Even more hands off than that. The script contained the entire list of words and each day it just moved to the next entry in the list. It makes sense, in that originating as a fun personal project the author wouldn't want to be burdened with a daily update task.
Edit:
Out of curiosity I had a look at the Wordle on the NYT site, and it's still the same script.
Even more hands off than that. The script contained the entire list of words and each day it just moved to the next entry in the list. It makes sense, in that originating as a fun personal project the author wouldn't want to be burdened with a daily update task.
Edit:
Out of curiosity I had a look at the Wordle on the NYT site, and it's still the same script.
That’s a perfect example of solving for the problem you have and not over engineering.
It's also a perfect example of actually understanding the problem you're trying to solve (which is a prerequisite for not overengineering).
Wordle is a tiny word puzzle game with no stakes. So, while this architecture makes it trivially easy to cheat, there's also zero reason to do so. You're just robbing yourself of the fun in order to... do what, exactly? Brag about it?
Wordle is a tiny word puzzle game with no stakes. So, while this architecture makes it trivially easy to cheat, there's also zero reason to do so. You're just robbing yourself of the fun in order to... do what, exactly? Brag about it?
Unfortunately it also allows to rob other people of the fun, as there has been multiple Twitter bots spreading the future words. I think one even replied to people's Wordle score tweets.
If it weren't stored in the JS, the twitter bots could have just played the game quickly and found the answer. Making is slightly more annoying wouldn't deter them.
That'd only apply to today's answer. Now they're able to tweet the answers for the next week.
Don’t you think that a bot could not brute force everyday’s wordle every morning for a tiny amount of processing power? There are solving strategies out there that will solve it with a minimum amount of attempts. So all it would do is add a tiny delay to todays bot being a nuisance.
That’s still slightly different though. If the bots were just for today’s word, and I were the type of person who likes posting my streaks, I could realistically avoid checking twitter until I’ve solved today’s puzzle. If instead the bots are posting future solutions, it’s much harder to avoid having something spoiled.
Well... Aren't the twitter bots then the bad actor?
I wouldn't complain that wikipedia exists when I am answering a quiz...
I don't think a more complex wordle implementation would solve this. If the whole world is guessing the same word, there will always be someone that tries to spoil it for others, just because they can.
I wouldn't complain that wikipedia exists when I am answering a quiz...
I don't think a more complex wordle implementation would solve this. If the whole world is guessing the same word, there will always be someone that tries to spoil it for others, just because they can.
> Well... Aren't the twitter bots then the bad actor?
Of course. But what does that matter? All you've done is assign blame. The person still had their game experience ruined. With a different design, that might not have been possible. This is like spam protection -- it's not Gmail's fault that you're receiving spam, but they're the ones in a position to stop it.
Of course. But what does that matter? All you've done is assign blame. The person still had their game experience ruined. With a different design, that might not have been possible. This is like spam protection -- it's not Gmail's fault that you're receiving spam, but they're the ones in a position to stop it.
At a certain point, it becomes more efficient to consider it societies problem.
If bad actors in person went door-to-door attempting to break in by picking locks, would you say that it is purely the responsibility of the homeowner to ensure that their locks are strong enough?
If bad actors in person went door-to-door attempting to break in by picking locks, would you say that it is purely the responsibility of the homeowner to ensure that their locks are strong enough?
At a "certain point" sure, but I don't think Wordle spoilers rise to the level of "society-level" problems. If we're not at that point with spam email, I can't imagine we're at that point with Wordle spoilers.
That's a good example of how just a few malicious knobs ruin the fun for everyone else. I suppose blocking those bots isn't difficult but the fact that someone went out of their way to code one is so sad.
Agreed but I do think a lot of people project into the future about “what could be a problem” and solve for that. I would guess it’s very common. I’ve seen it done and done it myself. You say to yourself “well if this becomes popular, I won’t want people to know the next word”, which sounds reasonable but it stops things from getting done.
Hence the "actually understanding" part, that's precisely the point. What is, vs what could be.
A hard lesson I've learned for naming things, is that it's almost always better to name something for what it _is_, _right now_, than for what you think it should eventually become.
But if that is the case, then that would not apply to the wordle archive, right?
If the list of words for every day is encoded into a static code, why does the wordle archive need to crawl the site each day, or set the system time to different days, just to get the words for different days... Seems to be a bit over engineered to me...
