This to me sounds like a misuse of DMCA - it's original open source code not stolen code, so the only "infringement" is dubious around whether you can clone a game or if a game belongs to whoever "owns" it. I can see they could have grounds to take the project to court to establish whether their copyright ownership of Wordle prevents anyone making their own version, but using DMCA for independently made code seems like a big overstep. Two corporations (Microsoft and the NYT) making decisions about whether software can be posted, and the poorly thought out DMCA rearing it's head again.
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
148 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
68400 readers
2354 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah and wordle didn't invent any of the underlying game mechanics. It's just Hangman + Mastermind
Game mechanics are also famously not copyrightable anyway.
My thoughts exactly. By this reasoning, Candy Crush Saga could get taken down for copying Bejeweled.
Also they only bought the domain, and haven't patented any part of the game design...
I cloned the original website (it’s just a bunch of JavaScript) once the NYT deal went through and still self-host it. I changed a bunch of the UI text, specifically removing all the references to “Wordle,” and I think it’s just me and my friends that use it. Still works!
I used to maintain a wordle clone. I was meticulously making sure that any changes in the NYT word list would be reflected in my app as well, the goal was synchronization because the secret to wordle is that we're all playing the same game... until we're not. I haven't touched that repo in months. The NYT can suck it.