If the list of words for every day is encoded into a static code, why does the wordle archive need to crawl the site each day, or set the system time to different days, just to get the words for different days... Seems to be a bit over engineered to me...
The NYT removed a few words from the original list that were seen as more obscure, but otherwise it seems like they just copy-pasted the client-side code.
> Out of curiosity I had a look at the Wordle on the NYT site, and it's still the same script.
Really? I had a feeling the game/wordlist changed somewhat after the move to nyt - I guessed they'd put some crossword cryptist on it... But I suppose I was wrong.
Ed: AFAIK the js uses the client side date to pick a word - and today nyt and the ipfs mirror posted here does not share the same solution:
https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html
https://bafybeic4blel5vf4il73n3nzt6vw7npsov6or3cp3myjms4npii...
Really? I had a feeling the game/wordlist changed somewhat after the move to nyt - I guessed they'd put some crossword cryptist on it... But I suppose I was wrong.
Ed: AFAIK the js uses the client side date to pick a word - and today nyt and the ipfs mirror posted here does not share the same solution:
https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html
https://bafybeic4blel5vf4il73n3nzt6vw7npsov6or3cp3myjms4npii...
The wordlist did change. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/02/heres-how-the-new-yor...
Thank you. But that still indicates I was wrong - the possible solutions appear to be essentially the same - even if particularly different. I was surprised to see "slave" as an illegal guess.
But it would appear that the difference in previous solution: stairs vs royal(I think ?) might just be slightly different word lists for the solutions... I thought there was much more of an edit.
But it would appear that the difference in previous solution: stairs vs royal(I think ?) might just be slightly different word lists for the solutions... I thought there was much more of an edit.
They changed some obscure and offensive words initially, but there have been recent news articles around days where people had 2 different solutions to the same puzzle.
Initially I suspected that this was NYT watching for how unusually difficult words play out and then changing the answer on the fly to be a simpler word. But I think in reality these were the same changes they made shortly after the acquisition and somehow people have the old JS file cached locally.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/31/why-wordle-game-284-had-tw...
Initially I suspected that this was NYT watching for how unusually difficult words play out and then changing the answer on the fly to be a simpler word. But I think in reality these were the same changes they made shortly after the acquisition and somehow people have the old JS file cached locally.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/31/why-wordle-game-284-had-tw...
[deleted]
Thank you for the insightful comment.
Someone made an IPFS mirror of Wordle before it got acquired: https://bafybeic4blel5vf4il73n3nzt6vw7npsov6or3cp3myjms4npii...
This link (theoretically) can't be taken down.
This link (theoretically) can't be taken down.
dweb.link points to a IP address owned by Protocol Labs, presumably they own the domain as well. Being a US company, they need to adhere to US law. A take-down request can very well happen, especially since NYT is also a US company. Protocol Labs also seems to have responded to take-down requests before on their gateways.
That link can be "taken down", blocked or limited in other ways.
What can't happen, is that the content it is pointing to, can't be "scrubbed" from the internet. As long as you have the CID (essentially a hash), you'll be able to get it (probably) from some node out there in the world.
That link can be "taken down", blocked or limited in other ways.
What can't happen, is that the content it is pointing to, can't be "scrubbed" from the internet. As long as you have the CID (essentially a hash), you'll be able to get it (probably) from some node out there in the world.
If you have the IPFS Companion[0] browser extension installed (or use Brave, which includes it natively) then the dweb.link URL will be translated automatically into an ipfs:// URL and resolved locally. Blocking the CID at the public gateway, or even taking down the gateway, would have no effect.
[0] https://docs.ipfs.io/install/ipfs-companion/
[0] https://docs.ipfs.io/install/ipfs-companion/
"(theoretically)" is a good simple way to put it, but I wonder what would be simple + more accurate. In theory computers, internet, could be destroyed, or the servers simply shut off, never updated & left to bitrot, etc.
Maybe cannot be "individually" taken down.
Maybe cannot be "individually" taken down.
I would think the copyright holder to the source code (could be the original writer, the NYT, …) would win any case on that.
It’s essentially the same as if someone made an IPFS mirror of the Microsoft Windows source code.
It’s essentially the same as if someone made an IPFS mirror of the Microsoft Windows source code.
Microsoft's been agitated that the Windows source gets put in a torrent every few years. They haven't been able to rid the planet of that, yet. IPFS is a less-efficient DHT, basically. They might "win" a case legally, but they won't actually be able to take anything down. The value of that sort of technology isn't actually the hosting (very easy to keep something available even over traditional HTTP), but a stable URL/URI (less easy to do, but still solved by BitTorrent years ago).
I had one on Yggdrasil[0] before I said meh, and took it down.
[0] - https://yggdrasil-network.github.io
[0] - https://yggdrasil-network.github.io
I'm always surprised by how confused people get about various types of "intellectual property" because they're actually quite different. I'm not a lawyer and I'm sure it varies from one part of the world to another, but generally...
Copyright applies to works & derivative works. Think: movies, music, books, etc.
Patents apply to inventions. Think: methods of doing something to achieve a particular application.
Trademarks apply to things associated with a brand or product. Think: logos, "the Intel sound", the pattern of colours used in the Google logo, the brand name used, particular characters, etc.
I think there can be a little bit of overlap between these, in that a logo might be trademark and also might be a copyrighted work, but generally the distinctions are fairly clear.
Copyright applies to works & derivative works. Think: movies, music, books, etc.
Patents apply to inventions. Think: methods of doing something to achieve a particular application.
Trademarks apply to things associated with a brand or product. Think: logos, "the Intel sound", the pattern of colours used in the Google logo, the brand name used, particular characters, etc.
I think there can be a little bit of overlap between these, in that a logo might be trademark and also might be a copyrighted work, but generally the distinctions are fairly clear.
Well you can't trademark, patent, or copyright fonts. Nor can you do that for fashion (clothing/bags/shoes).
So the companies that make these things, in order to exploit the legal regime for profit, work around it. Such as Louis Vuitton or Nike shoes using trademarks as part of their styling. The fashion isn't copyrightable, but if you were to copy it you would violate their trademarks.
These laws are very arbitrary. Much more than the marketing for them suggests.
For example:
> Patents apply to inventions. Think: methods of doing something to achieve a particular application.
Patents, in the most literal sense, are just algorithms.
They are a series of rules that must be followed to achieve certain "inventions" or solve problems in a particular way.
People read patent's summary describing the invention and think that is the patent. It is not. The actual "meat" of the patent is the series of steps needed to achieve that invention.
The idea that software can both be patentable AND copyrightable just goes to show just how far off the rails the whole "IP" stuff is.
So the companies that make these things, in order to exploit the legal regime for profit, work around it. Such as Louis Vuitton or Nike shoes using trademarks as part of their styling. The fashion isn't copyrightable, but if you were to copy it you would violate their trademarks.
These laws are very arbitrary. Much more than the marketing for them suggests.
For example:
> Patents apply to inventions. Think: methods of doing something to achieve a particular application.
Patents, in the most literal sense, are just algorithms.
They are a series of rules that must be followed to achieve certain "inventions" or solve problems in a particular way.
People read patent's summary describing the invention and think that is the patent. It is not. The actual "meat" of the patent is the series of steps needed to achieve that invention.
The idea that software can both be patentable AND copyrightable just goes to show just how far off the rails the whole "IP" stuff is.
"Well you can't trademark, patent, or copyright fonts."
In the US. They can be protected in the UK, Germany and France.
In the US. They can be protected in the UK, Germany and France.
fortunately for me I hate clothing with logos visible. why would I want to pay someone to advertise for them? I get the others do it to show off their wealth or taste.
This is a modern scourge. I hate it. It's everywhere.
There's absolutely no reason to have visible logos anywhere on clothing or other items unless they're paying you.
There's absolutely no reason to have visible logos anywhere on clothing or other items unless they're paying you.
I would say that patents and copywrite are orthogonal.
A patent, hopefully, captures a truely new and original idea. Where as as copywrite encompass actual work.
One huge problem with patentable ideas is that the idea should not obvious to those in the field, but intails a proof by contradiction. If the idea was obvious to one person, surely it was obvious to many. And is more clearly obvious to anyone who has seen the idea.
Trade marks are only to protect branding, they stop mimicry that doesn’t violate copyright.
Trade secrets are the real secret sauce. They are legally protected and by definition are unpatenable. It’s the only way to keep a competitive edge.
A patent, hopefully, captures a truely new and original idea. Where as as copywrite encompass actual work.
One huge problem with patentable ideas is that the idea should not obvious to those in the field, but intails a proof by contradiction. If the idea was obvious to one person, surely it was obvious to many. And is more clearly obvious to anyone who has seen the idea.
Trade marks are only to protect branding, they stop mimicry that doesn’t violate copyright.
Trade secrets are the real secret sauce. They are legally protected and by definition are unpatenable. It’s the only way to keep a competitive edge.
I mean, it's literally the 70's game "Mastermind" but with letters instead of colours, so any patents are out the window and copyright is dubious at best..
There's no copyright to the rules of the game itself, but its implementation as a work of Javascript is certainly copyrightable, in the same way that the manual of a board game is copyrightable.
There may also be a copyright interest in the "target" and "guessable" word lists as collections, but I'm not certain of the applicable subtleties.
There may also be a copyright interest in the "target" and "guessable" word lists as collections, but I'm not certain of the applicable subtleties.
And the word list & order is definitely copyrightable. But you could probably argue that a list of historic wordles is a factual data set and thus exempt from copyright.
There is (was?) a Word Mastermind. I have a set. Here’s a picture from the internet: https://jouets-retro.fr/3257-thickbox_default/word-mastermin...
And a TV show in France called Motus since forever.
I don't think that's fair. It might be mastermind to anyone who can't speak English - but the gameplay feels very different (and is: it's not about guessing a random sequence, it's about guessing a word based on clues).
It's much closer to hangman.
It's much closer to hangman.
I believe they would have only been able to copyright the actual sequence of words, not the mechanics of the game.
Patent a car? 'Tis but a carriage with engine!
Cars famous for being produced by a single company.
Cars or whatever, I claim that's a significant "but"
A game like Wordle seems fall more or less halfway between a copyright and a patent. There is a lot of gray area on this one.
It feels to me like it could be "IP" from multiple angles:
The name could be a trademark.
The UI treatment could potentially be trademarked.
The implementation could be copyrighted.
The game mechanics could be patented. (not 100% sure how effective this would be, especially since there might be prior art, and since as a game it may not be a useful invention)
The name could be a trademark.
The UI treatment could potentially be trademarked.
The implementation could be copyrighted.
The game mechanics could be patented. (not 100% sure how effective this would be, especially since there might be prior art, and since as a game it may not be a useful invention)
[deleted]
I believe the wordle archive copied the look and feel of the game as well as the daily word list. Maybe it’s that combination of look and feel AND word list that made NYT upset?
I think it's the look and feel that upset NYT, but it's probably the list of words that they used to shut it down. A random list of words is still part of the copyright (even if you reorder them, I think).
I don't think there's much NYT can do about someone creating a functionally identical game with a slightly different list of words.
I don't think there's much NYT can do about someone creating a functionally identical game with a slightly different list of words.
As someone who has worked for the NYT and has also been requested to takedown data later on (I scraped crossword data for fun), I do get why they did this. It’s sucks, but I get why.
Kudos if it was a ‘request’ and hadn’t gone too deep into lawyer mode.
Kudos if it was a ‘request’ and hadn’t gone too deep into lawyer mode.
Lets get preoccupied with some obscure low traffic toy website that was about to be memory holed. Get some very important meetings going on the calendar, throw some billable hours to your lawyer friend, I do get why they did this. It sucks, but I get why.
Kudos for not turning it into a lawsuit.
Kudos for not turning it into a lawsuit.
I don’t get it and it seems like a jerk move and one that the author didn’t do. Now that NYT is trying to maximize commercialization it seems more like how NYT is ruining a good, fun thing.
But I would like to know what I’m missing and appreciate that you may be able to elaborate why.
But I would like to know what I’m missing and appreciate that you may be able to elaborate why.
Why do they do it? I don’t get it at all? Do they lose anything from someone playing an old wordle on this site?
They could offer an archive themselves if they thought that was a positive. They don't, and to me the fact that you can only do one a day is a brilliant yet counterintuitive strategy that helped get Wordle popular. But that strategy is defeated if others offer what they choose not to.
I really like the idea of them being able to say "don't worry, you can't get overly addicted because we only offer one a day and don't let you binge." And as owners of the IP, they do have that right.
I really like the idea of them being able to say "don't worry, you can't get overly addicted because we only offer one a day and don't let you binge." And as owners of the IP, they do have that right.
The brilliance of the strategy is that there's a "today's word". Like how a newspaper has a daily crossword. You feel like you completed today's challenge, and can compare like for like with your friends and family. Having the archive doesn't affect that.
I used the wordle archive so that I could go back to days I missed. That way I can still share the experience with my family even if I've had a really busy day. It's undeniably a positive and I'm upset that I can't do this anymore.
Several of the variants e.g. Quordle have an unlimited play variant, but I've never felt a desire to use it.
I used the wordle archive so that I could go back to days I missed. That way I can still share the experience with my family even if I've had a really busy day. It's undeniably a positive and I'm upset that I can't do this anymore.
Several of the variants e.g. Quordle have an unlimited play variant, but I've never felt a desire to use it.
Right but if there is an archive, and you can play indefinitely, the concept of "today's word" loses its meaning.
And people might start going to the archive instead of the main site, seeing as it has a major features the main site doesn't. (i.e. ability to keep playing) Obviously they don't want that. They want 100% of your concentration to be on today's word. They want you to look forward to tomorrows puzzle where you can play again. Playing archived games decreases that, as you can satisfy your craving that way.
I sort of miss the archive, but at the same time I am glad it is gone. I like that feeling of "I'm done with Wordle for today" without that nagging "but I can do 100 more .... now where did my morning go?"
This is a rare case where I support a company being protective of its IP.
And people might start going to the archive instead of the main site, seeing as it has a major features the main site doesn't. (i.e. ability to keep playing) Obviously they don't want that. They want 100% of your concentration to be on today's word. They want you to look forward to tomorrows puzzle where you can play again. Playing archived games decreases that, as you can satisfy your craving that way.
I sort of miss the archive, but at the same time I am glad it is gone. I like that feeling of "I'm done with Wordle for today" without that nagging "but I can do 100 more .... now where did my morning go?"
This is a rare case where I support a company being protective of its IP.
> if ... you can play indefinitely, the concept of "today's word" loses its meaning
All I can say is that this is not my experience. In my family WhatsApp people post today's result and we sometimes have a bit of a chat about what it was like. Sometimes we do today's globle and quordle too. The quordle has an infinite play version but I don't think any of us spend much time on it.
All I can say is that this is not my experience. In my family WhatsApp people post today's result and we sometimes have a bit of a chat about what it was like. Sometimes we do today's globle and quordle too. The quordle has an infinite play version but I don't think any of us spend much time on it.
> I really like the idea of them being able to say "don't worry, you can't get overly addicted because we only offer one a day and don't let you binge."
I think their motivations are a little bit less altruistic. Which your post helped me figure out. They don’t want an archive because that requires everyone to visit their site at least once a day.
If there is an archive people could skip a day without repercussions.
I think their motivations are a little bit less altruistic. Which your post helped me figure out. They don’t want an archive because that requires everyone to visit their site at least once a day.
If there is an archive people could skip a day without repercussions.
If nothing else at some point they will run out of five letter words and presumably NYT is making money off of Wordle. So they will have to start from the beginning at some point. So they do lose if you can just binge on the game in this archive.
They don't have to start from the beginning and loop through in the same order. They can just select a random new word each day, possibly with a constraint that it hasn't been used for at least 100 days.
That doesn't change anything
I'm afraid I don't see what the problem is. Wordle doesn't become easier just because you've seen the hidden word in one of your last thousand or so games. I don't think the list of possible solutions would be worth keeping secret.
[deleted]
“I do get why they did this. It’s sucks, but I get why.”
Please, do tell.
Please, do tell.
"The economy, stupid!"
Because they want to make as much money as possible off their acquisition. If someone else is housing a history of the game, and people can go play the game there instead of on NYT, that's a net bad for them. There's no NYT ads or 3rd party tracking pixels on the archive, so it's tapping into their market.
If I gave a fuck about guessing a 5 letter word each day, I personally would prefer to do it in a way that doesn't continue to support the Gray Lady, so I'm going to do it on the Archive instead of the NYT page.
Because they want to make as much money as possible off their acquisition. If someone else is housing a history of the game, and people can go play the game there instead of on NYT, that's a net bad for them. There's no NYT ads or 3rd party tracking pixels on the archive, so it's tapping into their market.
If I gave a fuck about guessing a 5 letter word each day, I personally would prefer to do it in a way that doesn't continue to support the Gray Lady, so I'm going to do it on the Archive instead of the NYT page.
There is certainly a 3rd-party tracker on the archive. NYT's goal with the acquisition was not the billions of dollars in ad revenue a free-to-play word game brings in :) but widening their subscription marketing funnel.
I'd guess they want to quash competitors, and also face pressure from Legal to defend the "Wordle" name.
I'd guess they want to quash competitors, and also face pressure from Legal to defend the "Wordle" name.
There are no 3rd party trackers for the NYT on it was my point.
I'm not in the mood to get into the semantics of "How the NYT is using Wordle to make money" but I think a good faith read of my comment and yours would say we're agreeing: They're doing it to protect an investment that they assume will make them money in the long run.
I'm not in the mood to get into the semantics of "How the NYT is using Wordle to make money" but I think a good faith read of my comment and yours would say we're agreeing: They're doing it to protect an investment that they assume will make them money in the long run.
[deleted]
[deleted]
'Compel' sounds awful lawyery to me
Edit: down voting because you disagree? I'm more than open to hearing other viewpoints on the verbiage.
>compel kəm-pĕl′ transitive verb To force (a person) to do something; drive or constrain: synonym: force. To necessitate or require, as by force of circumstance; demand. To exert a strong, irresistible force on; sway.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=compel+definition&ia=definition
Edit: down voting because you disagree? I'm more than open to hearing other viewpoints on the verbiage.
>compel kəm-pĕl′ transitive verb To force (a person) to do something; drive or constrain: synonym: force. To necessitate or require, as by force of circumstance; demand. To exert a strong, irresistible force on; sway.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=compel+definition&ia=definition
At this point, given the ease of duplication and the number of variants, it is almost as if Wordle has become a modern folk game.
Wordle is, for all intents and purposes, a sequence of randomly chosen five-letter words. Given that you can’t copyright machine-generated works[0], I feel like there would be a good legal argument to be made here.
Sadly, this probably comes down to whoever has the most money wins in court.
[0] https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/...
Sadly, this probably comes down to whoever has the most money wins in court.
[0] https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/...
[deleted]
How would I host it? If I was living in the country that is not US? Asking for a friend
[deleted]
I've never heard of Wordle, why is this interesting and why should I care about an archive of it being shut down?
It was massively popular earlier this year, and there have been lots of big HN threads about it: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=wordle
You can find a lot of information there, but "why should I care" is something only you can answer, as many people have no reason to care about this - ultimately it's just a little internet game.
You can find a lot of information there, but "why should I care" is something only you can answer, as many people have no reason to care about this - ultimately it's just a little internet game.
It's a popular, simple solo word guessing game that started as a hobby project and met with great success.
Might not mean that you should care.
But it does make one wonder a bit about the Internet Archive - and it's future ability to archive static (if interactive) web sites.
Might not mean that you should care.
But it does make one wonder a bit about the Internet Archive - and it's future ability to archive static (if interactive) web sites.
What right do they have to request something like that? Are words copyrightable, or what did this website do? (I've never played wordle)
Well yes ordered list of words are often copyrightable under the name of "books".
I'm not saying it is applicable here, but presenting things to a simplistic form isn't really correct either.
"order" doesn't mean "one follows the other" it means sorted or grouped in some fashion. Whether they're subject to copyright is practically speaking case-by-case: "World cities by population", no, "curated list of the best five-letter words for a game like Wordle"? Eh. Wouldn't want to fight NYT over it.
In general lists of words (without definitions etc) are not subject to copyright.
But there was a lot of controversy around the scrabble word list - I don't recall how that turned out in the end:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/09/scrabble-copyright-...
But there was a lot of controversy around the scrabble word list - I don't recall how that turned out in the end:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/09/scrabble-copyright-...
Words aren't, but their specific selection can be. As it was in this case. (Not a lawyer.)
Some mapping companies "invent" non-existing streets on their maps to prove copying.
Some mapping companies "invent" non-existing streets on their maps to prove copying.
There's a nuance there though, in Europe while there's probably no copyright on the words per se, they have a separate but related database rights (which exactly sounds what you think).
The design and feel of the site is probably unarguably copyrighted though. While other clones could argue that Wordle is actually a derivation from a much older game, it won't probably help if the design, feel, "dress" and colours are one-to-one to the original thing.
The design and feel of the site is probably unarguably copyrighted though. While other clones could argue that Wordle is actually a derivation from a much older game, it won't probably help if the design, feel, "dress" and colours are one-to-one to the original thing.
I would also love to hear the justification. At best they could force a name change as presumably they own Wordle trademark.
> I would also love to hear the justification.
Here's a link to the Wikipedia editors' terse description on curated lists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_in_lists#S...
A fact you may not know is that the creator and his partner curated the two lists of words-accepted-as-guesses and words-eligible-to-be-daily-targets to remove so-called "Scrabble gibberish."
Here's a link to the Wikipedia editors' terse description on curated lists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_in_lists#S...
A fact you may not know is that the creator and his partner curated the two lists of words-accepted-as-guesses and words-eligible-to-be-daily-targets to remove so-called "Scrabble gibberish."
They are a state backed corporation with a harem of slimey lawyers. They can "request" whatever they want. I doubt devang has the time and financial means to deal with months of litigation so he is easy prey for the NYTimes. All he can do is "thank" them for the "request" and move on with his life.
The game is copyrightable, of course.
(and words, well, of course. Books are words, right?)
(and words, well, of course. Books are words, right?)
Game rules in general are not copyrightable.
There were some lawsuits about Tetris. You can make a game with the rules like Tetris. But you cannot name it Tetris, and you cannot make it look too much like Tetris.
There were some lawsuits about Tetris. You can make a game with the rules like Tetris. But you cannot name it Tetris, and you cannot make it look too much like Tetris.
The game mechanics aren't copyrightable, but this word-for-word copy of the game rules is copyrightable.
The HTML, CSS and JavaScript layout out the page is also copyrightable, and the taken-down site is a direct copy of this
The HTML, CSS and JavaScript layout out the page is also copyrightable, and the taken-down site is a direct copy of this
From watching a mathematical breakdown of playing, there are like 13k 5 letter words in english and wordle uses about 2400. There are some really bizzare words that people wouldn't know so the wordle list is narrowed down to common words.
I think the only likely thing that might be illegal is using the same name. Game concepts are copied all the time, from what I understand. I'm not a lawyer.
Kudos to the guy that wrote it and sold it. I don't see how NYT can monetize it - if they put up a paywall usage goes to 0 real quick.
I think the only likely thing that might be illegal is using the same name. Game concepts are copied all the time, from what I understand. I'm not a lawyer.
Kudos to the guy that wrote it and sold it. I don't see how NYT can monetize it - if they put up a paywall usage goes to 0 real quick.
I doubt they'll ever monetize Wordle directly, but the links it displays when you solve a puzzle and in the menu definitely drive traffic to their puzzles that they do monetize. I tried them, and seriously considered subscribing so I could keep playing Spelling Bee (I ultimately decided against it).
> Are words copyrightable
Have you literally never heard of text being copyright?
Have you literally never heard of text being copyright?
I think there's a little more work involved into writing a book than into randomly shuffling a list of words.
How do you think people copyright crosswords and word searches?
First guess: they shouldn't be able to? For life plus 70 years, really?
Second guess: crosswords have sufficient creative work involved. A list of random English words with 5 characters?
Second guess: crosswords have sufficient creative work involved. A list of random English words with 5 characters?
Seems to be very successful and valuable for something without ‘sufficient creative work involved’? That’s what the courts would look at.
The wordle game is successful. The list of words is an entirely separate question.
A lame waste of time and money in order to bully people and introduce fake scarcity of something that is in of itself incredibly simple and recreational to boot. Ridiculous! It’s so easy to punch down, not easy to adapt and be creative.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220401002723/https://www.devan...
...it looks like this might have had playable versions of daily Wordle puzzles going back to the start of the game? (Which would be pretty trivial since IIRC Wordle is entirely client-side and they just update the JS each day with the new word?) If so then his statement - "to be honest, I was wondering what took them so long" - would sort of make sense.
EDIT - Github repo before NYT-inspired deletion: https://github.com/DevangThakkar/wordle_archive/tree/23cfba6...